Choosing

Note: I know I conveyed some information here that I've gone on about before but I didn't really write this to post here; it just ended up here.

So in 6th grade I was banned from the school library. We had the option of going out for recess or going to the library and my teacher felt I spent too many recesses in the library. In 10th grade I signed up for latin class; my small school didn’t have enough other kids sign up so they cancelled the class and the only other thing that fit in my schedule was gym. I got a D at Christmas and my parents were furious (not at me but that I had to take a class I was obviously hopeless in). In the end, I finished the year with a B+ because I got 100 percent in the “health” portion of the grade. I state this just to put everything in context. I am not an athlete. Please stop laughing. I always wanted to be an athlete (I still do but I really am hopeless). I had this romantic notion of how everything was easy for them. My son has opened my eyes to the reality.

DS was born an athlete. His first word was Ball or rather Ba, since he was almost three before he actually finished a word when he said it. There is nothing (save swimming) that I’ve seen him try and not be insanely good at. He’s a little frustrating to watch (especially if you’re his older sister trying to play the same sport). He’s also a little awe inspiring. One day he might accomplish something in the sports world… or maybe not. The one thing I’ve learned being the Mom of a mini gifted athlete is that there are A LOT of other mini gifted athletes out there. As special as he is to us; he’s not so special in the general scheme of things. Still there are choices we have to make with him and for him.

Some of the choices are a little bizarre to be making at eight. I bet Deion Sanders or Bo Jackson’s mother’s never had to look at their eight year old and tell them that they NEEDED to pick a sport. That’s the conversation I had with Sam yesterday. He needs to pick a sport… at eight. Nuts. In this world of high, stronger, faster sports that used to have a season and then ended so other sports could be played doesn't exist anymore.

We decided earlier this summer to let Sam tryout for a travel hockey team – seemed an innocuous decision at the time. Soccer ends 19 August. Hockey starts 1 September. We should be good no? No. This summer he’s played on a specially selected “elite” soccer team. It was an experiment and the boys on this team (and their sister team) have exceeded all expectations. His coach sent out a notice this week that the club has decided to create an academy that will keep the boys training all winter – two training sessions a week and a game. That’s a good amount of soccer over the winter and I know it makes a difference in the long run. He would have a blast. If he chooses not to participate, it will put him well behind his team mates next summer and could make the difference in him continuing with his team or having to drop down a level. So yes, let’s do it. Ummm…. hockey?

IF he makes the travel team (and I don’t know why he wouldn’t but you never know – remember he’s not as special as I think he is) we’re probably looking at two or three training sessions a week and a game. Counting days on my fingers – it MIGHT work. Physically he could handle it. Heck – he would thrive on such a schedule (his doctor has recommended we keep him as active as possible; this certainly fills that prescription). Depending on when those sessions were. Do we know? Nope. Not for hockey. Not for soccer. I already have a headache. He’s only 8.

Yesterday I told him he would have to chose – if not this year then next. He pointed out how much he liked to play both sports. I told him he could still play the sport he didn’t pick just not at an elite level. He got very quiet.

