Twistin' Tornados or Crazy Monkeys?

I know it's still a few weeks away but I suspect some of the kids on my Girls U7 soccer team in the Dixie Youth Soccer Association have already found their way into the Halloween candy.  Yesterday we had a practice that was absolute chaos! 

Some kids were chasing me around the field.  Others were using the assistant coach as a jungle gym.  Several were climbing a fence.  When finally caught I asked one of the players who was chasing me, "Did you have any candy before practice?"

She replied in all seriousness, "Why, can you smell it on me?"

Adjacent to the practice field is a caged dugout with a bench.  I had the bright idea of getting them all into the dugout and having them sit down to collectively lower their energy.  I made the mistake of asking, "Are you the Twistin' Tornados or the Crazy Monkeys?"

That did it.  Suddenly they all started REALLY acting like crazy monkeys!  They were climbing the fencing of the dugout cage, scratching their arm pits, swaying from side to side, baring their teeth, snarly and howling and making the kinds of monkey sounds one only hears in the forest or zoo.  It was absolute insanity and we had no control over the situation.

"That's fine, if you want to act like crazy monkeys, go ahead.  Then Bill and I will take you guys on in a scrimmage, Crazy Monkeys against the coaches, what do you say?  Let's see what you crazy monkeys have got!"  So we led the little lunatics onto the field.

Typically we have the kids split up and scrimmage each other, a 4-on-4 or 4-on-5 depending on how many kids we have.  In this case it was 8-on-2, playing on a half field thank goodness.  There was no way us old dudes would have lasted on a longer field.  As it was it became a great workout for all of us and one of the best teaching opportunities we've had.  

Being on the field with the kids and playing against them, showing them how to be effective by passing and separating is a lot different than telling them from the sidelines.  Through half the season it hasn't been unusual for the kids running in a pack with the ball, often stealing it from one another.  That's the reality of soccer at this age, it's a game of primates and cannibals.  Seriously though our efforts seemed to get through to them as we directed them to move away from whomever had the ball and then pass ahead to the open player.  We'll see if this translates into success on the field.

Speaking of which this past weekend at Dixie Field No. 2 we won our first game out of four already played.  So much for our perfect record of defeat.  The game was against the Pink Lightning, a team we already played once in a very tight match.  The last game ended up with them winning a see-saw battle by one goal.  This one was equally tight going into the last five minutes with us down 3-4.  Somehow our kids found the goal not only twice to go ahead, but two more times to really pour it on!  At the end I started feeling bad for the other team.  Perhaps the whole Crazy Monkey practice was inspired by a new found sense of confidence?

It's funny, getting that first win I kind of felt like the monkey had come off my back.  At the end of the game I felt like doing my best Steve Young 1994 Super Bowl impression and ripping the imaginary monkey off my back.  Little did I know that the monkey was not only now off my back, but it was running wild on the field.

Next up, the Dixie Lightning this Saturday.  Tornados and Lightning, a storm is brewing to be sure.