The next thing I know the coaches are yelling for me from across the field.  They were asking me not to walk around the field but run through the field in the middle of play…  This got a bit more intense.  When I got to Johnny he had tears in his eyes and drinking water sitting on the ground.  He said he had a sharp pain right where his heart is.  In my mind I’m thinking maybe it’s something he ate or he got a knock.  After a few minutes it started to subside.  Fifteen minutes later he was playing in a pick up game.  He seemed okay.  His coaches urged us to take him to get checked out.  So we did.

He was at Children’s Hospital for over two hours of tests (this was round #1).  The doctor said he had a slight heart murmur, which apparently is pretty common.  They didn’t think that would be a cause of the pain he felt.  A big sigh of release right…  The docs said they wanted him to come back and go through a test where they see how his heart handle high exertion.  Basically they put him on a treadmill with tons of wires and a head piece that hold a tube that goes in his mouth and push him until he can’t go any longer.  Well he did awesome in the test.  He reached 92% which as I understand that number means 92% of people can’t go that far.  They classified him as an elite athlete.  The result – no issues

Confirming it wasn’t a heart issue, the doc speculated that perhaps some ribs moved in such a way that caused pain or maybe he was dehydrated.  Both of these seem very possible to me given the conditions that day.  I was really happy the doc went on a bit of a rant about hydration.  It’s good that young athletes hear about hydration from someone such as a doctor…  hopefully it’s something Johnny will remember to take very seriously.

At the end of the day Johnny checked out okay.  This was a scary time for me as a parent but also for Johnny.  He really didn’t know what to think about it.  He was scared no doubt, but after the tests and hearing the doctor say he’s okay Johnny is back on track.

Johnny was invited through his academy team to go to Guadalajara, Mexico for four days to play against some of the top Mexican academy teams. He had to take two of those days of those days off from school to attend. His team directors send out letters to the school to let them know about the trip, what it will mean to the kids in terms of developing as a person and a player, etc. The response… wait for it… unexcused absence. We sent him anyway. Right after the trip we got an automated message from the school saying his absence was unexcused, and we may have to go to court. Are you kidding me?!!! A week later we got the “official” county letter putting us on notice.

I called the principal to try to come to an understanding. He basically said sorry can’t do anything. I explained the trip and what it means for Johnny’s future/growth. I told him he’s never in trouble, straight A student, etc… Nothing, he wouldn’t budge. He said he completely understood the situation and there are many student athletes that are in the same situation. He even said that if his kid had this opportunity he would send him… So I asked him how the other student athletes deal with this. The response was he didn’t know. What was interesting was he kept saying “I can’t police everything”… So I said to him, “What I’m hearing is I basically need to game this system.” He said, “..well, you didn’t hear me say that…”

So there you have it we as parents are forced to lie to manipulate the system so our kids can experience the world outside of school. I’m disgusted. Sure the schools have truancy issues they need to deal with. Sure every kids in a seat means more money to the school. but geez – get real here. Johnny’s not hanging out at the corner during school hours. He gets great grades and is never a problem. Come on people.

I wonder what they would say if little Johnny had to go to Japan for a week to play for the little league world series… Sorry you’re SOL…

What do you guys think? Leave a comment or hop over to the forum.

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It was interesting for Johnny. The goal for each player is to be selected for the Pool games. This is where players are further evaluated to be selected to the Regional Team and then to Nationals. The first day, about ten minutes into the game Johnny went out with an “injury”. He was done for the game. He told me later he was okay to play but the coach wouldn’t let him go back in. To my surprise he was selected to play in the pool game that night. I suspect they remembered him from last year… Who knows. Johnny played really well that night. He was very vocal, his touch was on, just played great.

The next day instead of playing with his state team in the morning he was asked to play in the combine game. I’m told this is where players are brought together that are on the cusp of getting into the pool game. I suspect they wanted another look at him because he hardly played in his first state game the morning before. He did awesome. Scored two goals and assisted two or three others.

