Last month, Sandy was telling me about Ethan’s soccer dilemma. Does he stay at camp to play in the 2nd day of the all-star game (already played in the first day) and miss class, or does he leave the camp early (as planned) and get to class. It’s some summer business class at the community college, versus getting recruited by a college team and a potential scholarship.
I said goto class. He made the all-star team, so they know he’s got skills and then by going to class and being dedicated to his summer courses, he shows a maturity that would be appreciated by coaches when offering a scholarship. It helps answer some of the questions about character when one has priorities set like that.
Then yesterday, I get a meeting invite for a team dinner Tuesday night. The product and engineering leads from around the world are gathering here and having our first team dinner. I’ve also got an indoor soccer game to play at 7:45. I missed our first game last week cause I was working in Santa Monica. What to do?
Well, given my limited career opportunities and the fact that I haven’t yet established myself as a starter on the team, its pretty easy, isn’t it? I’m going to soccer. We already know I have character issues. Plus, it seems kind of lame to be meeting to talk about a World Cup soccer website and pretending to be a fan of the beautiful game while abandoning one’s own indoor soccer team, doesn’t it?
Though, I do have reservations about the game. I kind of have already lost, before even playing, as somewhere along the line, I’ve been quoted as saying that soccer is my “best” sport. This frustrates people that play basketball with me cause my height advantage overshadows their skill/speed advantage. So, I think there are expectations for my game that I will not be able to meet, and I will get harrassed regardless.
Though that’s not enough to make me goto dinner.
But it did make me think about my advice giving techniques. Sean was bringing up how he heard through the grapevine that soccer was my sport. He’s a leading scorer on the team right now (3 tied at 1) and so he can be cocky. I went on to explain that it wasn’t my “best” sport, but the sport I am the most trained in. I’ve had years of organized soccer while I’ve had 1 trimester at JV basketball as far as coaching goes. And our coach spent most of the time trying to figure out how to hit on our female classmates. Which was educational as well.
So I went on to say that with soccer, at least, I know how the game should be played and that Sean should expect me to yell at him about how to play. That would be the main difference. I won’t be any better, but I’ll think I know more.
He told me I already yell at him. Which made me feel bad for a moment…
“Well, then I guess I’ll yell at you more in soccer.” I hide my feelings pretty well huh?