Tatum's game was first. She was so proud to be in her new uniform. Her team name is "Purplicious". Tatum adapted surprisingly well to practices and quickly made a few friends. She quickly does everything the coaches ask and is very participative. Upon arrival to the game, she ran and greeted her team-mates with smiles. As soon as the game started, Tatum immediately went into shell shock. By "shell shock", I mean that she stood on the sidelines and cried for the first quarter. Coach installed her in the game for the 2nd quarter in the which she stood in the middle of the field with her head down and sobbed. The action continued around her and she, literally, stood there crying. Half the parents were inquiring if she was injured. She was pulled out of the game and she continued to cry. She was nervous. By personality, she doesn't deal well with change so she was really struggling. Tricia and I both talked with her to no avail. Finally, Tricia prayed with her. The final quarter, she apologized to her coach and asked if she could go back in. Immediately after being put in, a slow roller came to her with no one else around (thank goodness, no pressure from oncoming players) and she got a solid kick. This increased her confidence and she was in the action the remainder of the game. We were very proud of her for working to change her attitude. I believe she will do better next week as she has built a small amount of familiarity now. We'll see...
Lincoln is on the Green Dragons. His approach was quite opposite of Tatum's. He, also, displayed his personality on the field. With no skill set whatsoever, he did not struggle with aggressiveness. He ran right out there and was immediately in all the action. He struggled with focus, often times in his own imaginary world but was very receptive to his coach's guidance and surprisingly receptive to the things that we yelled in his general direction. When he did focus, his tendency was to prevent the other team from scoring rather than gaining interest in scoring himself. He had a number of really good saves in preventing goals.
Near the end of Lincoln's game, and to most everyone's approval, it began to rain. It felt fantastic. It was a happy reward to an otherwise stressful afternoon. Nonetheless, we feel it was a successful outing for both of our 'players'. The only downside was how much it made me miss being a part of organized sports, in general. So much fun! ---Bennie
Tatum has really overcome her nervousness. She goes right in and runs around. She tends to lose focus quickly and start turning around in circles and junk. When someone is charging with the ball, she runs hard and does whatever she can to look like she will kick it without actually having to go kick it. Very active, no aggression. Lincoln is pretty much like a teenager already...mostly giving half-efforts. He does, however, seem to have the aggressiveness thing down. Completely unafraid to charge, kick and the like...but no real skill-set and often doesn't go after it because he doesn't feel like it. Teenager-ish. We are working on it.---Bennie
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