Rain

What is it about rainy days and practices that makes it so much fun? I can't really put my finger on what makes rainy practice days fun, but they always seem to be that way. I think back to who knows when and playing competitive soccer. Some of my favorite practices were the ones done in complete downpours where the mud is so stained in to your clothes that they have that awesome new color of washed out brown that never goes away. You got to do the fun drills at practice like diving header practice, where you'd start from between the center circle and the 18 yard box and you'd sprint on to a ball being thrown in front of the goal to score that perfect goal (or more often than not just miss the ball).

As a defender I was always fond of the slide tackle practice session. What's more satisfying than seeing a forward running with the ball 15 yards to your side and getting up a head of steam, hitting the ground, and flying in from the side and taking the ball while knocking him over? Nothing much in the game of soccer. One of my favorite memories from high school soccer involved that very thing. We were playing in the tournament that Oak Ridge hosted annually and were playing in a heavy mist...just enough to get everything nice and wet, but not so much that you couldn't see anything. I was one of the last defenders, they're team went on a fast break, and I had to cover. A quick sprint, a lunging slide tackle, and the ball is running towards the out of bounds allowing my team to recover while the opposing team's forward goes flying over me as I stand up to go after ball. I can still remember the feeling of knowing that I just completely owned the other guy just like it happened yesterday. Anyone that plays sports I'm sure can relate to that.

Frisbee practice was much the same way in the rain. Given my inability/lack of wanting to dive, they were not generally as exciting to me. My overriding memory of rain practice involved diving practice where I ended up not being able to turn my head to the left for about 2 days because of landing awkwardly on my neck. To this day, I don't think that I've ever laid out for a frisbee. I'm sure there are those reading that will feel like berating me for such a blasphemous comment. And in response, all I can say is...you're right.

Why all this talk of practices in the rain? It's because tonight's middle school practice occured in the rain. And it was awesome. Now, we're not allowed to use the fields when it rains, so we couldn't do any type of diving/tackling practice, but we did play on the tennis courts and enjoyed some fine running. And by we, I mean myself included. I figure, at this age, it was always easier for me to run if our coach ran with us, so why not. It was a good work-out for me anyway. We played my soccer version of king of the hill, which is essentially a drill to get the team talking, working together, and understanding the importance of ball movement, while it gives people on defense the chance to completely own the offense and make them do push-ups/sit-ups/running/whatever punishment you can think of when the defense holds the ball for more than 5 seconds. It also teaches team defense, and that when you turn the ball over, your one goal should be to get it back as quickly as possible, which for this age group seems to not be something they're too concerned about.

All in all, it was good stuff. Makes me miss the days when all I had to worry about was soccer practice, my piano lesson and a little homework. I've got myself a job interview tomorrow, which should be interesting to say the least, since it's more geared toward engineers, which I'm certainly not. It should be good experience anyway. And I'm still waiting on that pros/cons view of soccer Luke.