So today I am focusing on Evan. Since this is my family "scrapbook" I am going to be honest with how it went and it may sounds a bit boastful ~ I likely will not let Evan read this until he is well past his organized sports playing years so he doesn't get all full of himself on me! But, we are talking about Evan and he has been ALL SPORTS since the day he was born, so none of his success on the field is surprising and he has put in the work to get where he is... how funny is that to write about someone who is 6!
Evan was on team Spike, though one of the coaches on another team simply referred to our team as "The Evan Express". This was Evan's fourth season of soccer and his fourth and final season in the U6 age group. We considered at one point asking if Evan could play in a higher age group but I have always had very mixed feelings about doing that in any sport; my rule follower side tends to win out (that the age groupings are there for a reason and if strong players get bumped up, it is not fair to those left behind because the competition is less). It is a tough call though but ultimately we made the right decision this time to leave him put. Evan might not have had the competition he would have had if we had bumped him up (and the bigger goals he is looking forward to), but he probably would not have had the opportunity to build his leadership skills either and he really blossomed in that area this season. And one day, if he leaves the soccer field behind to play another sport or to participate in a different activity, it is those skills that are transferable.
Anyway, the day one of the other parents came over to tell me how much she and the other parents appreciated Evan helping their children be successful (he was trying to get everyone on the team to score by getting them into good spots and getting them the ball) I almost cried. Evan sometimes played more than I thought he should (coach's call and he was a competitive one!). I had been worried about what other parents thought about his play time and I was relieved that they were seeing what Evan was doing.
I think his team won all but two games and one of those two was a tie; those were the first two games of the season. His team at the end of the season was not the same team from the beginning... they improved immensely!
Evan is an intense player. Every move Evan makes on the field is with purpose. He would score and immediately run back to the middle of the field in preparation for the next kickoff. He understands both the game and the role he needs to take to keep his team in the game; his former coach, who still coaches a team we played, mentioned that he found it funny to be strategizing against a six year old (we won that game by the way!). Look who he hangs with during the breaks in the game...
Each week, after practice ended, Evan would stay and play a bit more with anyone willing. When he did come out of the game, he would stand near the coach and remind him, frequently, that he was ready to go back in. I can honestly say that while Evan had the ball a lot, he really was not a ball hog and was very much a team player. He is the player that never wants to come out but really needed to come out at times so the players on the other team could make plays. When Evan was on defense very little would get by him, but when it did, he would get very bothered. And if it happened twice in a game, while others may have thought he was wiping sweat from his eyes, I know differently.
In the soccer league, if a team is short players, they can pull younger players up and this worked in Evan's favor this year, when Price's team (U8) didn't have enough players for the two games on either end of Spring Break. Outsiders probably would not have been able to tell that Evan was not really a member of that team. He was just as aggressive as the bigger kids and even scored two goals playing up. One of the coaches told me that he liked when Evan played and practiced with them because not only was Evan a good player, but the others stepped up their game because "the younger kid" was showing them up! Price, I will say, never seemed bothered by his little brother joining in (and I did clear it with him each time) and it was fun to watch them play midfield next to each other.
Next up for Evan is machine-pitch baseball and tonight he said he might like to be on the swim team with Caleb. I know he will be intense for the baseball; swimming doesn't involve a ball so if he does it, it will be interesting to see what happens!
1 comment:
Great job Evan!
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