Very different goals

Tuesdays can be tough.  

It was opening night for the local 8U soccer league.  (I'll pause to allow the excitement and anticipation to abate... that should be sufficient.)  For reasons unbeknownst to me, your coach decided to put you in goal.  You had only played goalie for a quarter here and there last season.

You did well enough, not allowing any goals in regulation.  But of course, the fates would not allow that to be it.  Both teams were scoreless.  The game would be decided by penalty kicks, something you had never practiced.

Most of the fifty or so people in attendance wouldn't have noticed a thing.

But a parent knows.  

I immediately noticed your cheeks become flushed.  I imagined the nerves and uncertainty you must be feeling as the referee briefly explained the rules to you.  I was feeling them, too.

There would be five kicks per team.  The other team would go first.  It was a good kick.  You got a hand on it, but it wasn't quite enough as the ball trickled agonizingly across the goal line.  1-0.

While one of your teammates kicked and missed, I yelled to you that you didn't have to worry about catching the ball like you try to do in regulation to prevent a rebound.  Just knock it away from the goal.  You would tell me later if you had known that you think you could have stopped the first one.

You stopped the next four shots, including diving to your right to smother one on the ground.  Unfortunately, none of your teammates had managed to score and your team trailed 1-0.  The coach picked you to take the last shot.

Oh buddy, you hit it solid.  It was the best shot out of the five your team would take.  You got good air under it, but it caught the goalie's' left shoulder and bounded away harmlessly.

Those damned fates again.

And while I could not have been more proud of you for handling an unfamiliar and unexpected situation so well, you saw it differently.

You felt you had let your team down, both by allowing the goal and by missing the final kick.  It was like making the last out of a baseball game.

"I had one job," you said, crestfallen. "And I failed."

I tried to look on the bright side, or at least take the "it could always be worse" angle, because that's what I do.  Or maybe that's what the Prozac does.  Either way.

I mean, you could have saved zero shots.  This could turn out to be a valuable life lesson for you.  Your mama could have yelled even more often and loudly than she already did.

You didn't seem to have any lingering effects on Wednesday and Thursday, not outwardly anyway.  I'm sure you replayed things in your mind, but you seemed ready to go for game two on Friday night.

You started in goal but after the first quarter the coach switched you to forward.  I figured you were probably happier there.  And I was thankful that at least you weren't feeling the weight of the whole team as you did in goal.

And then it happened.

You took a rebound and neatly angled it past the opposing goalie.  Your team's first goal of the year.  It would be the only goal of the game.  Your team won 1-0 and in a complete reversal you had scored the only goal of the game.

After lining up to tell the other team they played a good game, you ran towards us with the biggest smile and launched yourself into your mama's arms.

And all was well.  The disappointment of three nights before may as well have been ten thousand light years away.  What a perfect night.

I can't help but believe sports have been good for you.  And seeing you interact with your teammates at practice and on the sideline.  Seeing you being such an encourager to them during games.  Seeing you overcome the Tuesdays to enjoy the Fridays.  Those are the things that keep my heart seemingly on perpetual overflow.

Maybe you will read this one day and realize how proud I am of you.  Hopefully you will realize that without having to read this.  Maybe you'll have a kid of your own and know exactly how I feel. I hope they have a mama who is their biggest (and loudest) fan. And when you write about it all, perhaps you will be able to do so in a way that is far less syrupy  than your dad did.

And somewhere along the way you'll probably realize that a lot of times in life, maybe even most times, you learn more from the Tuesdays than you do the Fridays.