Wholesome & Spicy
I’ve been limping for a few weeks. I blame a handful of students who have been playing soccer with me on Friday afternoons–part of the middle school clubs program.
How dare they be all fit, flexible, and talented? How dare they take advantage of my middle-age muscles, balance, and reaction time, nutmegging me so often that I started calling them the Spice Girls and Boys? (Nutmegging is when a player kicks the ball through an opponent’s open legs and then, before the opponent can recover, speeds around them to retrieve the ball.)
Despite the weekly humiliation, I end every game with a huge smile. In fact, my facial muscles almost hurt from the contraction. The reasons I’m smiling? Sportsmanship and fundamentals.
I see good sportsmanship every week. Players on opposite teams applaud each other’s sweet moves; they check on each other when an opponent appears hurt. Players on the same team reassure each other that an errant shot or sloppy pass is no big deal. Sports and games have so much potential to cultivate virtue. Of course they also can elicit tribalism and oneupmanship. I’m proud to be at a school where the former outweighs the latter.
Another reason I smile each week is that I see young players attentive to basics, which often are not flashy or fun. Consider someone on offense, running without the ball. Sometimes the runner receives a pass or participates in a beautiful “give and go.” But just as often, the runner doesn’t get the ball. Wasted effort? Hardly! If nothing else, the runner drew the defense’s attention, like a decoy.
And speaking of wholesome fundamentals, let’s re-visit the nutmeg. Yes, it usually makes the crowd go wild, and its potential to humiliate is high. (Do an image search for “soccer nutmeg” and look at the faces of the victims.) But the nutmeg requires sound fundamentals, including body and spatial awareness (noticing that one’s opponent has their legs apart and that there is space behind the person), ball control (nudging the ball through a relatively small space), and change of speed (accelerating past the defender before they can recover).
Our students–your children–are both wholesome and spicy. Now that’s something to buzz about.
