How lucky can one kid get?

Well, actually, this is a story about how lucky about 17 kids are. Because for two years in a row they shared a remarkable run with a football team coached by The Greatest Youth Coach Ever! Hyperbole? Perhaps, but when all the families say that, and we’ve all had more than one child go through youth sports or were in youth sports themselves growing up, well, it’s no such a far fetched statement. Tonight, more than 2 months after our last game (the one we wont talk about!), we had our year end party to celebrate the team.

A quick pause for newer readers. My posts from Sept-Nov were dominated by tales of this team. They won their conference championship and then were runners up in the regionals – one game away from the Pop Warner Super Bowl in Florida. (But I’m not talking about that game.) Their only other loss resulted in the blog post on 9/22 which keeps getting hits. From that game on though, these boys had something to prove and prove it they did. The team was playing in Division 1 – the toughest – after earning that spot the year before by going undefeated. With the majority of that group moving up to the next level, we knew they could be good and competitive, but taking that step up to the highest division was daunting. Some of the parents – me included – figured that the 10-0 season the year before was already the pinnacle. I almost felt sorry for the kids that they accomplished so much as just 9 & 10 year olds! Oh, was I wrong!!!!

Tonight we celebrated the players and coaches. One by one. Spotlighting the TEAM. How each one contributed something critical down the line. Making it evident that we would not have been a complete TEAM without any one of them. We honored the best coaching staff. A staff that balances each other’s personalities out perfectly. A staff that has this amazing depth of football knowledge especially when you consider these are *volunteer parents!* We honored the best team mom ever. Coaches wife who gives him up to us for the season lovingly. Who treats our boys like her own and never lets us be quiet in the stands! We honored The Best Youth Coach Ever. I can’t stop saying or thinking that! He really is. I’m trying to keep this vague to protect identities, but I do have to say that CW is THE BEST!!

Then we got to watch a preview of the DVD. The one that coach and his buddy have been working on all this time. They watch all the film, mark highlights they want to use. Look at every still photo and choose those. Then they put it all together to music. When it came to the part when they list the Team members, this year they played Who Are You by, The Who (of course!) which had Sportsboy and I grinning to each other and bouncing in our seats – that’s kind of Our Song since we are CSI addicts 🙂 I’ve since introduced him to The Who by putting their songs on his MP3 player. Kind of fitting since one of HIS highlight plays was this little swing pass he caught mid stride and then he proceeded to bounce from one defender to another, never going down until he finally stumbled out of bounds after getting a critical 1st down. I call it his Pinball Wizard play. What amazed me watching the video is seeing just how good these kids really are! When it unfolds in front of you real time, you know it was good, but you cannot quite appreciate how good until you see it played back. I cannot wait to get the full length DVD.

I hope that somehow these kids know deep down how good they have it with this group. I know as a parent it has been one the greatest experiences of my life to be a part of it. I know that I will never forget the spring night in 2005 when Coach called me right after the draft to say “I got him.”