The Coach's Son
In the book of sports clichés, the coach’s son is the best player on the field. If he’s not the best, he’s at least the most enthusiastic, eagerly setting up cones, chasing down balls, and generally spreading good will with his love of the game and gratitude for his old man’s guidance.
Then there’s Alexander.
It’s not that my five-year-old lacks ability. He’s always been one of the fastest, most agile kids on the playground, with a low, soccer-suited center of gravity that had him scooting up and down the block from the time he could walk. And for years I’ve watched him kick the ball gleefully with other kids at the park, birthday parties, and the like.
In the dynamic of organized play, however, with me as coach, something gives. Even his physical coordination seems off. Mostly, though, it’s his attitude.
On the rare occasions when Alexander takes the field willingly, he’s a basket case of emotions, careening between fits of rage and hostile indifference—foot stomping, fighting over free kicks, and this kind of vaudeville routine where his body goes boneless right in the middle of 3-v-3 play. One time, he hit a perfect strike into his own goal and then glowered at me from across the pitch before bursting into tears.
“It’s like watching the Oedipal struggle play out against a backdrop of astro turf and neon green uniforms,” my wife Rebecca said after a recent game. I’d been in a rage of my own since leaving the playing fields, though the silent, stewing kind I knew as a kid.
She went on: “He’s taking the thing that matters most to you and saying ‘Hey, Dad, watch me crush this.’” Point taken. And I had to admit to its effectiveness, especially in the context of The Second Half, my journey of self-discovery through the game of soccer. Back to the sports cliché, the storybook ending would see the recovery of my lost potential through Alexander’s accomplishments, the shortcomings of the father made whole with each new goal.
That’s a dangerous game of expectation, I know. Remember the Philip Larkin poem?
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
It’s the “not meaning to” that’s always interested me in that verse. I guess there are parents who deliberately ruin their kids, but I don’t know any of them. And I’m certainly not one myself. So, what’s the right move here, if I’m to defy Larkin and not fuck up Alexander? The logical answer, one Rebecca floated, is to stop coaching him, at least in the short term. “He just can’t share you with other kids right now,” she said.
That makes sense, especially given Alexander’s recent diagnosis of type 1 diabetes. The little dude has been through a lot these last few months. Still, if I were to stop coaching Alexander, I’d probably need to stop coaching his older sister, too. I’m the only coach she’s ever known, so that might not be such a bad thing. Thinking back on my own childhood, by the time I came around, the youngest of four, my father had hung up his coach’s whistle. And of all the siblings, only my passion for team sports has endured. It might not be a direct line between those two facts, but some cause and effect could be at play. After all, the parent/child relationship is already complicated enough.
The problem with not coaching is, well, somebody has to do it, at least at the volunteer youth-league level. More than that, though, I really love coaching, the time it gives with my own kids as well as others. And not for nothing, I’m good at it too. Just last week, I received an email from the father of a player I coached two seasons ago. He was writing to say that his daughter “is playing and is doing great thank you for your guidance!” I’m not saying I’m the next Alex Ferguson. But to give up coaching would be a disappointment on many levels, and it might even spark some feelings of resentment in me towards Alexander.
Fucked if you do, fucked if you don’t, as Larkin might say. And maybe that’s the point. Maybe it’s not only inevitable for parents to screw up their kids—it’s necessary too, since conflict paves the way for self-creation. In a child’s search for identity, who better to knock heads with then his mom and dad, the two people whose primary duty is his protection and well-being?
I don’t know if I really believe that. At this point, I’m not sure what I believe. All I know is that there’s another game on Saturday. It will probably be rough. Tears will be shed, tempers lost, bodies will go limp. And there’s a good chance Alexander will score another own goal. But if it’s like the others, it will be a clean hit ball, buried low and hard into the side netting, just like his father taught him.