Wonder Woman Shouldn't Play Soccer

Wonder Woman was the coolest. All she had to do was twirl around and she would appear with fabulous clothes, a golden lasso, shield bracelets and a boomerang headband. Wow. And was a giant. She could kick any man's trash. I'm not what you would consider tall and was nothing but knees and elbows until I got into high school. My first year trying out for a competition soccer team I was told I was too small to ever play competition ball. Luckily, the assistant coach could choose the last 5 players on the team (and he was my dad). So all I wanted to be was tall. I envied Amazons. That's probably why I loved Wonder Woman. She was the poster child for Amazons, literally. She was beautiful and when she visited her Amazon sisters on Paradise Island, I imagined being just like them--tall, strong, and didn't need a man, just wanted to toy with them a bit.

Funny thing is, I came to not like "Amazons" on the soccer field. **DISCLAIMER**I am sorry if I offend anyone that is taller than 5' 6'' and is more muscular than I. Characters in this blog do not represent any one specific female in any aspect of my life.** I changed my perception of what an Amazon was in soccer, she was taller and stronger than I was. And if I got to the ball first, all she had to do was bump me and I would fly. So because I hated what happened to me when I played against "Amazons", I directed my dislike towards the ladies playing the game, rather than my own small physique.

Seriously, picture Wonder Woman playing soccer. Now, we know she had incredible speed, too, so she could probably get to the ball quicker than anyone else. However, we also know that she would throw people through the air without a second thought if they were in her way. I would have hated playing against her. I still don't like playing against "Amazons" even now. But if a woman nails me to the wall, or elbows me in the face, I tend to get a little upset. And just like the little tattle-tale that I am, I immediately petition the refs for some help. They, of course, see the plays differently than I do. It must just be that I am too small, so instead of the elbow going into my side, it goes into my face; therefore, I am just too short so there is no foul. Or the fact that I may not have as much mass behind me, I go flying through the air when I am "lightly" bumped; therefore, it is my fault that I am too small and, thus, no foul. So then I choose to take it upon myself to "show" the ref how cheap these ladies are playing and start playing for fouls rather than playing soccer. I'll show them how Wonder Woman has no right to be playing soccer if she is going to be throwing me around, right?! Yep, those are the games that I hate. I am not playing soccer, I am just tyring to prove something. That is never fun. I match whatever perceived energy or attitude that is on the field rather than playing my game.

I so do that in life, too. You want war? I'm your huckleberry. You want to blame me for your situation? I rock at that game. You want to justify why you were right in what you did? Game on. There are times that instead of just playing my game, I play the player instead of the ball. I react to whomever is around me instead of being clear and choosing how I want to be or what I want to do. It is so easy to get hurt and then inflict pain right back. But I am never happy when I am playing that way. Tonight, I played soccer that way and hated every minute of it. Then went and relived every moment to see how the other player was wrong every time. I catch myself doing that with my husband, too. I feel like I have to match his intensity with my own, instead of taking information and using it to get what I want. I don't have to take someone else's energy as my own and throw it back. I can keep my own attitude. I am not a vengeful person, unless I lose my sense of who I am. I am actually a patient, funloving, and compassionate person. And a bit quirky (that's the fun part). If I just play my game and not worry about how the other people are playing, I will still love life and still have tons of opportunity to get what I want in every moment. Watch out Wonder Woman, I got game...

ANECDOTE OF THE DAY: My youngest daughter (who just turned six) went up to my mom and said, "Grammy, I used to not like you very much. But now I am used to you and I love you now. We're best pals." She just plays her game and doesn't worry about how the other person is playing.

