After 19 years of travel coaching, I had a new gig as the Coaching Instructor for a small neighborhood club. Gone were the exhilarating weekly trips to Rockford, IL, Muscatine, IA, and Soulsuck, MO.

And though I’m not certain of this, I’m certain of this; with each new player that joined the team I probably uttered the phrase, “I wish we would’ve gotten him earlier.”

Natalie walks slowly up to the ball. She has practiced the ritual hundreds of times. Readjust the ball, walk back, look the opposite direction of where you’re shooting, take a deep breath, then bury the ball in the back of the net – just like her dad taught her.

While guest coaching a U13 girls practice many years ago, I was thoroughly entertained by one girl. She was tough, skillful and competitive – losing was not on her agenda.

Some people think Social Media will be societies undoing and purged all Social Media platforms. I’m not sure who they are; they’re too tough to get a hold of.

It was also my first sustained interaction with a soccer parent being, well, a soccer parent.

I pointed, gesticulated, used my fingers to provide numbers, and kept asking the kids if anyone spoke Spanish.

One time while recruiting for Purdue University’s women’s soccer, I was driving a recruit when Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get it On” came over the radio. The recruit started singing along, then said, “I think this is the sexiest song of all time.”

About five minutes into the practice, I told a few of the girls who were struggling to “Smile.” They half-smiled and continued to work and improve. At the time, I didn’t think much of the exchange, but I was about to.

The store had at least a hundred mesmerizing, time-traveling, reminiscing, throw-back to my childhood lunchboxes:

“Coach, I have a question for you,” the dad said earnestly

When I played youth soccer, we employed a sweeper, (the intellectually-mature-manchild who organized the defense, understood angles, connected passes), and marking backs (three numbskulls who chased and kicked opposing players). I was one of the numbskulls.

And I loudly walked away, silently lambasting Matt with my Puritanical rage and Socratic coaching logic. He had no idea what he was in for. He would wilt from my diatribe, maybe cry and or possibly quit coaching altogether.

I crutched over to my first practice without a working knee. I was terrible. Practice lacked rhythm and pace. Everything took too long.

A mother approached Jim Kearney, her son’s cross country coach, “Coach, will you talk to my son. He’s refusing to get out of the car for the race.”

Then one guy said, “I don’t think women should be coaches. No offense, that’s just what I think.”

When I told my college coach I was going to do a semester abroad in Austria, he gave me one condition, “Robbie, you can spend a semester abroad as long as you find a team train with.”

The soccer ball on the partially frozen Vltava River taunts the two boys.