Hailey's First Soccer Practice

Hailey was super excited to finally be old enough to start soccer! She and Colin are on the same team on a Pee Wee league through Pearl Harbor. You have to be 4 to join the neighborhood soccer league, so I thought this program seemed like a good beginning until she can play in the big leagues! There aren't any games, but just practices once a week for the next 10 weeks to introduce them to the world of soccer. Her team has about 30 boys and girls and they split them into groups of 8-10 and had plenty of volunteer coaches...the kids rotated through 3 stations over the course of the hour. Seemed like a good plan UNTIL...the first rotation involved learning how to shuffle and pivot (um, is this soccer or basketball?) and that's all they did over and over. Hailey did like putting her hand in and yelling, "go team" before they moved to station 2. Station 2 involved sitting on her butts listening to the head coach talk to them for 15 minutes. What?????!!!!!!!! He gave the same speech that he told the parents at the beginning and end of practice and he repeated it to 3/4 year olds....so exciting. That's when Hailey decided that her stomach hurt and got really clingy to me. Station 3 wasn't too bad: zig zagging around cones, but again for 15 minutes while one kid went at a time and the others stood and watched. HHHHMMMMMMMM....I thought I'd be able to be the quiet parent and I thought I wouldn't be able to get too involved because Kailee will be at the practices with us, but I'm not sure how long I can go without adding my two cents. This league has been around for years and you'd think they'd have worked out the kinks by now. If you've got that many adult volunteers why not just make 3 small teams where the kids stay together and get to know each other and the coach? Hailey is very shy and I think that the large crowd aided in her stomach aliment. And I can understand the potential chaos letting 30 3 year old loose with a soccer ball, but how bad can it be if they are in small groups?

So....Hailey still seems excited to play. After her disappointment in not being able to "kick a ball", we walked up to the elementary school that afternoon and kicked the ball around in the field. There isn't practice this week because of Columbus Day, so we'll see how things go next weekend...To be continued...



My favorite picture of her first soccer practice and it didn't even involve a ball...oh wait, her entire practice didn't involve a ball!!!Showing us their muscles...this picture cracks me up!

Kailee needs a ball of her own!

The first rotation...learning how to shuffle and pivot FOR 15 MINUTES!! Hailey spent this session wondering where the balls were and pointing out kid's uniform infractions: no skinguards, wearing sunglasses that aren't allowed, etc. :)

After the second rotation, she had had enough...it might be a long season! She's not asleep....just grimising at me because I told her if she were over here because she was sick than she couldn't play with Kailee and the toys. Mean Mom!