Emily and Jill, official daughters of NewMexiKen, are coaching a soccer team for three-to-five year-olds. (There are two Sweeties® on the team.)
Emily is the head coach, and so spends the game on the field prompting the kids — our goal is that end, don’t pick up the ball, that kind of thing.
Jill is the assistant coach, so her job is to coordinate on the sidelines making certain there are four players on the field at any given time and that everyone of the eight kids on the team gets to play. When Jill noted how difficult that was, and how she worried about whether every kid got enough playing time, Byron, her husband, reacted like most men would. He said she just needed a plan for substituting, “Write it down, put down the times, and then just stick right to the plan.”
But Jill wonders how one plans for some of the substitutions that became necessary during yesterday’s second half. One child came out twice because she was scared of the wind. Another was sent out of the game because she said the other team “stinks,” and a third was expelled for throwing punches. One child was happy to enter the game whenever asked, but then refused to move so much as a foot from her chosen spot, regardless of whether the ball was within fifty feet of her. And then there’s Aidan, who with a few minutes left in the game simply walked off the field, sat down, and removed his shoes. He was done.