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Monday, May 4, 2009

Sore Loser

This weekend Declan's soccer team lost both of its games. Until then, the team had been undefeated. Suddenly I realized what the parents in Aspen, Silt and New Castle must have felt like over the past few weeks when our boys beat theirs and we sat cheering and celebrating.

The loss on Saturday was disapponting, but the score was only 2 - 1--a respectable showing, especially considering our team had to play the first quarter two men down (a family with three kids on the team was late and two other kids were sick or out of town).

It wasn't until Sunday, when we played another local team (from a much wealthier part of the valley--I'll leave it at that), that I discovered I am a sore loser. Miraculously, the score was only 5 - 2. But it seemed much worse and it also seemed like the game would never end. Thanks to some great goalie work (by our three different goalies), our team held theirs to just 5 goals. As if that wasn't bad enough.

I was supposed to be recording the game on one of the coach's cameras, but I found myself zooming in on annoying parents and giving a commentary on why I felt they were annoying (excessive cheering, coaching from the sidelines, parking their Mercedes and BMWs in more than one spot in the parking lot so I had to park in the grass). I hope I didn't miss any important plays during my fit of snide comments.

I can't believe how annoyed I was. I was even annoyed when they cheered for our team. We don't NEED your cheering (pity). I think I took the loss harder than the kids did. Frankly, our team didn't deserve to win this weekend. They were kind of lazy and they were playing really strong teams where that kind of play wasn't going to fly.

But it was a learning experience for me. I learned a lot about myself and how I need to improve my own attitude and behavior to set an example for the kids. And besides, we always kick this same town's asses in hockey so in the end, it didn't feel so bad.

6 comments:

Kristie said...

Believe me .... I KNOW.

Musings from Me said...

We had the same experience with 3rd grade basketball. Th eopposing team's parents were talking about the physiques of some of our players. We had some short girls and some heavy girls. Let's just say my husband (the coach) complained to the league commissioner. I think the coach of the other team was supposed to talk to his parents, but I don't know if it happened or not.

We're involved with volleyball. No drama from parents whatsoever. All calm. Cheering appropriately. Cheering for opposing teams. Maybe because the girls are young at 10 and 13 and volleyball is a hard game to learn. I'll let you know if it gets worse once the kids are in high school.

Mamasita said...

Totally unrelated, but I was clicking through some blogs today and though you might find the names of these triplets interesting:

http://mottmultiples.blogspot.com/2009/05/just-some-pictures-of-triplets-twins.html

Mamasita said...

I should not have clicked so fast - look at the names of their twins also.

Could you have a stalker? ;-)

1dreamr said...

Been there, done that! Watching your kid play a sport brings out the worst in us, that's for sure! :-)

M said...

...bring a drink next time- it makes the loss go down much easier!