October 17, 2005.
Jackson had a great practice tonight. He worked hard during the drills and
was ecstatic that his team stayed up during the game. One really fast and
focused kid scored the first three points for Jackson's team, so at 3-0 the
coaches changed his jersey to balance out the two teams. Jackson then
drove the ball out of the pack and all the way to the goal where he and a
team-mate kicked it in for the score. Jackson and his team played really
good defense and the game ended with a score of 4-2. Wow, that one kid was good.
He scored five out of the six goals. He had on shiny metal looking shin
guards and Jackson said maybe it was the shin guards that made him so fast..
October 3, 2005. Okay, we all know
that you don't keep score in Instructional League soccer, right? But if
you did keep score (which Jackson always does), I would say "JACKSON SCORED A
GOAL!!!!" He scored the first goal and then with the game tied 1-1, he
took the ball away at the opponents goal, then drove the ball half the length of
the field before booting it into the open field straight toward the goal.
His breakaway team-mate was in perfect position to make the game winning score.
He was very, very happy with himself. He gave me two thumbs up from the
field instead of his usual two thumbs down. But of course, you don't keep score at this age, so I'll just say that all the kids
on all the teams did really well. On Saturday all the kids
were divided into two teams, which came out to around ten on ten. Jackson
mostly chased the crowd on that day. But this evening they were split into
four teams. The ratio of four on four seemed to work much better for him.
I think it's easier to figure out who is on your team with smaller numbers, plus
the crowd isn't as thick around the ball. It was a beautiful night and a
lot of fun. I asked Jackson if it was his best practice ever, because I
thought he played so much better than he has before. He answered "Yes,
because Samuel was there."
October
1, 2005.
We heard lots of nice things about this year's coach while we were out of town and discovered
at Jackson's first practice that she is a friend of mine from my office.
Her son was also helping coach and we were very impressed
with the job he was doing. This
year's drills were lots more fun and the scrimmage game went waaay smoother than
last year. Last year ninety percent of the time was spent putting all the
four and five year olds into the correct offensive and defensive positions.
Of course that only lasted for all of one second after the ball was kicked
because what four or five year old is going to play zone defense? It's
either "see the ball, go kick the ball" or "see the ball, join the pack of kids
chasing the fast kid that's already kicking the ball." Then when the ball would
go out of bounds a minute
later, they would go through the whole process again, walking each child, one at a
time, to where they were supposed to stand. The ratio was probably one
minute of soccer for every ten minutes of standing around. Not a lot of
fun. So we were impressed with the job the coaches are doing this season
and by how much fun all the kids were having while learning how to play the
game. Plus Jackson is on the Rhino team and how cool is that for a five year
old boy? He even got to see one this
weekend. Sure the other team, the Raccoons, are cool, but for Jackson it
is all about who would win the battle. And in a battle against a raccoon,
I'm putting my money on the rhino.
October 17, 2005.
Jackson had a great practice tonight. He worked hard during the drills and
was ecstatic that his team stayed up during the game. One really fast and
focused kid scored the first three points for Jackson's team, so at 3-0 the
coaches changed his jersey to balance out the two teams. Jackson then
drove the ball out of the pack and all the way to the goal where he and a
team-mate kicked it in for the score. Jackson and his team played really
good defense and the game ended with a score of 4-2. Wow, that one kid was good.
He scored five out of the six goals. He had on shiny metal looking shin
guards and Jackson said maybe it was the shin guards that made him so fast.. 