He didn’t get asked to the pool game that night so he practiced with his state team that night. The session was run by the regional trainer – basically the person who is assigned to the team from the region who is responsible for recommending kids for the pool games. This is where things went a bit south for Johnny. During this session, for whatever reason, Johnny wasn’t tuned in. He was making some silly mistakes. At one point the regional training called him out because he couldn’t follow the directions given. He humiliated him a bit by asking his mates to tell Johnny how to perform the drill. Johnny didn’t like that. He was completely ineffective after that. Head down, totally out of it. When the session ended Johnny immediately walked off the field, packed up and headed for the buses with tears in his eyes. One of the state coaches grabbed him and talked with him. I don’t know what was said as I stayed away. Johnny didn’t want anything to do with me at that point.

Needless to say I was disappointed. He knows he needs to be switched on at all time. He knows he can’t let anything get him down. He knows he only gets one shot to be chosen. ODP wasn’t the only place I’m seeing this type of behavior, so I’m starting to see a pattern…

It’s the final day. This is the day when the final pool game happens. The players selected for this game are the players being evaluated for the Boston national team camp. Johnny was asked to play, which was awesome. I did get a chance to talk with him and make sure he knew “this was it”, leave it all on the field. He seemed really happy to be there and having been selected. He did “okay”. He started at left midfield where he has had a great deal of success. The unfortunate thing is the ball didn’t make it to him all that often. It seems the coaches recognized this and moved him to center midfield. He still didn’t get into the play all that much but did well when he did receive the ball.

In the end he was selected to the Regional Pool but fell short of his goal to go to the National Camp in Boston. He still has another year to go through this same process which is certainly a good thing. I think he’ll have a great shot of making it to Boston.

The only critique I would have for Johnny goes back to my previous comments. He needs to be switched on. He wasn’t very vocal making demands of the players around him. Leaders stand out. “Players” never get down. They never give up or give in. I think Johnny really needs to think hard about this and decide how bad he wants it. I really think he has to concur the psychology of the game now…

When we got Johnny’s year end evaluation from his academy team it became apparently to me he needed a team. A team where all the players around him were at the same skill level. With players around him like this aren’t making bad passes, they start reading the game. Everything really shifts from focusing on the ball to focusing on the game. When you master both the skills and the game you can truly maximize your potential.

With epiphany in hand we set out to find another team and I think we found just the right team. This team has several academy players as well as ODP players so Johnny knows quite a few of them to start with. He attended several training sessions and Johnny fit right in. The pace of the training was very fast which was great to see.

Johnny was asked to guest with the team at a tournament. I was amazed how well the team played. The quickness of their play was amazing – this is just what Johnny needs. Johnny did great by the way. He was a sub for the first game and got off to a bit of a slow start. He subbed the next game but got substantially more time. He started the third and forth game and got 4 goals in the process.

The trainer said, “There is a place for Johnny on this team!” It was a great day.

So what we have come to realize over this last month is Johnny is in phase two. It’s time to make sure he has a group of boys around him at the same level as he. When this is in place he can begin to develop the game skills.

It’s an exciting time for Johnny. It’s a transitional period child athlete to athlete. I think he feels it too. Off to find a new team…

As has become tradition for us, we talk about the days to come and I always ask Johnny what he wants to get out of it. What are his expectations? What’s he going to do to achieve them? His initial responses were typical. He wanted to have fun. He wanted to win. He wanted to play really well. I told him these were really great goals but how are you going to accomplish them. How are you going to win? How will you know you really played well? How will you know you had fun? He thought about it for a while and said he didn’t really know. And to be honest, as we were having our pillow talk, I really didn’t have a great answer either. I thought about it for a while and it occurred to me that maybe he could focus on something that we had identified in the past as something he needed to overcome.

