Soccer-field lessons prepare players for real world

THE OLYMPIAN | • Published November 04, 2009

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As grandparents we have rediscovered the joys of soccer watching our grandsons charge around in joyful pursuit of that elusive ball just as their parents did.

The younger kids play on tiny fields with only five per side. Their skills are novice but their enthusiasm is high. The referee is a volunteer parent who calls few fouls. Not that there aren’t fouls, but most are inadvertent mistakes and everyone gets to pursue the ball more when the ref just says, “Play on!”

Everyone plays and everyone scores in nail-biters that often include 12 to 14 goals per team. With enthusiasm for next time, they run off with hearts full of dreams.

The older kids’ games are different.

They have more skills, more practice and better tactics. League commissioners, however, have placed professional referees who, allowing no player input, interpret rules that weren’t there before. They insure every bump is called and every shirt tucked in. Games are often played in fits and starts as some referees insist on their way even when they often blow the call.

Momentum is crushed. Whistles disrupt play and goals are called back. Some kids get ejected, few score and players go home grumpy because they had hoped to play soccer that day. Parents spend hours trying to re-energize their kids for the next game.

Fair is one thing, but one wonders how all the extra constraints have improved the sport.

Still, some teams play more cleanly while others play more skillfully and others are just lucky. In the end everyone knows who won the most games in spite of, or sometimes because of, the referees.

And truly mean players are usually ejected along with some not guilty. How futile it all seems when the commissioners then give everyone essentially the same trophy. What’s the point?

Wellington, who beat Napoleon, said the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton. Perhaps then soccer is indeed a good training ground for our youths.

Soon our soccer-playing grandchildren will be out there with the enthusiasm and wisdom of graduates eager to get in the game by getting that first job where they will pursue happiness like crazy, make a few rookie mistakes but go home with a heart full of dreams.

Until they meet the refs who imposed minimum-wage laws that shrink the number of jobs on each entry-level team. They’ll meet civil service and union seniority rules that stifle upward mobility of truly skilled workers. There’s union dues, Social Security, Medicare and IRS whistles that disrupt their paychecks as they run down the field toward self-reliance.

Those trying to start their own team will face a playing field of city, state and county fees, licenses, permits, incorporation and that massive Labor and Industries goalie.

Women players, who broke holes in the glass ceiling, will find that, along with men, the government has set a limit on how much their skills can earn. And now we are all being told by the league commissioners, with a record of blown calls, how much health care we need and how much to pay for it. Comply or get ejected.

They say those who chose to skip practice and weren’t prepared should get the same trophy as the player who protected his health goals with a planned legal slide tackle.

In the beginning of this country, people moved west to be free of government constraints. They were their own referees. Now there is no more west and government referees seek to rein us all in, not just the violators. We were a better country when we were full of hope and enthusiasm because the referees said, “Play on.”

Rick Taylor, a member of The Olympian’s Board of Contributors, retired from the U.S. Army/Oregon Army National Guard after 27 years of service. After 14 years teaching high school, he is retired, and can be reached at anchoredhere@gmail.com.