The Final Whistle pt. 3

 After Coach Cageboy's email about not making the team the I-mac showed some of his old fire... and though he didn't really want to play at this club he also knew his options were limited, yet not even getting an offer pissed him off, especially from his high school coach... that's the game at these clubs, the coaches like to build the best team possible but often try to divert the best players on their high school teams to their clubs where it gives them an opportunity to work with the players more... the I-mac went out and began destroying kids in the summer high school practices, the kid was always the class of his program, they had no one who had his skill, intelligence and athletic ability all rolled into one and once again Coach Cageboy was telling him how he expected big things, how he was going to run the attack through him, how he was the key to the team's success this year... and yet somewhere along the lines things went pear-shaped, badly... 

Let me state this... Coach Cageboy is hands down the worst fucking coach i've ever seen in any sport i've ever been associated with... fucking awful... he has no tactical ability, no game management ability, doesn't know how to run a program, horrible at training, can't break down film or scout, seems almost incapable of evaluating talent and incapable of taking the talent he has and getting it set up in the right positions to get the best out of his players and be the best team possible.. he acts like a dictator, is unapproachable to his players, will suddenly bench a kid and then not speak a word to them, not tell them why or what they did to lose time, (he openly ran away from the I-mac and would use an assistant to intercept him before he could actually speak to him) wouldn't listen to any of his assistants other than his old head coach who was another shit coach who was the beneficiary of excellent players but as a coach was almost as awful as Cageboy, information that came from the old coach's ex-players... Cageboy was a fucking trainwreck... his style of coaching was to sit catatonic but then jump up and start screaming at the referee about the most mundane call in the game... with his players it was name calling, he called them fucking pussies, fucking embarrassments, fucking losers, said they took no accountability for their play, said they made him look bad and at one point last year threw an expensive camera in anger in front of some players... in short a fucking loser who has no business ever coaching kids... in a way i almost want to send him a thank you note for not taking the I-mac on his club team where i'd have to pay to have this ass clown as the I-mac's coach... 

To say i have no respect for the man would be selling it short... i've coached off and on for a long time and not once did i ever blame my players for a loss... this guy seemed to think every loss was his team's fault and that he had nothing to do with it... this gig was his dream job, he played here (albeit one season as a starter and the rest as the waterboy), grew up in the community, has his own business here, liked to trot out the medals they won in high school and talk about legacy... (full disclosure, a very good friend of mine was as an all-conference midfielder two years running on those teams, as a junior they won the district and as a senior lost in the district finals, making it all the way to the final four of States that year, he thought it was hysterical how Cageboy talked about the year they won the district as Cageboy barely broke a sweat... other than warm-ups)... i've also never called my kids derogatory names and told them they're making me look bad, i've had some tough losses as a coach and i've always told my team that if there was any blame it was on me, that i didn't do a good enough job and that they gave me everything they had and that's all i can ever ask for... i won't say if i'm a good coach or not but i always tell my players and parents to judge me on these things... does the player get better? does the team get better? and are we competitive? i've had a number of parents tell me the season or seasons they've enjoyed the most was when their kid played for me... i've had players tell me they developed and learned while playing for me... and it's a great feeling when i see a kid, years later, and they yell "Coach!" and stop and talk with me... it's better than any paycheck i'll ever get... the gist is as a coach the team's performance is my responsibility and i'll take the heat for the loss and give the players the credit for the win... that's how you fucking do it... 

As the season inched closer it seemed that history would repeat itself... Coach Cageboy had fallen in love... with a sophomore he wanted to play at striker, the I-mac began to mention how the coach fawned all over the kid and knowing Coach Cageboy like we did it did not bode well for the I-mac's season... he was still having stomach issues but was working to get it corrected and had for the most part but right before the season he had an anxiety problem, he talked to Cageboy about it who seemed to say all the right things... (a side note: the school had put in place a program about mental health for it's athletes and stressed how important it was for coaches to be cognizant and aware of it and to help the players if they were approached and talked to about it, the coaches had to take classes and understand and help them if anything came up...) but Coach Cageboy is nothing if not a raging shitbag and it appeared that this was just the thing he was looking for... granted the I-mac can be a bit of a headcase (as previously noted) but this time he had done the right thing and communicated, after a few days he actually told Cageboy the talk had helped and he felt a lot better about things and more relaxed... the team went across the state for the season's opening weekend, an event that's been going on for 30 odd years, he started both games but would be subbed off around 13-15 minutes into the game (in high school soccer a player can come off and go back on) and then come back in with a few minutes left in the half or not at all, by game two he wasn't even starting the second half... the kid who was told they'd run the offense through was now playing roughly 30 minutes out of 80... the writing was on the wall... 

