Don't mess with this soccer mom!

Madison had a soccer game this past Saturday morning. She looked forward to it as she does every soccer game. The game started off well and Madison was on a roll. She scored about 4 goals pretty early on and was pumped that she was doing so great!

Out of the blue her coach began sending her off the field repeatedly for water breaks. And when I say repeatedly, I mean every 45 seconds. In this particular league that Madison plays in (5 and under), all team players play every game. In other words, no players sit out as the games themselves are only 25 minutes long. Scott defended the coach to me as I began to get irritated, not knowing his intentions. He explained that he was probably trying to give the other players on the team a chance to get the ball, since Madison is so quick to be right up there with the ball.

Ok, fine. I'm okay with that. I want the other team members to feel that same boost in morale as Madison gets when she scores. But there was one problem. The coach was being ridiculous in how he handled this.

The first problem I had with it was that he never explained to Madison (or us) what his intentions were. Luckily, we're smart people and we figured it out. ;) But Madison never had a clue as to what was going on. How about just TELLING her?? Trust me, she's smart enough to follow a simple direction.

Second problem, he was being stupid about it! He kept saying to Madison, "Boy, you look thirsty, go get some more water!" Every. single. minute. Madison was so confused and was just being shuffled around back and forth, not getting to play. At one point when she ran back out to the field, the coach said, "Hey, mom wants to tell you a story. Storytime...go back to mom!" I mean, come on...ridiculous.

Third problem was the sheer amount of time he kept her out of the game. More than HALF of the entire game he played these ridiculous games with Madison. I found it very disrespectful to both Madison AND us.

Not the end of the world, right? Nope, not at all. Again, we understood his intentions and were okay with that. We just really didn't appreciate the way he handled it and felt, as Madison's parents, it was our responsibility to say something to him afterwards. Scott approached him after the game just to let him know we would like it better if he could explain to Madison what was going on instead of playing games and leaving her to wonder why she wasn't able to play at all. He got immediately defensive, raised his voice (in front of all the young kids) and told Scott he should coach if he thought he could do a better job.

What??? That's not at all what we were saying.

The coach refused to talk about it any further and literally WALKED AWAY from Scott! When he returned from his car, Scott approached him again to make sure he understood this was not an attack on his coaching abilities, simply a request to show a little respect to his players. The yelling, screaming and profanities spewing out of the coach's mouth at that point told us he maaaaay have some anger management issues. Yikes. And this is who is coaching 4 year olds?

I've been so upset about this all weekend and am absolutely floored at his behavior. This man had Madison on his team last season and asked our permission to have her back on his team this fall. He has even approached us to ask if he can personally coach her one-on-one this winter because he thinks she has such potential. Um, no, our 4 year old does not need one-on-one soccer coaching, thankyouverymuch. And what exactly would be the point of coaching her to be even better, when she will be punished for getting "too many goals"? (Yes, at one point during the argument, he asked Scott if he thought he should allow her to continue getting goal after goal after goal during the game. Umm...correct me if I'm wrong, is that not the point of a soccer game?)

Anyways, contact information for the association is somewhat sketchy because it is a volunteer organization. We have contacted the VP regarding his behavior, but have yet to hear back. I'm antsy to hear something or contact somebody else because I just felt his reaction was soooo out of line.

Ok, baby is awake, must go!