Finally Football

For the last few months of I have been the soccer, or as we will call it from here on out,the football coach of my school's team. Now all this really entails is taking the girls to football practice every day. Since our school does not have a field of its own we need to go to fields that are near by. The closest field is behind a lumber yard, about a 10-15 minute walk, depending on how lazy the students are being.
But because this field is used by others, the only days that we have found it not occupied are Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. On Tuesday and Thusday we just run. And in all honesty the running is good because many of the girls are very out of shape.
The few students that are very good play multiple sports, so they can't always come to football. Not to mention the fact that volleyball and basketball have regular games, so of course the girls need to practice for those more.
This means that most of the time I end up with a rag tag group of students. Well that is not exactly true. I normally end up with a bunch of the younger students who just want to get off the school grounds, so doing sports with me provides them with a way to get out.

The reason for this post now is because in the last week I had two funny football stories.

Story Number 1:
It had rained for about 3 days. Many hours each day(normally this does not happen). Then the sun came out. I took a group of students to go play football. We found the field already occupied. There was the other field that we could see, but that we had never been too. I suggested that we go. I told the captain to start leading the girls and I would follow up in the rear.
Bad Idea Number One that I had. To go from the field that we were at to the other field we had to cross a boggy marsh. The trail we were following started out well. But then we started encountering all of the trenches of muddy water that we needed to jump. Of course this was Bad Idea Number 2. In case you have never seen me jump, lets just say I was not gifted with that athleticism. For lets say the first 8 jumps I did very well. I was even helping the students across. Then--the final jump--now it didn't look that bad, but because I wanted to be careful I always give myself a running start.
I cleared the trench. But what happens when you get a running start and then jump, you continue for a few steps after the jump. Well, I had seen grass on the other side and it hadn't worried me. Bad Thought Number One. it was not grass. It was water grass. That means that when I cleared the muddy trench water I then 'landed' in water grass. The water went up to my knees. I am serious. All the students just stood there in shock and started saying sorry sorry teacher. I of course climbed out and said its okay,lets keep going. We then played football for two hours--me in soaking wet shoes and socks, not to mention wet and dirty legs. We shall say it was 'pleasant.'

On the way home I told the girls that we need to find another way back, and luckily the captain is a good girl, and she came through. It was a little longer of a trip, but totally worth it.

Story Number 2:
The next day I took the girls to play football again since we had a game on Sunday(it was friday now). For extra help two of my fellow teachers came with me. Which was really nice. We decided to just go directly back to the field we had used the previous day. Once again I had the captain lead the girls, and she was kind enough to take us on the slightly longer path, but the dry one. We had a decent practice.
At the end of practice I told the girls we had to go back to school and I asked the captain to lead the girls again(I always follow up in the rear to make sure I don't lose any students). Well my two fellow teachers come to me before we set off and say, why are we going to go that way, its faster to go the other way. All the students start laughing. I then inform them that the students were being kind to me so I don't wet again because I'm not a very good jumper. Both men laughed for about 5 minutes, and then they said too bad because we are going that way.HA. so then I had to do the jumping again. BUT-this time-I was succesful. aka I did not get wet.

Story Number 3:
We are going to skip ahead in time to Sunday. On Saturday we did have practice, from 7 am to 11.30 am. It was hard core. though nothing really special happened.
Sunday morning-7 am. We meet the students. There was both a basketball and football, so it was a good number of students coming to play. Not to mention about the 20 students we were taking as spectators. This being where it is, we didn't actually leave till around 8.30 after all is said and done. We traveled about 15 minutes away to a school that did have their own field/court. It was a coed school, and being a sunday there were many students around to watch. Basketball started playing first. About 20 minutes into their game, the other football coach started to get in a huff that we needed to start football. Now for purposes like this, I am not the coach, one of the guys is, just because it makes interactions easier.
These two men argued for about 10 minutes about how why can't we wait till the basketball is over because three of our players for football are on the basketball team. While the other man's point was that students can only be on one team.
Well conclusion of the arguement: we have to start football. I get the girls and tell them to head over to the field so can start warming up. Meanwhile I spoke with the basketball coach and he said after another 15 minutes he can give me the girls(our team was winning by a lot).
Here comes the Drama.
The people in charge of district sports come to check the girls out. We had to have a list of the students playing(roster), and identification to prove they were who we said they were(so we can't bring in ringers). For proof we have a team photo. This did not go over well. They wanted individual identity cards for each students. But our students did not have them. This then started a 90 minute arguement. And I am really not lieing. It was intense. Students were involved. I was involved. Everybody was saying something to somebody.
Now I understand the issue they have, but I could not understand why we couldn't just play the game under protest, so at least that way the girls get to play. But NO NO NO, the other team's coach was having none of them. At one point I had to drag away the two men from my school because they were getting so angry I knew that nothing good could come of it.
In the end we didn't get to play. We went back and watched the boys basketball game that came after the girl's. Although it was a good day, I know all the students were really dissapointed about it. Because I was feeling bad for them, and because we had been gone from school soo long, and they missed lunch, I bought enough gum to give each girl a piece. It was amazing how happy that made them. Essentially they were all just tuckered out. We didn't get back to school till 4 pm. Now we had asked the kitchen to save them food, but they didnt save enough, so the oldest girls/captains didn't eat at all, whilst the rest of the girls were just sharing food.
Since I felt bad for them I invited the 5 students back to my house and made them pasta and green beans. It was nice. I think they enjoyed it. At least it was something different for them(the girls eat the same food everyday)(well then again so do I, but I do it because I like to, they do it because they don't have another choice).

Well thats the end of my three football stories in one week. As you can tell, it sure was a long week.