The Final Whistle pt. 1

 A few years back, one of the I-mac's better coaches looked at his team of 12 and 13 yr olds and asked them an interesting question... this coach was young and coaching the boy's club team on his way to coaching in college (he's now somewhere in Colorado i believe) but the question was this... how many competitive games do you think you have left in your career? a somewhat heavy question for these kids but an excellent one i thought... he then told them the reason he asked them was this... at their age they probably think that they'll be playing for a long time, that they have a ton of games left but that in fact they don't, that it will go fast, that for a large number of them when they play their last high school or club game as a U19 that most likely they will never play an actual competitive game again in the sense that they were playing for something, meaning a league or state or conference title... he than said that there was no excuse not to play hard, to train hard, because before they knew it it would be over... and he was right... he cited his own injury as proof, an excellent player in his own right he had started his college career at a Division 1 school, after injuring his knee he then moved to a smaller school before deciding to hang up his boots and get into coaching... 

I understood where this coach was coming from... (i actually really liked this guy cuz he was an excellent coach who got the best out of the I-mac and had him developing into and absolute beast on the pitch)... i was a hot shit basketball player who had a Division 1 offer on the table pending the decision of a 6'10 inch kid... it's a long story but back in the pre-internet days word somehow got out i was going to a Division 2 powerhouse in Michigan and truth be told it's probably where i should have went, problem was that coach didn't give scholarships to freshman (see the high rate of freshman failing out and i now understand the coach perfectly) but said once i "make the team", which he told i most definitely would, my following three years would be completely paid for... being young and stupid i thought that was dumb seeing how other schools would pay for four years but as stated i understand better now... back then i was first team All Northeast Ohio, among other awards, and of the six players listed i was the only one who didn't have a school, the rest were all going Division 1... one of the players on that list was going to the school that would make me an offer contingent on whether or not the 6'10 kid took the scholarship but they told me if he took it they had a place for me to play, full ride to a junior college in Wyoming, where the plan was i'd play two years, get stronger, and then transfer in... of course this is a post for another time but the point here is i have experience in what it took to get to that level and i've tried to pass that on to both the boyos... 

The last two years for the I-mac have been somewhat of a disaster... some could be squarely placed at the feet of his high school coach, a guy who on a personal level was unfit to coach and on a professional level, meaning being a good coach, was fucking abysmal, in fact i don't think i've ever come across a worse coach than this fucking clown... of course that does not absolve the I-mac in his role in the last two years and much of what has taken place is of his own doing... sometimes one has to make a decision, either commit to the task at hand to be the best player/student one can be... or one does not... the I-mac has chosen the latter (though he would claim different), which is tough for his old man to say but it's the truth, i've tried my best not to sugarcoat things for my sons when it comes to things cuz it does no good, i will calmly talk to them about what they want to do and what they need to do to get there and as i often tell them that's all i can really do as it's up to them to take it from there, i can guide, i can help in different ways, but when it comes to putting in the work it's on them... in short, it's their life and no one can live it for them... 

The I-mac suffered a torn PCL in his knee playing club after his freshman year, he was all but cleared, in fact would have been had his physical therapist not been on vacation but went back to high school practice only to torch a senior center back (he was a sophomore) who would haul him down breaking his arm and spraining his MCL, a play described by teammates as "fucking filthy"... Coach Cageboy, his high school nickname, which he despised, given because he was the hyped up moron who spent most of his time on the bench, didn't have the decency to ask if he was even okay as he and the trainer walked off the field, that one play basically cost him his sophomore year... in between he got a girlfriend who liked booze and weed and sex... granted i'm under no illusions what 15yr old boys are into, i was very much into the latter activity but never touched booze or weed until the spring of my junior year in high school, well late by most people's standards, and during my senior season i touched neither and had no girlfriend preferring  to stay focused on hoops... after a summer of drinking and getting high then ordering greasy food late at night the boy basically torched his stomach... he had actually played really well all summer but right before school the problems intensified, particularly in the mornings when they had a practice and though the coach had told him he was going to run the offense through him suddenly the guy was watching a kid who looked like a shell of his former self. 

Now as a guy who has coached off and on for 30 some odd years, which really makes me feel fucking old, i did understand where Cageboy was coming from, a coach can't build a team or run an offense through a player who isn't fit, one who seems to be a hot mess, one who a coach never knows what he's going to get, will he be okay? will he be able to play the role? handle the minutes? and so Coach Cageboy, two days before the season opener completely changed the system... the players and parents didn't seem to understand why probably because they didn't have all the information but i understood... 

