team

Football, fútbol, soccer brings the world together

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In this polarized world, something brings people together on a global level: Football, fútbol, soccer.

At a recent soccer tournament, I overheard a couple of our men chatting (in Spanish) with players from another team, explaining the seminary to them. The men, with a nervous, embarrassed laugh, explained they were “ilegales.” Our men took it in stride and continued the good-hearted banter. That conversation made it worthwhile for me to get up at five fifteen on a Saturday morning for a soccer tournament, the trophy we won, as they say, was gravy on top.

Every cloud has a silver lining. Every Fall, our soccer team usually plays our Miami counterpart (read about that here). With a new term calendar in our school, that game was cancelled. So, the students found the Diocese of Palm Beach Young Adult Soccer Tournament. We signed up.

The tournament involved 12 teams from the Palm Beach area.

Early Saturday morning, after weeks of training, we drove to Halpatiokee Park in Stuart. The day started with a wonderful outdoor Mass. Five games followed. We won all our succeeding games 3-2 then 2-1. As our opponents got harder, our wins became narrower. The quarterfinal was 1-0, and the semifinal 0-0, which we then lost on a nail-biting 9 shot penalty shootout.

With all these games, our starting-and only-goalie got a massive leg cramp. We had to pull him out of the game. Gilbert, one of our players-not a goalie-selflessly volunteered to go under the arches, and what a job he did, stopping critical shots.

It was now time to decide the third and fourth place teams, and who would take home a trophy. By now it was well past 6, so the captains decided to change the game to another penalty shootout. We scored on the last goal, and Gilbert made sure to stop the last shot, making him the hero of the tournament!

After an extraordinarily long day and five games, that third place trophy tasted like victory, we were elated. What a marvelous celebration of community, and the common ground football brings us to.

The social media video. Credit: Thomas Hammen

Build your community. One step at a time.

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The US seems obsessed with the concept of community, but with a few exceptions, it is a country notably devoid of community. Technology, i.e., smartphones and social media have killed whatever remnants of community the car and consumer centric society had not killed. It is up to us to build community, and it is a slow process that requires time and patience.

Community building is something I am rather keen on. Something I love to do. The first few minutes of our soccer team practice are always devoted to team building -sometimes with the most basic of games: name games; the other day I was shocked to learn that a new player did not know the names of all his teammates. Then we play team-building games, getting the players to know and trust each other. The result? We play better, so we won 4-1 against our Miami rivals.

Of course, there is much more to it than teambuilding, there are skills, and strategy, psychology, and game day decisions. But the key is to start with the basics, a community.

So, do not complain about the lack of community, build it. At every opportunity you get.

Teaching outside the classroom

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The way we teach is outdated. We get students into a room, fill their brains with knowledge, test them on that knowledge, and when they do that successfully, we put a funny hat on their heads and send them into the world. Yes, we have improved a lot over the last half century, but our basics are still based on medieval educational systems.

Which is one of the reasons I love coaching. Of course one cannot teach subject content in sports, but there are many, many human qualities we can teach on the field: participation, selflessness, hard work, teamwork, communication, leadership, observation, sacrifice, and on and on.

The first lesson is to show up for practice -early, so you can get ready and settled in. The more you show up to practice -and early- the more chances you have of starting on game day, even if there are more skillful players than you but who do not show up consistently nor on time for practice.

Time and again we see less skillful but more united teams will beat more skillful teams that does not pass or communicate as well.

Another valuable lesson is the importance of practice. Musicians and the military understand this concept and execute it very well; the more you practice the better you get. Good athletes also understand how importance repetition is.

A few weeks ago, we won our home game against our Miami rivals. Although our opponents played their hearts out, we played selflessly and communicating, passing the ball and trusting each other, it was a pleasure to see the guys play. Go Shepherds!!

Photo Credit Dylan McKay

A (brief) return to coaching

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St. Vincent de Paul is a graduate School with only 120 odd resident students, so we do not have a formal athletic program. The guys do sports, but on their own. Except for a once a semester soccer game against the St. John Vianney College Seminary in Miami.

Last year, due to Covid we did not play. This year seeing a need, I volunteered to coach the SVdP Shepherds.

I have been coaching (on and off) for 17 years. At this point what I enjoy the most about coaching is building the team, working first on communication and trust, then on skills, technique, and strategies and all the other bits necessary to succeed as a team.

What a pleasure to return to the field, to work with the guys at skills that we do not teach in the classroom.

Unfortunately, we did not have a lot of time to practice, but we did the best we could.

We lost the game 3 – 4, but I am really proud of the men, we played a far superior game, we played as a team! But halfway through the first half while we were winning 2 – 0, we lost steam, we lost our shape, and the Miami guys took advantage of that. In the second half we came back and scored the third goal, but it was too late.

I was blessed to have a student volunteer as an assistant coach! Misho led the warmups, worked with our goalie, and helped to organize practices, helped me with strategy on game day, what a blessing!

All in all, it was a great experience, and I can’t wait to start preparing next year’s game!!

PS: The initiated will notice our colors are red and white stripes. This is our traditional kit, and in NO WAY my decision. I would have been fine just wearing plain all white 😉

Photo Creds: Carmela Grande, Chris Holsom.

Football from the stands (not the sideline, and not the pitch)

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This is the first year in a long time that I am not coaching nor even playing football (soccer for the Philistines on the other side of the pond). Instead I get to see all my nephew’s games from the stands – and it is fun!

For fourteen years I coached soccer. One of the first schools I worked at (Milton Academy) needed an assistant Boys Varsity coach, having played more or less all my life I got the gig! Walnut Hill being an arts school did not have an athletic program, but that did not stop us from playing pickup on Friday afternoons, we had a blast. And we found out that future K Pop star Eddy Kim had a lovely touch! At Buckingham Browne and Nichols they needed a Girls Varsity Assistant coach, that changed my whole perspective on the sport. I had never payed much attention to girls soccer, but I quickly found out that they play as a team much more than the boys do. They pass the ball much more, and big plus, they look like they are listening to the coach!

At UNC I really had the football bug, so I organized the Romance Studies Community Soccer program to play on Friday afternoons. This was a great way of getting the grad students together with some undergrads and different folks that would join. It was good fun and occasionally a bit competitive which gave it a good edge!

At Seacrest Country Day in Naples Florida, I was honored to be the Head Girls Varsity coach. These girls worked super hard and we had a great two seasons, building a team. Since Seacrest is a small school, the sense of community is very big and I really felt embraced by the team. Occasionally I would step in to help out the boys’ team. One such time was the District final game which we won for the first time in history. What a thrill to have been on the sideline of that game!

Now back in the old country I  miss coaching, but every Saturday with my sister and sometimes my nieces I enjoy just watching my nephew play! It is all the fun, without the responsibilities, and, of course, I get to critique the coaches – and the players!! Vamos Chamar!!