All Your Saturdays Over
It’s August so it must be soccer season. I have two kids in the sport and for the first time, dh and I are not volunteering. My dh coached my son two years in a row and assisted the year before. The first year he was a field instructor. Last year I coached my daughter’s team and did the team parent duties because I couldn’t get a volunteer from the parents. I had such a miserable experience last year dealing with politics of AYSO I swore this year I wouldn’t do anything. Hubby has said the same thing. Our Saturdays were completely swallowed last year because we spent so much time on the soccer fields. There was field set up or take down, the actual games and then hubby would have to referee another game. Luckily my folks live nearby so they could baby-sit my youngest while I was coaching. But it was a burden.
So this year we decided we would retire from the volunteer duties. We went to my daughter’s practice yesterday and the coach was trying to get volunteers. The woman sitting next to me said, “you coached last year, you should do something.”
And I said, “why don’t you?”
“Oh, I don’t know anything about the game. I don’t think I could help much.”
I just looked at her.
“I guess this would be a good level to start, huh?” she replied. Later she went up to the coach and volunteered for something.
I’m guessing dh will go ahead and volunteer to field instruct. The coach managed to get a father to assist, so I think I might be off the hook. I did tell the coach if she was in a lurch, I’d help out but not in an official capacity. And this is my plea to you who have kids in sports: even if you don’t have the time to be a volunteer, try to help out somehow. If you are at a practice and see the coach trying to coach your child but has to watch their toddler at the same time, offer to take the kid to the playground. Maybe offer to type up a roster or create a snack schedule. None of these things take a lot of time but they are invaluable to helping a coach. These folks aren’t being paid and in many instances have been told that if there isn’t a coach, the kids won’t play (this is happening in my nephews AYSO region right now).
