How 'bout you just pay for it yourself?

Grumpy curmudgeon Toadroller here.

I don't have enough webbed fingers and toes to count the number of examples that have passed through my experience in the last week alone where something a person or group of people wanted had a cost to and their initial (and only) reaction was to find a way to get others to pay for it, subsidize it, bankroll it, get it for free.

• In the local kids recreational soccer league where, for $20, you get practice fields, a team bag of balls and cones, pinnies, a shirt, and the mandatory medal of mediocrity.  A parent complained that each player should have their own ball.
• The local school wants to take one of their sixth grade group on a bus trip to Bar Harbor.  Car Wash!
• A thespian group is putting on a play; they asked the parents to fund-raise through finding corporate sponsors at a pace of two each, $25 per.
• Parents bitched that there weren't enough porta-potties at the athletic events.  Can every town contribute?  Emails, estimates, strong-arm tactics, guilt, high-fives.  Total price of a rental? $95.
• Much hand-wringing locally, but the property taxes went up by $400 this year.  Co-incidentally, each schoolchild now has an iPad.
• I'll be hosting a course on personal finance at my parish.  It has a $93 cost associated with it.  Well worth it; cheaper than dinner and a flick.  "Is there anyway we can help the people pay for it?"
• Buy an energy-saving (insert appliance type here) and get a $50 rebate check from the government.
• Let me subsidize that conspicuous consumption Prius for you in the form of tax deductions.
• Would you give our special interest group tickets to your sporting event?  It's for the kids.

It's not the concept of fundraising that bothers me.  It's the mindset of having to get someone else to fund the endeavor, no matter how small it is.  Why do we need a car wash to gather funds of $30 a head?  Why would you expect the soccer league to provide a ball for every player?  They're $15 for the fancy ones. 

How about you just pay for it yourselves?

I've always joked with Mrs. Toadroller that we should set up a car wash or magazine drive for our own family's "Spain Trip!" and see how far we get.  I've had enough friends and family ask me to support their child's dream of touring haunted castles in Ireland; it's time for them to fund mine.

Rainy day scramble

It's October in Maine and that brings a dichotomy to the weather.  It's either a beautiful clear day (yesterday) or endless drizzle (today).

This morning, my ears slowly became awake to the gentle patter of rain on the trees and the "shhhhhhhh" of wet streets in as cars rolled slowly passed. 

I've cancelled the soccer games once again.  I'd rather not; it's 45 minutes of emails and phone calls and clarifications.  Oh, and being communications moderator between divorced parents.

The coffee is hot.
The weekend is young.
There are chores to do. 
...
But the writing is done.

Learn by doing

My experiment is paying off. 

Levi trapped the ball on defense, waited, carried around an oncoming player, passed it up-field and then dropped off the play, settling into the precise position a defender should be in for the next ball to come his way.

This spring I watched my 7th grade daughter's softball team play a forty-five minute first inning.  Neither team had a put-out on defense, a hit, or a strike out.  Each team walked the entire batting order around.  Some pitches landed three feet in front of the pitcher; most went three feet over the up or short of the plate.

I watched her team at practice.  They started off with the coach hitting grounders to the team, one player at a time.  Grounder, catch (or miss), throw it back in, next player.  All fourteen.  Each player handled the ball for about two seconds every five minutes.  Batting practice was (of necessity?) pitched by the coach.


It dawned on me that these kids never actually spend any time playing sports and consequently they have no skills at sports.  Practices are short and made up of skills drills.  The coach tries to get their attention for five minutes to explain the drill, then runs them through it for another ten.  Each kid maybe gets one minute of experience in a ten minute drill.  The rest of their lives fully scheduled, they never play sand-lot baseball.  I'd doubt they know what "ghost runner on third" means.

There's no play in the sports.

So I decided that this fall, when I coached the boy's soccer team, I wouldn't do any drills.  I'd go full scrimmage from the first player to show up.  And so my experiment.  I have a whistle.  When it blows, everyone freezes where they are and I ask what's going on, make them think and answer, and then blow the play back on with another whistle.  If the play is at the other end of the field, I'm guiding my players, explaining and showing where to be and why.  In this way I am, single-handed, keeping fourteen nine to eleven year old boys fully engaged and playing soccer for an hour, giving them a full season's worth of drill and experience every week. 

And so Levi, one of my favorite human beings, went from a defensive mindset of boot-the-ball to trapping it, carrying it around an oncoming player, passing it up the field to his wing, and falling back into position.  In a span of ten minutes.  And he kept doing it.