Perseverance - Never Quit

With all the rain, we haven't had any practices. With all the H1N1, we haven't had an abundance of players either. In the last 2 games for my U10 girls, we've had zero and one substitute. In one game, all 3 girls that usually play keeper were out with fevers. It's been tough. Toward the end of these games, when the girls were tired and the win out of reach, I saw too many slumped shoulders and not enough effort.

So the sun finally came out and we had a practice. We worked on some defensive skills at first, but midway through practice, we had a talk. I told them what I'd seen in the matches; concrete examples without using names. I told them they were letting each other down when they didn't give it their all. I then told them that our next match would be the toughest one yet. I then told them we'd be playing everyone at keeper in this game...everyone. The fear was in some of their eyes.

But then I told them a story about our adult team from a few days ago. We'd played a team that was clearly better than us. But we took care of each other out there on the field. We ran our butts off. And you know what? We won. We were sore like you wouldn't believe the next few days, but we'd given it our all. I told them I expected them to take care of each other with 100% effort. If they weren't going to give it their all the whole game, then they needed to stay at home.

Then we talked about when you give it your all and they still score, what do you do? Do you say, "They're too good." Do you say, "We're going to lose." No, you say, "She beat me there, but she won't beat me that way again!" "They may be tough, but they're making us tougher." "This isn't hard, it's challenging!" We worked on giving them thoughts to help them turn around the bad moments and focus on the possibilities. Finally, I told them they needed to talk to each other on the pitch to help them remember what we need to do.

After that, I asked who would be at the game. Every hand went up. I asked them what they'd do different. I got a variety of answers, but the most memorable was from a girl who would never have said this before. She said, "Play goalkeeper." I sent them off to scrimmage for the rest of practice and they played like I knew they could.

It's been a tough couple of weeks, but you know what...I think it's going to make them stronger.