Football and Soccer Season Come To a Close

Donovan had a very successful debut season playing soccer this fall. He turned out to be highly talented playing the game, with defense being his specialty. He scored a couple of goals while garnering four assists for his team that ended up with a 5-2 record, but it really was on the defensive side of play that Donovan shone. He played goalie most of the time, and he was probably the best goalie in the league.
I was surprisingly asked to coach this team as I am the first to admit that soccer is not my cup of tea. Baseball and basketball I know well and understand, but I had not been around soccer since I was in the fifth grade. I was quite good at it then, but that has been three and a half decades ago! So I was very pleased to have the kids finish with a 5-2 record. Although as I said soccer had not been my preferred sport, coaching it and watching my sons play it this season has made me come to appreciate it much more.

Damien's flag football team finished with a record of 5-0-1. They ended on a five game winning streak. Their only "blemish" was their first game of the year in which they gave up two touchdowns with under four minutes of play, settling for a tie.
Damien played very well all season. He was a stalwart on the defensive side, making many "tackles" that prevented the other teams from scoring. He also was one of his team's best blockers as can be seen in this photo to the left. He opened up many holes for his teammates to make several big plays.
Damien was also very good when he was used at quarterback, running back and receiver. He scored three touchdowns, one coming from each of these positions just mentioned, and he also scored on two point conversions twice, one while running the ball in and the coming from a completed catch of a pass. This was Damien's last year for flag football, and I he is looking forward to putting on the pads and suiting up for tackle football next year.

Daniel played soccer for the first time this year, foregoing American style tackle football in favor of soccer. I was a bit surprised when I learned that Daniel was not going to play football. I assumed he was going to play football again this year because he had such an outstanding season last year. I finally asked him why he did not want to play football, and he replied, "I felt I was going to miss church too much, and I did not want to do that." Our congregation assembles for mid-week Bible study on Wednesday nights, and Daniel would have had a few games scheduled for that time as well. I was quite impressed that he made this decision on his own. He is only 11, about to turn 12, but his commitment to the Lord is genuine and highly commendable.
Daniel had an outstanding season playing soccer. He had quite a number of goals as well as assists, but where he was most valuable was when he was playing goalie. His coach told me that he had never seen a goalie as gifted as Daniel was at his age. His team finished the season with a 6-1 record. They easily could have gone 7-0 but they lost their first game 7-6 after leading 5-1 at half time. Daniel played goalie in the first half, and he scored the team's only goal in the second half. None of the other games were even close as they ran the table after that initial disappointing loss.