This was the I-mac's junior year, they were a senior heavy team with talent and experience, they had all the makings to make a run at a district title that they hadn't won since 2009 and had last played in the championship game in 2019 only to lose in OT.. everyone around the place had high hopes, there were only three underclassmen penciled in to start and the I-mac was one of them and the only offensive player... he's a bit of anomaly in the US, an almost 6'3 inch striker/winger with blazing speed, a wicked shot, can use both feet, the shit coaches dream about... until tryouts and all his issues... one of which being said girlfriend breaking up with him... that threw him for a day or two but timing is everything and it just happened to coincide with the week of tryouts, hence Coach Cageboy watching the kid and scraping his plans... he changed formation and the I-mac was moved to the bench... what followed was a nightmare... the team went 7-11 and missed the playoffs... the team lost 6 games in the last five minutes or OT, each time being beat on a counterattack because Coach Cageboy really had no idea about how to adjust tactically, it wasn't fucking hard, he kept telling his defenders to push up when they should have been sitting deeper to prevent the very way in which they got beat a half dozen times... a good coach would have figured this out the first time it happened and definitely by the second (though honestly one time should have been enough)... the fucking muppet even had the audacity to stand up in  front of a room full of people at the team banquet and call his team the unluckiest team he'd ever seen, did i mention he was drunk? i actually had to stifle a laugh and wanted to stand up and shout at him, "are you fucking kidding me? they were the worst coached team i've ever fucking seen you moron!"... the I-mac still had one more year with the clown so i held my tongue... 

By midway through the I-mac's junior year he had worked his way back to the starting line-up and was playing really well... in fact the top team in the section actually told his coaches how much he frightened them, how when he was on the field they were on edge due to his skill and speed... his coaches actually told this to the whole team before their game versus said school...  so what did Coach Cageboy do? he cut his minutes of course, in fact i've never seen a coach who wanted to lose as much as this fucking guy, maybe Cageboy thought he was outsmarting the other team? but if there is one word one wouldn't associate with Coach Cageboy it would be "smart"... the fact is by midseason the I-mac was back to his normal self yet this moron refused to go back to his original plan and formation, even with his team begging him to switch to it (a 4-3-3 instead of their flat 4-4-2) because they weren't scoring or coming close to utilizing the skill they had in the best positions possible... but as i've often stated, give an asshole a whistle and the title "coach" and some turn into Smiling Joe Stalin, this fucking clown would listen to no one but his old head coach, a dinosaur who in having talked to his former players, was more the beneficiary of talent than actually being a good coach... Coach Cageboy wouldn't listen to his assistants (both very knowledgeable guys and good coaches) or his team... another cardinal sin... a coach who doesn't listen to his players is destined to fail... i may have butted heads with my old high school coach, (i was a fucking handful) but when i told him i saw something to exploit he listened and vice versa when he told me.. we may have wanted to strangle each other but we did respect each other, something Cageboy severely lacked... 

Sadly, the I-mac's junior season would be his best with things going drastically south afterwards... after playing U19 as a U16, the coach who really loved him as a player was reassigned to a younger team, basically how they do it here in the States... the I-mac was put back with his old team due to an injury and mix up at tryouts even though on his last tryout he absolutely torched the top team in a scrimmage, torched them to the point they were man marking him with two players while a third helped... they still couldn't stop him.. we were then notified, well not really we actually had to contact the club, about the fact they brought in a new coach from the one he thought he'd have who while starting out a bit rocky the I-mac now got along with well... the new guy was a fucking joke, ran practices built more for U9s and in short turned the team into a shit show... in fact they went to Florida for a tournament, something i was glad to not have to splash out on, where they lost three games conceding 13 and scoring 1, a penalty... they were god-awful and got no better...

Before that shit show though the boy had played in a showcase with this club... or basically one game after which i told him he could leave and we could find a new club... he was easily the best player on his team and he was horribly frustrated by his teammates, a lot of what they did could be corrected by coaching but at these clubs i began to realize that some of these guys are doing as little as possible while collecting a paycheck... during the game as the I-mac sprinted down the line after the ball on a wet pitch he slipped as he went out of bounds, my heart sank as he went down awkwardly and i thought he had done his knee again... he went to get up and then went back down and the linesman, who was a decent human being told him to stay down while he waved the flag indicating injury, there was blood pouring down his leg as there wasn't much room around the field and he had hit a bit of a rough spot, basically gravel, when the linesman asked if he was okay he said physically yes but mentally no, the guy said he understood and the I-mac jogged off but his frustration came to a head and once at the bench he punched the dugout so hard i thought he shattered it... 

It wasn't the smartest thing and i told him that later, there were college coaches there and any who might have been interested most likely would have crossed his name off their list but it was his own coach he proved to be the biggest asshole... as a coach i've always tried to take an interest and get to know my players, it helps to know their personalities, any previous injuries, of course this guy barely knew his players' names and so he then made a comment about "being mad cuz you got a boo-boo", i actually told the I-mac i was proud of him cuz had a coach said that to me back in the day they'd have had to pull me off him as i kicked his ass... i was worried about his knee but as he walked towards me and the car i knew it was over, never had i seen the kid so joyless playing a game he loved... he was angry and upset and as we drove home i told him we'd look for a new club, this one was a horrible fit and it was probably best i not get near this coach... i don't care whose kid it is, if you see a kid go down like that, get up with blood pouring out his leg, maybe a little concern for the player's well being... the I-mac didn't handle it well but this clown handled it worse... (to be cont.)