Are we there yet?

The Pee Wee Jammers football season has come and gone. It’s actually been gone for a couple of weeks now, but it takes me that long to decompress from it. Looking back, it was WAAAY more work than I expected. I think I was doing football stuff at least five out of seven nights a week on average, and we only practiced twice and had one game per week. But there are emails to get out to parents, practice plans to create, game plans to devise, and what seems like a billion things to coordinate.

You have to understand how I got into this situation in the first place. Two years ago, I volunteered to ‘help out’ with Michael’s flag football team. I was paired with a coach who also happened to be one of the big wigs on the board, and he would spend most of the practice time dealing with larger issues, so I ended up doing most of the coaching. The next year, I took my own team, and we had a blast. This year, knowing how much more complicated it is to run a tackle football program, I again offered to assist. Then the head coach (same guy) was called to coach at the high school level, leaving me to run the program.

We had 21 second and third grade kids in all – none of whom had ever in their lives played tackle football. We started slow, but finished well, ending the season with a bunch of kids who seemed to have fun, and be excited about the game. But by the end of the season I needed a break – from the kids, the parents, the board. Michael has nothing but piano until baseball starts, which will be a nice intermission. I’m not sure if he’ll play next year, and after all that I went through this year, I’ve already committed to come back and coach again next year. In the meantime, I plan to have the word ‘SUCKER’ tattooed on my forehead.


You have to admit, the boy looks good in his uni.