Mom Hat

SOCCER!!!  Yes, I am a soccer mom.  This is my daughter's first year on varsity soccer and I go to as many games as I can.  I haven't taken my camera yet because the weather reports all make it sound like it's going to be the end of the world type weather and I refuse to take my camera out in that.  Of course, it's been nice each game.  Ok, the first game was really cold, but it was clear.  Naturally when I do take my caera it will storm as never before.

Anyway, the girls had a particularly hard game today and they lost.  Losing is not the issue for this game however, it was more about how our girls played the game versus how the other team played.  Our girls are rough and tumble.  They can take a hit and roll with the punches, get up and keep going, as any varsity team should.  They play by the rules, even if just barely, they respect and listen to their coach, who in turn teaches them to play the game clean and hard.  The other team, not so much.  It seemed their opponents were far more interested in taking out any of our girls that seemed like a threat, including 1 girl who never did come back in to play.  I have never heard so many whistle blows in a single game and one of the girls had a warning issued because she was arguing and back talking to the ref.  There were many gasps as girls collided, tripped, rolled, bounced and sometimes were carried off the field.  This is what we saw from the stands.  It got more interesting after the game when my daughter and some of her friends came over to the car. 

Apparently the other team spend a large amount of time trash talking the girls on the field.  My daughter was called a particularly nasty name more than once as were some of the other girls on our team.  We knew they were deliberately trying to hurt our girls but I guess a little psychological warfare was going on as well.  Also, their coach was harassing the time keeper too saying she was not doing her job properly so I have to assume he has taught his girls to act the same way, afterall, we teach more through our actions than through our words.  I am disappointed that this is the level of professionalism and sportsmanship some coaches are willing to teach their athletes all in the interest of winning a game.  it was a sad, sad thing to watch knowing that these girls are learning life lessons and in my opinion they are being abused by their coach.

I know I have ranted and the writing in this post has suffered for it.  I apologize for that and would like to end by saying just how very proud I am to be associated with our team.  Our girls fought hard, played clean and can be proud of themselves for the effort they made tonight.  I'm happier with a clean loss than a dirty win any day!  Congratulations girls, well done!