SOCCER QUOTE OF THE DAY: "True champions aren't always the ones that win, they're the ones with the most guts." -- Mia Hamm

Perspective Changes in Soccer

Bunch ball...love to watch it...one clump of little bodies chasing a black and white ball. If you are watching girls, it's more prancing than running and a lot of smiling. If you are watching boys, more arms pushing other boys out of the way so they can get at that moving black and white object, not too many smiles. Then as you pan around the field, wait, why isn't that girl playing? Why is she smiling and waving to her mom? Doesn't she know that the ball is 10 yards away with the cluster of girls with pig tails and bows? Doesn't she want to be the one who kicks the ball? Ooh, what is that she just picked up off of the grass? Oh, thought it was a four leaf clover. Maybe she can find one. Yep, she is going to try.



I have watched "bunch ball" through lots of different eyes. Through my eyes as a player when I was young. I never saw a cluster of bodies. All I saw was that black and white ball and I had to catch up to it so I could kick it and make my parents cheer. There were no other bodies. I am not even sure that I did or didn't push anyone out of my way because I saw noone but that little ball that was moving faster than I was.



I watched it as a referree as I earned money when I was young. All I was told was to watch and make sure that they didn't pick it up (which, of course happened often during the game), and that they didn't push people on purpose (how do you tell a smiling pig tail bow-clad girl not to intentionally shove someone when she was just trying to get to the ball), and to blow my whistle when the ball went out of bounds.



As a parent. "Get in there and kick that ball!" "Pay attention to the game, not the pretty yellow flowers." "No, kick it the other way!" "Stop, it's out of bounds! You are way out of bounds! Stop running--the field is the other way!!!" And I am so not exaggerating on the last one. One of my girls just dribbled the ball whatever way she was pointed and would run into the sunset until I carried her back. It was funny after I got her back on the right field.



As a patient, fun loving coach with no expectations. Trying to remember to tell every girl or boy "good job" when they touched the ball or even got near it. Laughing at the other parents telling their kids to stop trying to catch the butterflies, or stop playing tag, or to start playing soccer or they were going home.



With each perspective, the game was different. At first, it was just to kick the ball so I would feel like a hero. Or to make sure that everyone was having fun at the same time learning to play a great sport. Or trying to not be the parent of the child who was producing the least amount of success. Hmmmm...still fitting into all of the roles. There are times that I am still just kicking the ball to get a good reaction. I am still trying to teach my children to have fun and enjoy life while learning the ins and outs of my rules and everyone else's rules. Still trying not to be the parent of the child producing the least amount of success.

I laugh at myself a lot...especially as I coach my kids' soccer teams. My first experience as a coach was with my oldest son's team when he was four. He and three of his friends were on the team. The first thing I said to them was that "soccer is fun." That was and still is my primary objective to teach kids, is to enjoy playing. Well, the whistle blew, the other team kicked it and the ball went into our defensive net. Two of the boys started crying and the other two were on the verge. There is no crying in soccer!!!! I turned to their dads (who had played soccer and were 100% men) and looked for help and guidance. One dad picked up his son and said he was to stay in the car until he stopped crying. I quickly grabbed the rest of the boys and explained that everyone wants to score a goal, even the other team and that it was OK that the other team scored. "Let's do the same thing." There were no more tears, but no more smiles either. What happened to having fun? Right...it's only fun if you win.

Wrong...I don't need to win to have fun. The first tip I tell all of the kids I coach now is to look up and look around you. You'll see the other team, you'll see your own teammates and then you'll know what to do with the ball. That's how I live my life. I no longer live in my own world where it is just me and a ball. I look up, figure out what it is I even want out of the moment--to score, to pass, to have fun--then I look around and see who is there to support me or what might get in my way and then I make a move. Winning goes as quick as it comes, but the lessons and relations stay forever. Life is a gift, it's a blast, too. Look up and look around. I still love watching my girls chase butterflies. I love laying on the grass looking at the shapes of the clouds. I even caught myself trying to find four leaf clovers at my son's football practice (didn't find one but there is always next season). I have this moment and I sure do have fun.

