My "I'm Not a Predator" Shirt

Many people have equated managing IT people to herding cats.  That's catchy, but a more accurate phrase for exercising futile leadership over mass chaos is "coaching soccer for primary-school age girls."  I have never actually herded cats, but I have managed IT people and I have coached young girls in soccer.  Managing IT people is significantly easier.

I've never coached young boys, but coaching young girls in soccer is an act of humility and awkwardness.  First of all, you're standing in an open field, a 30- or 40-something male with girls half your height and one quarter your age littered around you.  Wearing your city-league logo'ed coach's shirt is imperative so that you're not confused with a deviant predator who has one eye peeled for Chris Hanson and his Dateline film crew.  I call it my "I'm Not a Predator" shirt which gives me societal approval to hang around with young girls not related to me.

Second of all, prepare to be ignored.  I could be offering free candy like a Dateline fugitive and they'd still quibble with your request to perform a drill, assuming they heard you at all.  "Do we have to?"  "Why would we do that?"  "Can I be goalie?"  This is a passing drill with no goalie.  "Can I be goalie?"  Any nanosecond of inactivity in a drill and you lose their attention to chit-chat or grass-picking.  Young girls soccer is the scourge of grass activists.

As a result, my favorite part of coaching girls' soccer was the games.  I can now better appreciate NBA star Allan Iverson's infamous rebuttal to the media when asked why he skipped a practice, "Practice?  We talkin' 'bout practice!"  The game is the thing.  Right on, Allan. 

Games were simple.  You assign positions, rotate every 5 minutes, and yell if they go in the wrong direction.  Unlike practice, the game provides the built-in structure that keeps them from picking grass (for the most part).  Even a soccer dimwit like myself can coach a game and utter safe bromides like, "Pass!" and "Our goal is THAT way!"  With coaches yelling and all of the parents shouting all the girls heard anyway was, "BLAHHHHHHHHHHH!" as if someone had given the adult voice in the Peanuts TV specials a bullhorn.  Eventually some enterprising girl with determination and persistence, the key attributes for soccer success at that age rather than ability, would break free and score.  At those age levels we weren't supposed to keep score, so of course everyone kept score.

I gave up coaching when it became apparent that the quality of practices was becoming much more important to the girls' development.  When my daughter graduated to traveling soccer (St. Michael during rush hour?  Really?) and the ratio of practices to games went from 1:10 to 3:1, my complete lack of soccer knowledge and I bid adieu to the coaching ranks.  I will return to my comfort zone of herding cats at the office.