For the past sixteen years I've been involved with youth soccer in some form or another. I put my first child in soccer when he turned 6 and Steve stepped up to be the coach. Steve was the official coach but I was the unofficial assistant coach as well as team manager. Oh, we had a blast that year. Every Saturday in the months of September and October, rain or shine (mostly rain) we would be at Marymoor park with a couple other hundred families cheering, groaning, laughing and having a great time with our children.
Oh, they are so little!
As each child turned six we signed them up. Each one on a great team. I loved how the score grew to extraordinary numbers by the time we pulled into the driveway and how they were personally responsible for the majority of the points (own goals too). Oh, the fun!
When that oldest child turned 14, he and I took the referee course. And again as each one turned 14 they all took the course. It was good money and they could set their own work schedule. I was finally able to sign up to referee my first game this past April and I thoroughly enjoyed it! The money wasn't bad either.
Going through the photos it looks like I stepped into the head coach role in 2004 when Mike's wonderful coach moved and we desperately wanted to keep the Earthquake together. I stepped into an assistant role with Matt's team in 2007 (although I sort of helped out the years before).
That same year I got my first team from the beginning (age 6) and was head coach! We were the Sunshine and we were so HOT!!
Jason, Kray, Doreen, Mike
Chris, Matt & Jessie
In 2009, I was assistant coach for Matt, and Chris and head coach for Jessie. Talk about a road map for Steve every Saturday! I remember printing out a calendar and highlighting his duties for the day. "Get Kray and Jason here to ref, drop off Chris there and meet me there." WILD TIMES!
This year is the second year that I'm only coaching one team. Crazy! Jessie's team that was 8th in state last year has struggled this year, but boy have we grown. Jessie has one more year before they go to total Sunday play. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with my Saturdays come fall.