I have this theory that the children’s rec soccer in the small town where I grew up is corrupt. The basic idea was, you pay ten bucks, sign a piece of paper, and your child gets ”randomly” assigned to a team. No try-outs were involved, you simply got handed a colored t-shirt and a schedule. “Random,” my butt.
Now, you may say I am biased since I was the six-year-old with the straight-across bangs stumbling down the field in my brother’s old jean shorts and telling my mom “I don’t understand why the ball never comes to me.” But I played in that league for seven long years. And every year, I ended up on these teams full of other kids with sagging shin guards who could barely kick a ball while at least two teams in the league were stacked with every star sports player in town. Those teams would run us into the dirt with their complex formations and their sporty coaches, while we kicked the ball straight off the field into the adjacent corn.
When I was in first grade, I was on the yellow team. Not only did we lose every game, but we scored one measly goal the entire season. But boy do I remember the goal that we scored. That ball sailed into the net and our kind, patient coach went wild. He actually did a cartwheel on the sidelines to communicate his excitement.
And I still remember his cartwheel, seventeen years later. At that moment, I could have sworn the yellow team was the best team in the world.
I now find myself as an esports coach. You might think to yourself, “Wow, a young teacher using her passion for video games to make a difference in the lives of the youth.” That would be nice, wouldn’t it?
In reality, my video game experience extends little beyond Luigi’s Mansion and Animal Crossing on the Nintendo GameCube. But my kids needed a coach to compete, so I volunteered my largely useless expertise to act as legal supervision for the team.
A few weeks ago, I was sitting in the audience, ready to watch my kids play one of the best schools in the league. We weren’t optimistic about our chances. But if my kids are anything, they are positive. In our tournament, we play Rocket League, best three out of five. And so I watched the first game, where we lost spectacularly with a score of 10-0.
I rushed up to the stage for an inter-game pep talk. One of my students, with the absolute biggest smile, declared, “That’s the best we have played in a while. Most teams lose to them WAY worse.” A balding man in a yellow t-shirt cartwheeled across my imagination.
“You guys played absolutely amazing. I bet you can lose by LESS than ten points next round.”
Safely back in my seat, I could barely breathe as I watched them blasting around the field. Their defense was amazing. Every time one of them made a save, the kids and I cheered. The other team glanced around with bemused expressions. Who were these punks who were excited to be losing?
By the time I made it up to the stage for my next pep talk, my kids were glowing.
“Alright, you guys did 7-0 this game. Can we make it even less?”
They nodded, with determination shining from beneath their bulky headsets.
And so began the third round. I nearly fell out of my seat at the excitement of every stopped goal, every time the ball was launched to the opposite end of the field. As the seconds ticked down from five, we were still only down by six. As the clock clicked down to zero, I threw my hands into the air, absolutely losing my mind. I made eye contact with one of my students across the room who was yelling a cheer of sweet victory.
On our way out the door, I heard one of the guys who runs the tournament say, “Carson City might not be that good, but they have better mental fortitude than any of the other teams by far.”
I nearly cried.
Susannah currently lives in New Jersey and works as a 7th grade ELA teacher in East Harlem. When she is not teaching or writing, she can be found exploring independent bookstores, going backpacking, and trying to roller-skate on all the cool trails in the city. She is also recently experienced in the art of citrus skunk repellent (I know you’re impressed).
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I love every bit of this essay. Go Carson City-Crystal!
Loved this. When I played baseball as a kid I was always on a terrible team. Meanwhile, all the travel league kids “somehow” played together. One of my proudest moments in life was striking out one of my classmates who played on that stacked team. Of course, we probably lost the game 15-0.