“In Search of a Goal” by Janet Morris Grimes

Janet Morris Grimes is a wife and mother of three from Nashville, TN. She writes for several online publications on such topics as writing, family and faith. Her first book will be The Parent’s Guide to Uncluttering the Home, which will be published through Atlantic Publishing. To contact Janet, check out her website at www.janetmorrisgrimes.com or her Facebook Fan Page at www.facebook.com/janetmorrisgrimesfanpage.

“Mommy, do you think I will ever score a goal?” came the wistful question from my seven-year-old daughter, Malloree, after her most recent soccer game. On her team, she had developed a role as a self-proclaimed “goalie’s helper,” and focused her efforts on preventing the other team from scoring.

While she loved playing this defensive position, she was quickly losing faith in her dream of ever scoring a point.

Thankfully, in the world of five- to seven-year-old Girls Beginning Soccer, these moments of doubt are short lived. She was soon kicking the ball across the field to her giggling teammates.

As they traveled in packs toward the ball, with ponytails flopping in the wind, they were covered from head to toe in a conglomeration of soccer gear. There was no defining line between shin guards, shorts or jerseys.

The uniform is a big part of the game, as summed up by the convincing words of one Soccer Dad on the sidelines.

“The best thing about it is that no matter how good or bad they play, they still look cool in the clothes.” It was obvious the players agreed once they started wearing their sunglasses during the games,
keeping their look fresh for their adoring public. As a pre-game ritual, Malloree would even sleep in her uniform, minus the shin guards of course. She was barely able to contain her excitement until the game on the following day.

As the brief season was in its waning moments, I knew the entire team had gained much more than a cool uniform from this first soccer experience. From praying together before the games to congratulating the other team after a loss, they were learning lessons that would follow them to wherever their bruised legs would carry them next.

The season began with a group of thirteen lively girls and a coach, affectionately known as Coach John, who was brave enough to try and communicate with them all at once. Their first order of business was to agree on a team name; a task that proved impossible with the input of all thirteen opinions at once. Since their jerseys were hot pink in color, they struggled to choose between the Pink Panthers, Pink Ponies or Pink Eagles. Finally, Coach John came to the conclusion that the mascot didn’t matter as long as it had the word “pink” in front of it. Rumor had it that this wasn’t a problem for the opposing Purple Team, who quickly agreed on the ferocious sound of the “Purple Pulverizers.”

During the inaugural game for the Pink Panthers, Coach John was forced to establish some ground rules when he looked to the sidelines in search of substitute players and finally located his group of pink jerseys climbing a clump of nearby trees. “We got bored,” they explained.

Rule Number One: No tree-climbing until after the game.

When most of the second game was spent with Coach John tying shoelaces or chasing down a cleat that had flown across the field, he informed the Pink Parents that there would be a shoe-tying clinic
immediately following the game. Attendance was mandatory.

Rule Number Two. Shoelaces must be tied in triple knots.

The challenges of coaching continued as one goalie headed to the sidelines in the middle of the game.

“I got lonely out there all by myself,” she confessed, leaving it to the Coach to solve the problem.

Rule Number Three. Goalies must tell the coach when they get lonely. He agreed to find them a friend as long as they agreed to stay in the game.

Overall, it was a season filled with many more amusing moments, but they were interrupted by a few tears along the way. Tears come with the territory in this league.

When a girl from another team accidentally kicked the ball into her own net, scoring a goal for the other team, she ran crying into the arms of her coach. In a moment of coaching brilliance, he responded, “We all knew you would score a goal this year, and you did. You should be very proud of yourself!” She couldn’t help but smile. The same was true for all of those around her as well.

And so went the season. Somewhere along the way, our girls discovered a little about the game of soccer and a lot about themselves. In a period of just a few weeks, they found out what it was like to trip over a pile of players, squeal in delight and cringe in disappointment, and applaud the efforts of their teammates. They learned the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, but found that neither emotion was long lasting. They waited in eager anticipation for the next game or practice, just so they could be together and have fun with their friends. By the end of the season, the soccer skills grew along with the personalities of the players. The shy, quiet ones were more aggressive. The athletic ones helped their teammates to push harder, and most were just glad to be a part of the team.

There are many reasons to allow younger children to play sports, but for us, we simply hoped our daughter would travel outside her comfort zone and push to see what she could accomplish. I knew we had achieved this after one of her best games, when she ran over to us and exclaimed, “Wow! I didn’t know I could do that.”

And that was it. She had scored her goal. Though it may not have registered on the scoreboard, the look on her face revealed a discovery that would last much longer than any points on a scoreboard.

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