Bad News Bears

In an effort to continue to help Brad get some exercise, meet new people and just generally have fun we signed him up for soccer again last month. This is the outdoor season and there are a lot more participants and it's taken a bit more seriously than the indoor season was. You might remember that while Brad enjoyed indoor soccer he wasn't really "into" the game. We were hoping that being six months older might help, but really, not so much. He would rather:

chase bubbles, or

hang out in the net

Now the fact that Brad's not really into it isn't that bad. The problem is that the whole team is like that! They are a very young team, mostly 3 or 4 year-olds, with very little experience and they would rather drink their gatorade, chase the babies on the side-line or play hopscotch. Their team name is the Bears and we quickly nicknamed them the Bad News Bears. They lost their first game about 40 to 1 (and the 1 was made by someone on the other team going the wrong way). The only time they kicked the ball was when they kicked off after the other team scored. We were really hoping Emelio Estevez would show up to turn things around!

To top it all off the woman who signed up to be the coach went MIA before the first game and so Joe became the de facto coach. Coaching the kids at this age is fairly involved and you have to stay out on the field with them the whole game telling them where to go and what to do. Considering the fact that Brad won't even stay on the field Joe has been a real trooper. It's good karma, right?

The two good parts of the story are 1 - we did get one late addition to our team, a little boy named Jesus who is 6 and is great at soccer who has helped make things slightly more even, and 2 - Saturday is our last game. Gotta love community sports. There's a tumbling class next month...I think we'll try that instead.

Here are some more pictures:

Brad being a "Bear" which for him consists of running around growling at the other players.

Brad and Harrison wrestling while Joe marches down the field to try to get the rest of the kids to play.

Stretching - Brad does participate in that.
Team photo - Brad, Joe Alex, Sefyia, Harrison and Jesus. The Bears!