Johnny takes his soccer very seriously and puts a lot of pressure on himself to perform. He absolutely knows when he does something spectacular and when he doesn’t. There have been those times where he just messes up – like everyone does… He then begins spiraling down in terms of confidence. I term it a “let down” moment. I can see it. Everyone see’s it. The head drops, shoulders roll forward. From there on out he’s out the game. He let himself be taken out of the game. We’ve talked about this on many occasions but it never really sunk in. So as we lay there in bed I said, “If you were to ask me what your goal should be I would suggest this….”. I then went on to talk about our past discussions around this topic. He acknowledged it as an issue and understood the impact of not dealing with it. So I suggested a goal of no matter what goes wrong you’ll always keep your head high, shoulders back, and focused on the game. I made sure to reference how the pro’s react to mistakes. It’s a five second reaction – then that’s it – move on. Johnny said, “I’ll try Dad”. And that was it for the night.

Johnny was up at 5am. Excited.. you bet.

I could give you the play by play of the games but I’ll spare you the details. I will say that I think Johnny, for this weekend, met his goals. He had a fantastic three games. Scored a goal in each game and just owned a new position. He was placed in a position he’s never played before. I was thinking this might be one of those “let down” moments, but it wasn’t. He knew he was given a job to do and he did it. Very well in fact. He got whacked a few times and jumped right back up. Something he may not have done in the past. I get the feeling he’s really starting to mature both physically and mentally. To be sure we talked about the goals he set and the one I suggested. He had a fantastic time. They beat every team, so they won. And he played really really well. And as for the “let down” moment – not once. Even in situations where in the past he would have taken himself mentally out of the game. I was proud of him and he was more importantly proud of himself.

For those of you not familiar with ODP, it’s been around since the late 70′s I believe. I was selected twice waaaayyy back in the 80′s – so it’s been around a long time… Basically, it’s a select team that represents your state (state select if you will), with the intent of finding players for the National Team. Tryouts are held by at least two dozen trainers running around with clipboards while the kids play short sided games. Once that process is complete your told you either made it or you didn’t. There are tournaments from which players are selected onto the Regional Team. From there you could be selected to tryout for the National Team.

In our tryout session this year there were over 150 kids out there, about 80 in Johnny’s group. Johnny had a great day. He showed a lot of confidence and I think in large part due to him playing in his own age groups this year. Last year he played up one year and made it as far as the Regional Pool.

As always, Johnny asked me how i thought he did. I told him I thought he did great. I thought he had a strong presence on the field, played with pace, and played physically. I told him it looked like he was having fun. Well… he didn’t see it that way. It took some work on my part to get out of him what he was really feeling but eventually he conceded. Turned out he wasn’t in what he termed the “top” group. There were a group of kids that were sectioned off in a corner by themselves. One of the players Johnny had played up with last year, so naturally Johnny thought he should be with that group.

I told him I thought he was reading too much into the whole situation. I asked him if he wasn’t convinced he did his very best. He said he did. I asked him if “he” thought he was one of the better players out there. He said he thought so. “So what do you have to worry about!”, I told him. That didn’t help much….

Later I head from someone who heard from someone else that indeed they did section off players who they immediately identified as “making the cut”. BUT… they also kept some of those players mixed in with the rest of the boys so it wouldn’t seem to the other kids that they had any less of a chance because these sectioned off kids basically already made the cut. Once Johnny understood the reasoning he got it.

I told him that at the end of the day you can’t worry about what else is going on. You have to do you job. Do what is asked of you to the best of your ability and let the chips fall where they may. It’s not easy to comprehend that for any child athlete, but I’m hopeful that over time Johnny will fully embrace those comments.

