Flag Football, the official NFL league for kids looking to avoid head injuries, has been in the area for a few years. Unfortunately, not a lot of parents are stamping around wanting to coach. So I got a bit guilted into it by the kids who desperately want to play. The league was gracious and appreciative, and, despite the fact that I was going to be away for several weekends during the season, immediately signed me up for both teams. Seems there’s an age divide and they would not be playing together.
What I know about football has come from years of watching pro games and playing Madden. What I know about coaching comes from years of semi-drunk dads yelling at us because they had money riding on the game. Or was that Bad News Bears.
Anyway.
I do have a ton of experience with kids, do have a love for the game, and do enjoy spending my Sundays running around for 6 hours – they didn’t mention that the hour of practice for each kid could be followed by 2 back to back games. So multiply that by two and my Sunday is shot. But in a good way. I’m out in the sun, playing with kids, instead of sitting at home in the air conditioning, drinking, and ignoring the snide comments my neighbors are making about the state of the weeds on my patio. This gives me an excuse to look at them and say “Hey, would love to weed, but another weekend coaching football.”
It is amazing to watch them develop actual skills, like paying attention during the play and not standing around watching the birds fly by. We did get scored on once when the other team lined up and our guys were, literally, all standing around looking at everything but the play. But, then again, three hours out in the sun, on the second game, and I don’t know that I blame them for their minds wandering a bit. It was the last time it happened, though.
While the almost 200 kids are playing flag football, we are next to a field with a continuous turnover of baseball games and across from the field with a continuous turnover of soccer games. Which is causing me to unfriend the idiots on social media who constantly go on about “kids in our day were outside playing.”
Maybe if you got off you butt and headed outside instead of typing away on social media you’d see that they all are too.
