PIRATES COMPLETE UNBEATEN SEASON!

THE PIRATES completed an udefeated season with Saturday's 3-3 tie. It was the most exciting youth soccer game I have ever been a part of. Our team was losing 3-1 late in the game when we rallied for two goals to tie it up. The tying goal was very exciting and the crowd reaction from our parents was unreal. Everyone went crazy and the kids loved it!

My daughter GABBY enjoys a sack of post-game "CHEEZ ITS". Gabs had a wonderful season scoring 4 goals in six games. In the finale on Saturday, she had her best game with great dribbling and passing. I'm so proud of her as her coach and her dad. Being able to coach her has been an awesome gift. Now that we are done with U-8 soccer, I have a tough decision to make about coaching a travel team next season. I have had so much fun at this level, but I'm concerned about how seriously the parents and coaches will take it at the next level. It truly disappoints me to have over-the-top parents and coaches ruine things for the kids. My feeling is that I will likely go to the next level and do all I can to make it a positive situation for everyone.
The coaching staff for the Spring 2007 Pirates; Coach Marty, Coach Tom, Me and Coach Paul.

When I look back on this season. I will remember how awesome our team was. We have really grown as a team over the past couple of seasons together and I'm proud of the experience that our players, parents and coaches have had. For us, it was such a good time, right down to the end-of-the-season party.
At times, we were known as "THAT TEAM" from other teams and their parents and coaches. We had several kids who had played together over a few season and a few of our kids were much bigger than some of the kids we faced. As a result, we had won several of our games by fairly large margins. Coaching youth soccer can be tough when you have to teach kids how not to score. The other teams feel you are running up the score, when in reality, you are trying to give ALL of your players the chance to play and score. We found ourselves managing the situation for the other team to be happy, rather than always playing soccer the way we have taught kids. My feeling is that the score should not matter. It's all about teaching the kids how to score goals and defend goals. Teaching our kids how to win with class and lose with respect should be part of the process. I found many times this season, that we had to work around the situation than just let the kids do their thing and play soccer. We live in a time where everyone gets a trophy. If a team is losing, we fix it to where they score a goal, even if we took out two of our players to let them have an easier chance to score. I think we send a wrong message to our kids when we do that. They need to know winning and losing. They need to know, they won't get breaks to let things go their way later in life. Youth soccer is such an amazing sport with so much to offer our kids and parents. Sometimes, the parents truly miss what we are there to do. I am confident that our team accomplished what it set out to do both on and off the field this season. It's a great memory and one that I will never forget. The Pirates truly were the team havin' the most fun this season. My special thanks to the players, parents and coaches of PIRATE NATION!