Sayonara, Soccer

Soccer season is over for the year. Thank goodness. Neither of the boys enjoyed it this year and they were both glad to see it end. The weather was bad. I mean really, really bad. As in "Let's play soccer in the rain/wind/snow/sleet/hail/thunder and lightning" bad. You know it's bad when you are hoping it will start lightning during a soccer game so they'll cancel. Seriously, it was bad.


And it wasn't just the weather, unfortunately. The Wright boys went a combined 0-20 in soccer this year. Henry is competitive enough that he still went out there and gave it his best effort. William, not so much. He complained about leg cramps and the weather. He stood around. We gave him the whole "your team is counting on you to try" speech. He stood around some more. So we bribed him. I prefer to think of bribes as incentives. Whatever. The "incentive" was that if the boys both tried their hardest for their games, no matter what the outcome, we would buy them a game that they had been saving to buy themselves. The key word was Effort. Hey, it got us through the soccer season.


The season was so crappy that I didn't get a single picture of either boy playing soccer. I was too busy worried about coats and umbrellas and such to remember to bring a camera, believe me. Luckily our neighbor took this picture of William for us:

It's a great picture and it makes William look like quite the soccer player, doesn't it?

Anyway, so it's over. And it's over forever, as neither Henry nor William plan to play soccer (officially, on a team) again. I think with Henry it has just run it's course. He has played for five years and he just prefers other sports, especially baseball. William played for three years, but this was his first year playing positions and he just didn't enjoy it. It was enough of a chore to get him out there playing that we don't plan to offer him the choice next year. Lest we forget Tessa, she only likes to play soccer if she can use a pink ball so I'm guessing the rec league is out.

Jay and I were absurdly happy after the last soccer game of the year. Just the thought of not having to deal with soccer next year made us almost giddy. It's not so much soccer itself, although it's not our favorite sport to watch. It's the fact that soccer is played here in April and early May, when the weather is, to put it nicely, unpredictable. Although who knows? Maybe we'll have an early, warm spring next year with sunny, 65 degree days beginning in late March. The memories of huddling under an umbrella in a downpour or being pelted with sleet or getting wet just getting out of the car will fade. We'll wax nostalgic about signing our children up for spring soccer and all the good things that it teaches them.

Nah.