You might be asking yourself “Johnny didn’t think…” he’s only a kid. How does he know whats best? Good question. I’ve never been one to force anything on my kids. I like to question them so that they come to a logical decision on their own. Johnny is all about setting goals. Surprised? I was… It all started about two or three months ago coming home from Academy Team practice. (Academy is soccers equivalent to baseballs minor leagues. It’s intended to develop players to go pro. Most of the MLS teams have Academy squads and the play in the USSF league. Very cool.) There had been some rumors there might be a U-14 team starting up that Johnny could be selected for. And If that team didn’t come around the next option was to try to make the U-16 squad. Driving home we started talking about it. I asked him what his goals were for the coming year. Johnny said he wanted to make ODP as a play up, and make the U14 Academy squad. I asked him what he needed to do to accomplish that. What does he need to do differently that will give him a better chance of success. He thought about it for a while. He finally said train more. I said more or better. He trains four days a week as it is. He wasn’t sure. I asked him if he understood how much higher a level the training was with the Academy as compared to his club. He said, “oh yeah dad, there’s a big difference between Academy and club. It’s not even close to being at the same level.” I then said, “well if you are trying to make a team that’s at a much higher level and half of the things you’re doing isn’t at that level, would you expect to be making progress toward your goal?” He said no. I asked him how he would fix that. He thought for a while and finally said, “I need to change clubs and train with better trainers.”

That was it. That’s how we decided it was time to change clubs. It was ultimately Johnny’s decision. I’ve always felt it’s critical that Johnny “owns” the decisions that are made about whatever goes on in his life. In this instance I helped Johnny come to a logical conclusion as to what he should do to achieve his goal. In the end, he made the decision, he committed to it, he owns it. We’ll see how it works out.

For me that “like me” was either an athlete or techie. I’ve been blessed to get both. Yep, I have two boys, each of which share a common interest with me. It’s fantastic and I feel very fortunate. But we’re talking about my young athlete here. When did I know he would be the athlete? Early… very early. I don’t think Johnny was more than two years old when I could see his interest in sports. He loved his soccer ball. He loved it ALL. He was always asking me, “Can we play… please please please can we play?” He was, AND IS, relentless. To this day, when we are sitting down to dinner, he will ask if we can go play. I’d be shocked if a dinner went by when he didn’t ask me to go play.

But when was the moment when I thought Johnny had something very special? When Johnny was five, my wife and I decided to let Johnny play a local soccer league for the little kids. You’ve seen them, these little kids running around more interested in the clouds overhead or the bird singing in the tree. I must admit it’s cute. Since I played the game, I thought it would be a good opportunity to give back so I decided to coach the team. My wife was the assistant coach. It was a blast. We had these little kids running drills, or should i say trying to run drills, to give them the basics.

It’s game time. Now these kids have never played a game of soccer before, and it showed. Except for one, Johnny. He tore it up. Complete domination. I’ll never forget that day. Johnny got his 4th goal. I turned to my wife, she was already staring at me. I said under my breath, “this kid can play”. She said, “I can’t believe what I’m seeing”. It was a fantastic moment to say the least.

It didn’t end there. I promised myself I’d let Johnny find his own way when it came to sports. He tried it all. Football, baseball, basketball. It was more of the same. He was a standout. He is an athlete.

I often wonder if that Dad ever played competitive sports. Is that what he got out of the whole experience as a kid? Is the rest of the family embarrassed by his actions? Perhaps he is so obsessed with seeing little Johnny succeed that he’s just oblivious to the harm he’s causing. I just don’t get it.

I guess I was lucky. When I was growing I only played one sport competitively, soccer. My parents never pushed me to play any particular sport, soccer chose me. I loved it like nothing else and did very well, even winning an athletic scholarship to a prominent university. My Dad took me EVERYWHERE. Rain, sleet, snow, thousands of miles, it didn’t matter he was always there. And during all of those years I can’t remember one time where I heard him raise his voice other than to get my butt in gear. Now sure he would have some carefully selected words for the ref when his boy got slammed to the ground, but never was he one of those psycho parents.

I’m very thankful for that as I look back on my career and how my father nurtured my growth in the sport I love. I decided early on when my son started playing sports that the sport would choose him. That I would let whatever happens happen. Now that’s not to say I too don’t have some selective word for the ref just as my father did, but I always try to stay composed. I figure at the end of the day its not me playing the game. I’m not trying to relive my childhood through my son, I just want HIM to live it. I figure it’s up to me to support and guide him in a way that in the end make him a better person. If he is wildly successful, like I believe he can be, it will be by his own doing, not forced or coerced like a psycho parent just might.