My oldest daughter needed a coach for her sixth-grade soccer team. At a parent meeting, the league warned us: no coach, no team. Unsurprisingly, no parents volunteered.
“We can do this,” my wife said.
“Who’s ‘we?’” I replied.
We knew nothing about soccer. Growing up in rural South Dakota in the 70s and 80s, soccer wasn’t an option. Something that exotic was reserved for sophisticated big city kids, like ballet lessons or dining at Olive Garden.
But my wife was a P.E. teacher, athlete, and generally the kind of determined person willing to do hard things. I had none of those qualifications. What I did possess was a crippling inability to say no when pressured. My experience as a reluctant owner of two Kirby vacuum cleaners and a timeshare in Branson made one thing clear: we were indeed going to be soccer coaches.
These girls had been playing for years. But none were expecting a World Cup soccer experience this time around. They just wanted to participate and needed adult supervision.
So my wife and I watched soccer videos, read books, and asked fellow parents who had coached in the past. Then we bought whistles, cones, a clipboard, and foldable nets. We weren’t going to provide revolutionary tactical insights or skill development. Our goal (see what I did there?) was to create a fun, encouraging atmosphere.
What we lacked in deep soccer knowledge, we made up for in positivity. We didn’t fully grasp the rules or strategy, but we fervently celebrated hustle and effort, becoming beacons of confused enthusiasm — confusiasm.
(Confusiasm: the act of being demonstrably positive and encouraging despite having no clue what’s going on.)
Our coaching strategy mirrored our initial opportunity: wing it with conviction. None of the girls wanted to play goalie, yet every game required a “keeper.” Each girl met the minimum required ability to stand in the box and get in the way of opponents’ shots. The environment we established set the tone. They could do it, and it needed to be done. Simple equation and simple result.
Our unorthodox methods paid off, and our team won the state championship! To celebrate, we flew the team and their families to our Branson timeshare.
Just kidding. We were terrible.
But my daughter and her teammates had a great season. They had fun. They improved. And I finally grasped the “offsides” rule (sort of).
The girls needed a coach, and we were capable of being soccer coaches. Well, more so, adult representatives who were required to be present while girls played soccer. Tomato, to-mah-to.
What we’re capable of and what needs to be done aren’t always on exclusively parallel paths. Both zigzag and intersect far more often than our pessimistic minds and hearts believe.
Turns out, you don’t always need to be an expert to make a positive impact. We had no business coaching, but we showed up, blew whistles, and cheered like lunatics. We were adequately unqualified. And sometimes in life (and sixth-grade rec-league soccer), that’s enough.
