After this evening's lacrosse practice, I've gained additional respect for both elementary school teachers and advocates for reducing class size. My fellow coaches couldn't make it tonight, so it was just me and 25 girls. It started out innocuous enough. They all ran, stretched and did some ground ball drills while I warmed up the goalie. Everyone seemed in good spirits because I had told them that we were going to scrimmage for the rest of practice.
After getting them separated into even teams (a bit of a challenge, but not off the charts), we got everyone positioned and commenced playing. It was going tolerably well. They are starting to get the move around on offense thing and the defensive play is improving dramatically but is still inconsistent. I stopped play a few times to correct some mistakes in positioning or tactics and we were moving along. I was feeling pretty good about the whole thing.
Then the cry rang out for a water break. Since it was warm out, I went against my better judgement and we took a 5 minute break. The rumblings of discontentment started when they could form secret cabals and plot against me while sipping their libation.
On return from the break, I thought it would be fair to rotate people around to different positions. I requested that the defense rotate to midfield, the midfield to attack and the attack to defense. This prompted many requests to play center and general confusion. I tried to get it sorted for about 10 minutes and eventually just had to go with what we had. After a few more feeble attempts, it was clear that my plans had been defeated. I struck my colors and called it a day.
These are great girls and well behaved in small groups, but get them in a critical mass and it is Lord of the Flies time out there and I'm Piggy getting whacked in the head with a rock. Although a lacrosse field is bigger than a classroom and the age range is broader than most classes (1st through 5th), you really need to have about one adult for every 15 kids to get anything done and half that is even better.
2 comments:
Wait until t-ball, because it gets worse. Try getting a bunch of five and six year old (mostly) boys to keep track of their gloves and caps and (&^$%^#$&^) water bottles (because they expect YOU to keep mind of all that), and then you shout out their fielding positions as at least three of them tug on your shirttail and shout "Can I bat this inning, can I bat this inning?"
Hey, I think I have a Circle column here.
As a parent of one of the elem. girls on that team that night, my heart went out to you as I watched.....God love you since you handled the situation very well. I guess that is why you are doing this and not me. I will pray that next year you are not thrown to the "little wolves" by yourself. Thanks for a great season, for your hard work, time and most of all your patience.
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