At the Soccer League Coaches Meeting

I volunteer to coach my daughter's soccer team. It's fun, she digs it, it gets me outdoors, and the other girls seem to have fun, so I'm happy to do it. The worst part, though, is suffering through the spring and fall season coaches meeting. It's the worst.

It's always 7:00 to 9:00. It never starts on time, and never ends on time. I mean, there are folks in this league who've been a part of it for 20-odd years. With two seasons a year, that means a good 40 of these meetings should be under their belts, and they ought to know how to run one quickly and painlessly. Running these coaches meetings ought to be down to a razor's-edge science with these folks, controlled and scheduled and planned and monitored and efficient in every possible way. Nope, not so.

They can't start on time. Whether it's the genuinely good-natured waiting for volunteer-coach stragglers or their own lack of preparation, they can never get the goddamn mtg going by seven.

And then begins the executive committee and other league officer mutual appreciation and mutual masturbation society. "You're really great," one will say into the mic, and the other will respond, "No, you're really the greatest." The first one will demur and say, "Thanks, but no, I'm not, but you know, it's Blah Blah who is really the greatest," and another masturbatory conspirator will chime in with another different name of who's the greatest. And they all just chant who's so great and wonderful and smart and such a good volunteer over and over, struggling to make it clear to us mere volunteer coaches that they work so much harder, have so much more responsibility, and are ultimately better people than we are, since we're just coaches. It's like these idiots never actually see each other until these meetings, and they use our time to catch up with each other. Okay, I get it. You're senior volunteers in an all-volunteer organization. Your work is hard and long, but you do it for the kids. That's fine, and that's cool, but save the mutual backslapping and butt-stroking for some other time, for a crowd who cares about and/or expects this junk.

And then came the liability discussion. Our fearless leader made a clearly too-bold and too-overarching statement about how coaches could be held liable for certain safety and equipment aspects of the matches. Well, if you were listening, actually paying attention and listening, you'd know that the administrator's statement was over the top, and therefore not really valid. The remark was that one step too far to put the fear into us coaches, to scare us into doing what we're supposed to be doing for field preparation and maintenance. Oh, but no, there must've been about ten dumbass coaches who weren't paying attention, and had to rise up in their dumbass mistaken righteousness to challenge this statement. No common sense on either side, naturally, no thinking past the statements to the reality of the notional situations provided, only one dumbass coach after another wanting to argue with the dumbass administrator, to hear his/her voice in public standing up for themselves. Unbelievable, and it just kept stretching that meeting out.

Then the referee head got up to yap, and just meandered on and on. He said he was only going to talk about two things. He enumerated the first, then the second in clear, concise language, then proceeded to tell us antoher eight or nine things, none of them organized or structured in any way, just random thoughts popping out of his head. Then he sat down, only to stand back up to make another five minutes worth of stupid pronouncements. The guy's a referee, after all, he's supposed to be one of the smart ones. He's been doing this for decades, and he still can't stand up in a meeting and deliver a planned and limited, ten-minute structured and logical talk on his points of emphasis and then sit his ass down?

And speaking of ass, occupying most of my time during this idiocy was stealing glances at the late 30-something soccer mom, straight from work, carrying her extra 25 lbs or so, in her very tight, light-cream slacks, accentuating what she thought to be a nice ass. Yeah, I'd have to agree with her; she did have a pretty good ass, nice and round, and full, too, not one of these ridiculous Paris Hilton, grotesquely little-boy-hips thing. And of course, because she thinks she's hot and is wearing the pants to tell the world that, she's got on her tight black thong, pulled deliciously tight up her ass and snaking down to what I could only imagine would be a delightfully shaved whosis, awaiting whatever lucky human might arrive there. Gotta love an older woman in tight light pants and a dark thong underneath. Always gotta wonder, though: does she really know that it's that visible, that plain to see,right down to the lace patterns swirling, right down to the scalloped edges caressing the descending curve of her cheeks? I'd have to think the answer is yes, which impresses me, that a woman would wear that, make that kind of bold, confident, and no-shit sexy public statement. But then again, how many morons are out there who never take even a second to think of their public appearance? Is she one of those who wears a thong because it's trendy, because she's seen it on TV, and the magazines tell her that she should? Is she wearing it simply to be conformist, to be something she's not? Or maybe she's wearing it for a lucky husband. Yeah, that's the best possible answer, and I hoped it was the right one. You keep it up, thong-soccer-mom, you keep right on doing what you're doing.

At least the coaches in my group were okay. We all agreed it was going on way too long. The newbie husband-n-wife coaching team were too cowed by it all to make any comments at all. They had no idea what was going on.

At least our division director listened to my suggestion about choice of uniforms going to the coaches in the order they showed up to the meeting. I got second choice, thank you very much.

And then finally it was time to pick up our uniforms and gear and get out the door. And it was only 9:18. Home after 9:30 for a bedtime of 10:00. Big fun.