Dipping into AYSO

Mike asked if Wyland might be interested in playing AYSO soccer.  When I asked him he said definitely no.  Even with the idea of playing with Xavier.  But I signed him up anyway.  None of my kids have played soccer before, probably because it's one of the few sports that I myself didn't play as a kid.  Wyland seems to be intimidated by pretty much all sports.  I am such a big believer in team sports helping to shape you as an adult.  I want that for him.  So hopefully if we keep trying a few different ones he will find something he likes.  If not, then we'll look into a musical instrument.  I read somewhere once that someones rule for their kids was that they played a sport or a musical instrument and it was a rule.  I like that idea an awful lot.

Anyway, back to the soccer.  I think he was the most inexperienced kid on the team.  He would run along with the other kids but kind of avoid the ball itself.  His coach however was AMAZING.  Just so kind.  He made sure that Wyland got equal playing time as the other kids.  He gave him turns throwing the ball in, even when he had no clue which direction to throw it.  I can't even say how much I appreciated his coaching style.  By the end of the first half of the season Wyland was even getting in there with the ball and giving it a bit of a kick.  He'll be starting back up again soon for the second half of his season.

                               How does he see with all that hair?

       Getting in there. 

Getting his toes wet.

Back in the summer time Mike asked whether I thought that Wyland would be interested in playing soccer with Xavier.  When I asked Wyland about it he was a definite NO.

I signed him up anyway.

He said no to baseball last year and once he got going I think he enjoyed himself.  He had NO clue how to play.  But I’m proud of him, he never complained about going to practice and with the promise of a “big toy” if he got a goal, he was also encouraged to go after the ball a bit.  Xavier had played before and he’s REALLY good at it.  Was fun to watch him as well.  They had a really great coach that was so so so kind to Wyland.  He included him all the time despite him being the least experienced and least aggressive player and really worked hard with him. 

He’ll be starting back up again in the Spring for the second half of their season.  I hope that he’s looking forward to it!

Wyland getting in there.

Until the Spring…

And so it begins .. tackle football that is.

Jackson seemed a little unsure whether he wanted to play tackle football.  He would say he wanted to and then the next time we talked about it he would say he wasn't sure.  And it's no cheap investment.  I need to be planning to budget for it this year!  That's how expensive it is!

In the end we got him registered and before I knew it practice was starting and that was no joke.  It was the middle of summer and he had practice 5 nights a week for two hours a night (minimum) for like 4 or 5 weeks straight.  I felt so bad.  I didn't realize what a huge investment of our time it would be.  And by "our" I mean the whole family revolved around football practice.  No more gym class.  Dinners were kind of a disaster.  Jeramie was at practice with him the whole time all week long.  In a word .. it pretty much sucked.  I'm also kind of used to Jackson being one of the taller kids.  But he played in the 8 and 9 year old division and he was BARELY 8 years old.  I believe he was the second to smallest on the team.  As a small player I expected him to play mainly offense, alas he predominantly played defense.  It was really fun watching him progress as the time went by.  He went from being a bit intimidated by the bigger kids to actually tackling some of them.

This year was a good year for Jackson overall.  I really saw him mature this year.  It was fun going from watching him run around randomly during flag football seasons to actually understanding and running real football plays this year.  Here are just a few of my favorite pictures from this season.

Jeramie said that they wouldn't fit his whole last name on his jersey and so he had to pick just one.  Of course he went with "Kramer".  I personally think they should have made more of an effort to fit the whole thing!  Especially since that's all they call him by at practice.

Boys ready.

Here he was going for a block.  It was successful.

I am confident that this will be my next football player.

Wyland isn't really interested.

It was also nice that he was on the same team as neighbor Jackson (aka Jackson B.).  It meant that we could occasionally carpool to practice and such.  They're good buddies.

He finished the season strong.  Had a great time and is already looking forward to playing again in 2015. I guess I had better start saving my money!  Jeramie is also talking about being an assistant coach which will be fun for him as well.  He played football in high school and I know he would love to coach Jackson.

