Just call me coach!

I would consider myself good at a lot of things...

being a mom, a wife, a friend, a teacher/caregiver, but a coach...

I Am Not.

I like to leave the athletics and the coaching of them to my husband, who is a natural when it comes to working with children. Believe it or not I happen to think he is even better at working with kids than I am! (We'll keep this little tid-bit of info to ourselves though, I wouldn't want him getting a swelled head or anything!! J/K)

He really is great with children of all ages, boys or girls, and I tell him so all the time. I truly feel blessed to have such a wonderful father and role model for my children.

When he is coaching he has a natural instinct about him. He knows how to approach them, how to give them confidence in their own abilities, how to teach them, and most importantly how to make it fun for all of them. He learns the talents of each and every child and how to get the best out of them. I am so proud of him and I love watching him work from the sidelines.

This is why he is the coach and I am the coach's wife. (Notice I said wife, not assistant). So last Saturday when we had a conflict between both the athlete and the princess's soccer games and he informed me that I would have to coach our daughter's pee-wee game, my world stood still!

"I don't coach", I thought to myself and the thought must have flashed across my face because the coach started laughing and told me to "Calm down, it's easy! Get on the field, point them in the right direction, yell GO and cheer em' on. That's all there is to it!"

There is more to it than that I told him as the pressure inside was building up, "What if the kids won't listen to me? What if make a complete fool of myself out there in front of all the parents? How will I keep time? How will I know when to switch out players?" Aaaaaaahhhh!

I was so uneasy about doing this I begged him to ask for a parent volunteer. I even called my brother-in-law to see if he could take over for me, but he wasn't available either.

How is it, you can put me in a classroom with twenty some-odd elementary school kids and I would have no problem teaching, or keeping them under control for 6 hours a day, but a group of 5 and 6 year old kids and soccer scare the dickens out of me?

"Knock it off" I told myself, "You'll be fine!"

And ya know what... I was! I explained to all the parents that I was filling in that day for my husband, (which they seemed to have no problem with), gathered up my team, quickly learned all their names, and away we went!!!

Sure I made a few mistakes and didn't realize what some of the rules were, until the coach from the other side filled me in, and I had a coughing fit every single time I raised my voice to cheer them on, but eh, what the heck, I did a pretty darn good job if I do say so myself!! The kids had fun, I had fun, and we held our own out there on the field.

Do I think I have found a new calling? HECK NO!!

But, I did learn something about myself that day, I need to give myself more credit and not allow myself to get nervous when I am thrown into a situation that is outside of my comfort zone. I can handle myself just fine!!!