Hockey

So when you stop doing something. It’s really hard to get started again. I considered just closing this blog but today I have a funny situation to relate and thought how appropriate it would be for a blog post. So here I am. Can’t guarantee anything else will follow but for now here I am. Is anyone still out there. I doubt it. Ah well. I've also discovered that if I post from work - as I am now - hard returns don't show up thus the block of text that will follow. Sorry about that. Just so you know – everything is going well. Kids are growing like weeds. They are happy, well-adjusted. Claude has one semester left of College left given some hiccups but he’s happy to. I’m getting by. Doing well at work. Have had some interesting travel to Asia and feeling quite fulfilled of late. This post – about eating crow – maybe just sampling it a bit. As I’ve told you before Sam is a little athlete. He’s never met a sport he doesn’t excel at and love (the exception being swimming; he swims much like a cat, an overweight cat, an overweight cat with joint problems – we’re working on this). His two big loves (mostly because that’s what we have encouraged) have been soccer and hockey. I decided long ago that I was a soccer-Mom – armed and ready with everything but the mini-van. Both kids have played organized soccer since they were three years old pretty much year round. Kamryn enjoys it but if it vanished from her life I don’t think she would care one way or the other. Sam on the other hand lives and breathes it. He plays a lot and he’s athletic so he is good at it. Last year he played U-8 soccer as a seven-year old. This year he is playing on a weird little experimental team – 12 U-8 boys and one U-7 boy who as a team are playing at the U-9 level (house-league). The idea was to let them take their knocks together this year and next year they would be a team to be reckoned with. They are almost unbeatable which was a surprise. I can’t wait to see what happens when they enter the competitive ranks against kids their own ages next year. Competitive-level soccer her we come. We are ready. Not so much for hockey. In hockey we thought we had more time to make up our minds. Competitive hockey wasn’t supposed to start for us until Sam’s minor Atom year when he would be 9 years old. We had basically decided it wasn’t for us. For many reasons some of them pure hubris: 1) It’s expensive – time and money wise. 2) He is unlikely to get anything more out of competitive hockey than he would out of house league hockey (translation: its unlikely that he will be drafted by the Montreal Canadiens in the first round and go on to make millions). 3) Its expensive. 4) It’s HIGHLY political and often its not how good your child is but how much money you’re willing to put towards the team and who you know and you your father was/is. 5) It’s expensive 6) We wanted to be courted and weren’t. As I’ve said before Sam is good. Eye-openly good in my opinion. Last year was fun because more often than not some random parent was stopping us, slack-jawed, to ask it that kid was our son and what did we “do” to make him that good. Random parents stopped us – the league ignore us (with good reason kids like Sam are a dime a dozen; he’s not that special to them). Still people in the know knew who he was and we knew that. We wanted to feel the love a little. No love was forthcoming. Worse he was put at the wrong level (based solely on his age) and likely learned nothing last year. 7) It’s expensive. 8) No one I spoke to about the competitive program had very much good to say about it. They would cringe (and hopefully pull up their socks) if they really listened to all the negative press flying around about them. Unlikely though because oh my lord what an insulated Old Boys Club. So we weren’t going to do it but we knew we had another year to decide. Then this summer, the eager beavers who are the Dad’s with kids born in 2004 decided they wanted to form a competitive Major Novice team (so 8-year olds). We said we weren’t going to do it. We held to that belief for 6 weeks. This week I broke. I saw him play (for the first time in months since hockey season ended in March). The kid skates like he came out of the womb with blades attached to his feet. He thinks on the ice. He plays his position. He passes (little kids don’t pass… ever). I really thought it would be a disserve to him to throw him back into the non-comp pond. He wouldn’t be bored but he wouldn’t soar like I know he can. He’s still unlikely to be drafted by the Montreal Canadiens in the 1 round or the 16th for that matter. It’s still expensive – honestly I don’t know if we can afford it. We can do this year and probably next but eventually he might have to stop playing to his ability and play instead to his parents ability to pay (a season can cost $15,000). We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. I like the coaches that have been picked to coach at the novice level. Both men who know and like (I think) Sam. I’m already grumbling though. This is the first year for the Novice level team but I only know about it because three of the kids Sam plays soccer with will be on the team. It’s word of mouth only – so unless you know someone you don’t know about it. Horribly political. We also still haven’t been courted, although I was amused to learn that it was just expected he would try-out (and make the team). Some guy I’ve seen but never met before stopped Sam in the change room before shinny hockey on Sunday to joke about not hurting himself before “insert team name here” try-outs. Ummm…. who are you? How do you know my son? We’ll count that as courting. So many hockey Dads have inquired as to whether he will try out or not. No one ever asked about Kamryn… ever. Okay this might all be over soon. Tryouts start 1 September and run over five days. If he doesn’t make the team, I’m out a hundred dollars and he’ll play house league and oh well. If he doe excel at s… whole new world.