Then came the infamous bus incident... the trip was across the state, if someone went in the bathroom on the bus and the person near the door put the seat back a bit the person wouldn't be able to get out of the bathroom... the I-mac was sitting at the front of the bus nowhere near the bathroom door... it had been going on the whole trip, on the way there and back, but on the way back Cageboy became aware of it when the kid in the bathroom was making noise about being locked in... remember these are teenage high school boys, which really is all that needs said... Cageboy then had a meltdown on the bus and asked who knew about it, basically the whole team did and when they all raised their hands somehow Cageboy "managed" to only see some of the hands... his new boy crush wasn't even paying attention as he was too busy looking at his phone so he didn't even hear... when they got back he had a team meeting and told roughly ten players they would lose minutes and those who were starters wouldn't start the next game... one of the captains, who raised his hand but wasn't seen, was relieved he wasn't named and as i told the I-mac, the team should vote and strip him of his captaincy (something the kid would lose later in the season for posting stupid shit on social media... guess who thought it was fit to name him a captain? that's right Cageboy)... in the I-mac's case it was just what Cageboy needed though, a chance to bench him and put in his new boy crush... (it should be noted they were 0-2, having lost both games over the weekend.) 

As i've said before i've coached off and on for 30 odd years... one of the things i've been told i'm very adept at is scouting talent, i understand what to look for, the strengths and weaknesses the player possesses, when it came to Cageboy's boy crush i was literally at a loss... it was nothing personal against the kid and in truth i felt a bit bad for him, his coach was doing him a disservice by fawning all over him especially when it was painfully obvious to all that he wasn't very good... yet Cageboy with his sage eye felt he had discovered a superstar... the kid played defense on the second team at one of the lowest ranked clubs around... a brief synopsis of his skills... his first touch was awful, he over-dribbled and held the ball far too long, his passing skills were nil, his main attribute was shoving people over and committing fouls, his soccer IQ was close to zero... the kid wouldn't have started on most JV teams and wouldn't have started on our JV team (the JV coach is actually and excellent coach) but Cageboy believed he was the savior... he actually nicknamed him D-1 at one point, meaning he thought this kid was going to play at the top level in college someday... when i heard this i almost choked... are you fucking kidding me? this kid is just bad, he's just not a very good player, he needed a ton of work and even then he'd never be fast enough to play in college at any level to be honest... he's just flat out slow, not to mention lazy... on multiple occasions players the I-mac knew from other teams would ask him on the field what the fuck his coach was doing? they'd openly laugh at D-1, one player walking up to him and actually telling the kid he was the worst high school player he'd ever seen... as stated Coach Cageboy was doing the kid no favors, his own team was getting fed up and grumbling cuz the kid was so ineffective it was almost painful to watch, he may have been at least serviceable against the bad teams but against the average and good teams it was like playing a man down... some of the opposing players even told the I-mac they felt sorry for him to be on such a bad team with a shit coach... even the fucking opposing players could see it... 

One could only guess that opposing coaches were laughing at Cageboy and his "genius"... and when it came to Cageboy's "genius" there was no limit to depths it could plumb... by the end of the season over a half dozen players had went to the athletic director and laid out a long list of grievances against the man... Cageboy had singlehandedly chased what was arguably the team's best defender off the team, the kid went from starting to playing ten minutes to not playing at all and was never once told why, at one point Cageboy called the kid a cancer when it was obvious the only cancer was the coach... and there was also the little matter of Cageboy's nephew playing on the team, a kid who played out on the left wing but had no left foot, he just couldn't use it... not at all... it wasn't long before every team in the section knew it and rendered the kid useless, he'd either dribble over the endline or lose the ball, at best he'd just pass backwards to his midfield, it was a fabulous display of inept coaching and nepotism... this team was sinking faster than the Titanic, it would not be long before the annual Cageboy meltdown would occur and the asshat would lose the whole team... (to be cont.)