Soccer Angst

The Girl's soccer team is at a critical point right now, having lost one of our best players to basketball this summer. Last year we didn't have enough girls, and no one wants to go through that again. So already we're challenged to get more (hopefully good!) girls.

Then a few weeks ago, the team was dealt a blow by the League when her team was demoted to the Bronze division. You may remember that they fought hard to not have to move down to Bronze from Silver last year, and their success was a true achievement, as a few games they even had to play short, with not enough players. That was seriously their main goal last season.

Well, apparently there's this whole bunch of processes that we parents know little about, and someone took his team to another Club, and challenged our place in our division. And they won on points for the season.

I sent a strongly-worded email to the "Commissioner", and she basically said it's a done deal and it's something that happens. That was hard to accept, but our coach said he was fighting it.

Then I heard him talking later about how maybe Bronze was better because we wouldn't have to drive so far. I told K and he said, "No, if they move down, the Girl is leaving the team." We hate to do it, but she's one of the best players on the team and she doesn't deserve to have to go down to Bronze. If anything, we could be trying to get her on a higher-division team (like Gold, which at this age is the best.)

It's hard because the Girl tried out for this team when they were first starting it, when she was 9 years old! We've always been loyal and I'm even sortof the team manager.

So I told K he'd better tell Coach that, as I didn't want him to get any bad surprises later. So K told him at the last practice, a week ago, and K said he looked SO sad and was saying, "No, K, don't leave us! That would just kill us!" So of course we felt even worse. It was maybe the worst thing he ever had to tell somebody.

The way we found our, actually, is that a friend of ours who lives in our neighborhood called, and said that her husband noticed we were moved down to Bronze and did we want to join HER team, which is still in Silver. We started out in soccer together when both our girls were about 5, and she was previously with the local (expensive) Club, VC, but last year moved to an even more expensive Club down the way (LCFC). Actually, this LCFC had been taking players from lots of teams, and were up to 3 teams in this age group.

This friend (Mary J) has a daughter that is also good (if short), and is on the Silver team that moved up from Bronze last year. We told her the Coach was trying to appeal our drop to Bronze, but we'd get back to her if it didn't change.

Then we told the Girl about the team getting moved, and she surprised us by saying, "Maybe I should check out VC." Since it's in our area, some of her friends are on the team, and this summer she's been all about making new friends. But VC's only team in our age group was at the bottom of the Bronze league, so that wasn't really a better option.

So K started looking on the internet, and saw that VC's web site claims that they have just started a Gold team! How the heck did that happen? Where did this Gold team come from?

Out of curiosity, I emailed the person indicated on the web site, and asked him where the girls for this team came from. He never answered that question, but instead was saying my deadline to change teams was this Friday. Finally I convinced him that we haven't signed yet for the year, so there is no need to change by Friday. A few days later I got an email from someone else saying he is the coach of this Gold team, and asked that I call him.

I felt a little guilty about that, as I wasn't really trying to start the ball rolling somewhere else, I was just trying to get some information. I felt like I was cheating on our coach! So I said a prayer that the "Commission" changed their minds and moved us back to Silver.

That night I got a call from our Coach, saying we were moved back up to Silver. Yay!!! He said it took a lot of work, so maybe it was good that we lit a fire under him. He even got us into a better division geographically, so that we don't have to drive as far as we did in Silver North. Now we're in Silver East.

Coach was so happy that he had an impromptu BBQ at his house, and we went to celebrate a little bit. He was joking and thanking K for sending him into a depression last week.

I was talking with a friend who was there, whose daughter is on a Gold team, and she said that the coach for LCFC's Gold team took his team to VC, and you have to take a minimum of 7 players to stay in the same bracket. So THAT's where VC got their Gold team! And the Girl probably won't know most of the girls on THAT team, if any.

Now all the Girl's current team needs is a few more (hopefully good!) girls! Maybe I'll say a prayer for that next.