1st Rule of Soccer is to Look Good

Since when did it matter that a 4 year old girl have her hair done just to run around and get grass in it? Well, since every other little girl's mom thought it was important that they look good chasing a ball. I hated it when my mom did my hair...except on Saturdays because I knew it meant I was playing soccer. Seriously, there is still a picture that is in my memory of my hair making Edward Scissorhands' hair look traditional. You know, hair looking like straw parted in a few different places, but in a really pretty blue dress. My mom would rather have a picture with me in it with crazy hair than having a picture without me.



Funny how a tomboy playing soccer could french braid her own hair while running down the field doing warm ups. I always did my hair for soccer. When I got into high school, that rule was the same...game day we wore special shirts or dressed up. My coach even said on our first school sanctioned Girls High School Soccer game, "Ladies, it doesn't matter how you play today, because you at least look good." He had ordered white shorts. What coach would ever make the women's soccer team wear white shorts?!? Right, a man coach. The funny thing is, I didn't wear makeup to the games and I distinctly remember referring to a few girls I played against as "Barbie" because they wore makeup. I don't remember how they played. So I guess coach was right, it doesn't matter how you play as long as you look good.



You will still see in professional soccer, the rule that players' shirts must be tucked in to start the game. I still don't get that rule, but I do remember it. I also remember almost immediately untucking my shirt as soon as the whistle blew. It doesn't matter how you play as long as you look good.



Man, does that hit home. For years my husband came home to a wife of four kids that looked like she just got out of bed no matter what time it was. But I would definitely shower, do my hair, put on my makeup if I was going to purposely see my neighbors or go to the store. Just so everyone else would think that I was on top of things. It didn't matter how I was playing, as long as I looked good.



There were moments that this lesson that were quite poignant in my life, lessons that I would conveniently and quickly forget. While serving a mission for my church, I met many wonderful women that would dress up in their best clothes to show their respect while worshipping God and going to church. I would watch them with their smiles and their hair done, makeup on, and their bright colorful shirts and their as equally bright and colorful skirts. I loved that the color in their shirts didn't match the color of their skirts, because I knew that to them best matched best. They wanted to wear their most beautiful shirt with their most beautiful skirt. And it worked. I remembered how beautiful they were. They looked good because they felt good.



I have three beautiful spices. (We call our girls spices because you never know what flavor you'll get in the moment) My husband has lovingly and laughingly watched me over the years cringe as they dress themselves for their first birthday party, their first day of school, or their first school report. His comment as I began to ask them if they really wanted to wear their clothes... "They feel really good about themselves, don't take that away." I would smile and think to myself, favorite matches favorite and that works just fine.



I still find myself dressing up and looking good on those days that I just don't feel good. I also find myself looking great on the days I absolutely feel great. On the days that I don't feel like the most beautiful woman on earth, I have my husband pick out clothes that he thinks I look great in, I make sure I take time to do my hair and my makeup, and then I hope that somehow the makeup will leak into my skin and make some sort of wonderful transformation on the inside. Or I merely just remember that I am the same person on the days I look fantastic as well as the days that my hair takes on that Edward Scissorhands touch. The only difference is how I look at myself.



I was created as a perfect woman, no judgments or expectations placed on me when I came out of the womb. I want my daughters to see that is how I see them, the perfect creations and miracles they are. It doesn't matter how they look to others, because they are beautiful to me. It's funny, I love to see the beauty in others cuz it seems to rub off on me...

Anectdote for the day: My youngest heard a commercial for BudLight and asked, "Does my butt look light?"

Soccer quote for the day: "The vision of a champion is someone who is bent over, drenched in sweat, and the point of exhaustion, when no one else is watching." Anson Dorrance

When I Grow Up, I Want to Be...

