(The following article appears in the March 2009 "Positive Parenting" feature on the US Youth Soccer website at http://www.usyouthsoccer.org/news/story.asp?story_id=4187)
This past spring, our U19 Spirit of McLean, Virginia played its final soccer game before its roster of high school seniors dispersed to colleges across the land. Some of the girls had played together since they were 8. While the Spirit won its share of travel soccer trophies and titles, its proudest moment may have come when it lost a tournament last year in Virginia Beach.
That’s right: lost.
The Spirit played the past several seasons in the top divisions of the prestigious Washington Area Girls Soccer League, and its coach was Alberto Starace, whose full-time job is coaching Arlington’s Bishop O’Connell, a national powerhouse in high school soccer.
Most players have gone on to play club or intramural soccer, although a few now play for college teams at such schools as Pomona in California and Kenyon in Ohio. One of the team’s strikers, Sara Diggs of Madison High School, was twice named to the Washington Post’s All-Met second team.
Less important than the Spirit’s résumé, however, was the efforts of its players and parents to defy a pervasive conventional wisdom that the higher the level of competition, the grimmer must be the determination to win at all costs. The team’s solid reputation attracted many first-rate players as much for its camaraderie as its record. Following a tough loss one afternoon, for example, the girls came running across the field not with their heads low but carrying placards that spelled out H-a-p-p-y M-o-t-h-e-r-’-s D-a-y. Practices were limited to twice a week at most.
As for the parents, David Diggs, father of Sara and co-manager of the team along with Kathy Cannon, preached a simple mantra all along: “It’s not about you.” My own comeuppance came when my daughter, after starting for her JV team in addition to playing with the Spirit, announced that she would not play varsity. She wanted to focus on her studies and had no interest in practicing five days a week. I was terribly disappointed until I admitted that the real reason I wanted her to play varsity was because I never did.
More than hours logged, the Spirit’s staying power proved that good coaching and cohesive play—plus some talent—can take a team as far as it needs to go. Last Spring it took us to the semifinals at the Virginia Beach tournament against a team from Toronto. The Spirit had to win to advance but fell short. Afterward, the other team distributed Canadian pins and flags and asked the Spirit players to join in a group picture. Only later did we learn that this had come on the heels of something of an international incident. Following an earlier game between the Canadians and another area team, several players from the other team, apparently upset about the rough play, threw their gifts of pins and flags on the ground and spit on them.
In his letter of complaint to tournament officials, the Canadian coach chose contrast to make his point: “Please find attached a photo of our girls with the team from Virginia after our 3:3 tie, which knocked them out of the tournament. This game was just as hard fought as the others and yet this team knew how to be gracious. We left this tournament with very fond memories of this Virginia team specifically!”
Granted, when the bar is set so low by such egregious behavior, the Spirit’s basic sportsmanship can hardly be deemed heroic. Still, from the smiles all around, you’d never even know from the photo which team had just advanced. So to us it has come to symbolize our team’s efforts to do youth sports the right way, as does a recent comment by one of the Spirit’s captains, Martha Marich, who now plays for Pomona. She told her mother that if she ever enrolls a child of her own in a sports league, she’ll know just the kind of team she wants.
