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The Soccer Draft

Last night was the soccer draft. It was a live draft with 14 teams. 12 dads and two moms drafted their teams. Teams made up of ten and eleven year old girls.

It’s going to be a nice season. The teams are mostly fair and balanced. Jane gave me a list of girls she wanted to play with, and I didn’t get her top pick. It’s a bummer, but the girls will still have fun.

Two of the coaches are new to the region, so the group decided to share information with them, that way they could field the best possible teams. When someone asked about one of the girls the input was, “she’d be okay if she wasn’t so fat.”Which may have been accurate, but clearly wasn’t the kindest way of stating the facts. It wasn’t helped any when the other dads jumped in and started making jokes about Weight Watchers. There was 45 minutes of joking about the fat kid. Who, incidentally, is not particularly fat.

All of this from a group of short, fat, balding, hair dying, men sitting in the back room of a crappy diner in a middle class suburb of Los Angeles.

I wanted to punch them in the face.

I sat biting my tongue thinking, if this girl’s father was here right now there would be bloodshed, and I’d be rooting for him.

The guy next to me asked, “So are you going to blog about this?” And I said no.

6 thoughts on “The Soccer Draft”

  1. I coach soccer and have heard more than a few of these conversations. Some of these men have spent years sailing denial. Thankfully our draft is not nearly as crazy as some of the others I know of.

    In my sister’s town in New Jersey the parents lose their freaking minds about these sports. They act as if little Johnny has a real shot at playing in the major leagues and if you don’t treat them accordingly they throw a temper tantrum.

    Parents are the worst part of team sports.

  2. Perfect example of why parents shouldn’t be allowed out of the parking lot.

    Take the kids to the sport thing. Let them play. take them home. The end.

  3. All should be serious about these talks.I am satisfied with your view that you want to punch him.We should not ignore these things.Its good that you write it in your blog.Im a girl so i appreciate your this thing we should tell about these incidences and make people aware of.

  4. You know I love that you did blog about it. I’m just dying to know that particular father’s reaction. Clearly, he knew that what was going on was wrong.

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