The first female President of the United States, the first female Police Chief, first female to play professional soccer...do you see a pattern? How many times have I answered that question (and still answer it)? The last of nine kids, 6 of which are men that think it is funny to make fun of little sisters, I obviously felt like I had something to prove. But what? That I could kick a boy in the shins harder and faster than he could kick me? Or naming 10 vegetables while my brother was thumping his finger on my forehead? Proving that girls were better than boys at ANYTHING? Yes, my first musical song I remember hearing is "Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better." Well, thirty-something years later, I strongly deny that I am trying to prove anything, proving that there is no obstacle that I need to be better than, because I am proof enough that I can do anything that I set my mind to...wait...I am doing it again.

When I ask myself that same question now, I think to myself that anyone outside of my own head would say that when I grew up, I wanted to be typical. A typical mother who buys the typical cereals for her kids, typically watching Heroes, typically buying my clothes at the same stores that my other typical mother friends buy, typical, typical, typical. Then why do I seem so atypical in my head? Surely I am not like every other thirty-something mother of four. Why am I not the first female police chief? What happened to my dream of playing professional soccer with the men of the world? Why am I not the first female President of the United States? Well, I think I just wanted to prove that I could be any and all of those things. The only thing I didn't want to be is TYPICAL.

Typ-i-cal: the dictionary defines it as 1) exhibiting the qualities, traits, or characteristics that identify a kind, class, group, or category; 2) of or relating to a representative specimen; characteristic or distinctive; 3) conforming to a type; 4) of the nature of, constituting, or serving as a type.

Well, I am typical. I am either a typical thirty-something trying typically not to be typical or a typical woman proving that I can do anything better than...yep, you. So gloriously, boringly typical. So, over the next month, I am going to go through my typical life as seen through my atypical mind. And I am relating it to the one constant thread in my life (besides my family) since the age of four...soccer.

Everything I need to know I learned through soccer. I just thought I was so naturally gifted at the age of four that my parents put me on my older sister's soccer team. My socks came up to the middle of my thigh, my shirt hung out the bottom of my shorts which came down past my knees. But that didn't matter because I took my soccer very seriously. Run after that black and white ball and kick it before anyone else could. I knew I was kicking it the right way according the cheers of jubilation or dismay from the parents of my teammates. That was it, kick the ball so people would cheer me on. I must have had god-like talent for my parents to have me playing at such a young age, right? Well, turns out that I had god-like energy, not necessarily talent. So what better way to have the last of nine kids release her energy and give her mom and family a break than running my heart out for an hour playing soccer. But that revelation did not take anything away from my passion for soccer. And it took nothing away from what I learned--do something good so people would cheer me on.

Wow my parents with my amazing vocabulary at the age of 5. Astound my teachers with my meticulous handwriting. Sing to the delight of my siblings...wait, that never happened. So I stopped singing because there was no applause. I learned very early on to please those around me because what made others happy made me happy.

That still applies today as a wife, a mother, a businesswoman, and a friend. Sitting through 120 minutes of men shooting everything up means more nights out with my husband :) Bringing treats home for my kids after a long day of work means at least 60 minutes of laughing and peace. I do so much in my life to control the environment around me by merely manipulating others so that they are cheering me on rather than getting in my way.

Now the glorious part of this typical nature of me as a woman? I love it. I love pointing out flaws in the unbelievable maneuverings of men hurling through the air shooting and hitting their mark without breaking a sweat and I love that my husband wants me to sit by him during those movies. I love seeing the joy that ice cream can bring to four children. I love the feeling of kicking a ball perfectly so that it flies through the air and ripping against the net. Joy. Typical joy.

The downfall of making sure everyone is happy around me? I can't make everyone happy. But I can make people know that they will forever be OK, perfect even, in my eyes. Not easy, but absolutely joyful.

Anecdote of the day: walking into my parents' living room in time to see my 6 year old daughter making a tent out of my dad and the couch he was sleeping on. She was happy and my dad had no idea that he was being manipulated.

Soccer quote of the day: "The rules of soccer are very simple, basically, it is this: if it moves, kick it. If it doesn't move, kick it until it does." author unknown

What did you want to be when you grew up?