Until next season.  GO JAGS!

First year of Pony league.

I grew up LOVE LOVE LOVING the sport of baseball (okay softball in my case, but basically the same thing).  I grew up watching both my brothers play as well.  I have been really looking forward to my kids playing the game I love so much.  Since we grew up in California it wasn't really clear to me what league is the right league to play in here in Utah .. there's Cal Ripken, Pony League, Babe Ruth .. I'm sure the list goes on.  We were playing recreation center ball .. translates to NON competitive league.  So as it turned out Jackson was a couple years behind all the boys on his team.  Kind of a bummer but there wasn't much we could do about it at that point.  So he went from really unstructured coach pitch, to highly structured machine pitch.  It was a struggle.  But he went to all his practices and slowly as the season progressed he got better.

His coach was relatively good.  My only complaint would be without fail EVERY single game Jackson 100% started by sitting on the bench.  He never missed a practice.  I just didn't think it was fair to do that.  There was a round robin tournament game that they played "for fun" because the team didn't have enough players to field and so it was an instant forfeit.  This would have been an opportunity for the coach to let players play some different positions.  But nope.  Jackson still got stuck in right field (sometimes left).  The outfield is boring, I know this from experience.  Especially in little league where not a lot of balls make it out there in the first place.  I don't feel like the coach really worked to improve some of the players that weren't at the level of the rest and that's unfortunate.  Next season I'm sure he'll play again, and every year they try out and go through a draft process so I'm sure he'll go to another coach. I hope that he gets some different opportunities there.

The face after a strike out.

He was so comfortable with his position on the bench that before each game as the coach read off starting positions Jackson would call out, "Jackson on the bench" as he got to his name.  He knew.  But he didn't mind it so much, so I guess at least there's that.

I love seeing that huge name on the back of his jersey!

That's pure joy on that face!

He still got out but it was the first time that he got a piece of that ball.

He just took off from there!

I am so proud of him.  He really wasn't having that much fun at first.  He had to work hard to get better and even then, he didn't get to play any fun positions, he still sat outfield watching the grass grow around him.  But he didn't give up.  And he says he wants to play again next year!

It was a big time commitment for us as a family.  And I've learned that this is a good league to be in as far as competitive goes.  I will be getting Wyland (if he still wants to) and Oliver going next year as well so that they aren't as far behind as Jackson was.

Flags are so much safer.

Oh this was fun.

The games were often windy and sometimes crazy cold.

But Jackson had so. much. FUN.

It is just amazing to me how much it just clicked for him this year. In previous years he's just kind of ran behind wherever all the other kids went. This year he understood the concept of the game.  He definitely preferred to pull flags on the other team.  I don't think he likes the pressure of carrying the ball but when he did he enjoyed it.  He had a really good coach who made sure all the kids played and they worked on drills before the game.

I love when I remember to bring my big camera to these things!

LOVE this kid!

It felt like it was over so quickly.  I can't believe we are now preparing for his first season of TACKLE football!!  I'm just not sure that I'm ready for this.  I'm not sure he thinks he is either .. haha.  It's going to be interesting.

Junior Jazz .. Jackson's first try at basketball.

Jackson has spent a lot of time watching his brother Jonnie play basketball.  So back in the Spring we signed him up for Junior Jazz.  It was quite fun watching him play.  He started with absolutely no clue about how the game is played.  When he was passed the ball he would immediately look for the first person to pass it off too.  When I asked him about why he did this he said he didn't want to miss the basket.  This was the first of a few sports this year so far that I look back and wish that we as parents had made it more of a priority to work with him to practice.  Our gym doesn't have the lower basketball hoops for the kids so that made it a little hard.

With that being said though, he REALLY enjoyed playing.  He looked forward to all his games and he was a GREAT defensive player.  He was also one of the smaller kids on the team so next year should be an even better experience.  He was number 3.