Ezra, the gentleman soccer star

Ezra, looking to pass.

Olivia, hoping for a goal.

Over the past two seasons of Gloucester Parks & Recreation soccer, Ezra has had an extraordinary run. His teams went undefeated, 19-0, and won two straight championships in the 9-11 age group. It's all the more remarkable considering that from the spring season to the recently concluded fall season, the coaches changed and most of the players changed, with the only thing unchanged being the results.

Last Saturday, the Green Lightning, expertly coached by my good friend Omar Torres and his excellent assistant coach Brian Hudgins, won a grueling tournament in heart attack fashion -- the opposing side hit the crossbar or post of the Green Lightning three times in the match -- beating the vaunted Orange Crush 2-1. It was the third 48-minute match within the span of about 5 hours for the Green Lightning, of which Ezra, now 11 years old, was co-captain.

Ezra played his heart out. There are several things about Ezra I truly admire about his play on the soccer pitch. His heart, so big. His effort, unparalleled. His speed, among the tops in the league. His skill, again among the tops in the league. He plays hard but cleanly, doesn't talk trash to opponents, but lets his game do his talking.

He scored around six goals or so this season, half of them with his left foot even though he's naturally stronger with his right foot. Yet his play on the defensive end of the field is perhaps the strongest part of his game. He's relentless and time and again he ran down offensive players and stopped attacks seeming headed for sure goals; during the first game of the tournament following one furious sequence near halftime that left him hobbled, Ezra had to be carried off the field by a coach after taking a cleat to his achilles tendon. He returned to action after halftime.

While championships are a thrill -- in the spring season I coached Ezra's team the Gray Wolves that won the championship in sudden death penalty kicks over Coach Omar's side -- my enduring memory of this season had nothing to do with trophies, or goals, or hustling plays.

It has to do with Ezra's little sister, Olivia, and what it would have meant to him for her to score a goal. Ezra and Olivia have a special bond. It's always been so sweet to see how close they are and how much they enjoy being together. When I talked to my kids this summer to see who wanted to play soccer this fall, Olivia said she wanted to play so she could be on Ezra's team. She's taken to ballet, but even though she's only played one season of soccer, she wanted to spend her late summer and fall with her brother.

On the field at the start of the season Olivia was quite timid. Imagine a ballerina flitting down a soccer field and you've seen Olivia play soccer. But over the course of the season, she became emboldened. She started going after the ball, backed down less from the action on the field and started kicking it more during the games. By the end of the season, she really wanted to score a goal. It seemed an improbable thought ... but not to Ezra.

Coach Omar wanted her to score a goal as well. He would put her and Ezra together on the front line and tell her to just go get in the box in front of the goal. Ezra will find her. Many times Ezra passed up chances to work the ball in for his own shot at a goal to try to get a pass in to Olivia so she could score. He would run down the flank with the ball, his head up, looking for his little sister in her pink soccer shorts. He would dodge defenders, circle back, probe the defense, holding onto the ball waiting for the perfect moment, the perfect pass, always hoping it would happen.

It never did happen. Olivia had a shot or two, but it never quite panned out. Yet Ezra never stopped trying. And Olivia was so excited and tickled her older brother was trying so hard to help her score a goal.

I can't recall if it was Coach Omar or another parent who saw what Ezra was trying to do and described Ezra as a "gentleman." I like that. Ezra, the gentleman soccer star.

And that's how I see him.

Three things I teach kids who I coach in soccer

Looking to pass. This makes me happy!

Perhaps blind optimism meets sheer lunacy somewhere in the few strides it takes me to hop out of my 15-passenger van onto the shabby fields around the rural Tidewater Virginia county where I “coach” kids in youth soccer.

I have this notion, you can’t really call it confidence because I lack any sort of statistical data to back it up, that I can teach 12 kids every spring and fall life lessons through a game with a round ball played by billions of people around the globe.

The boys and girls I get vary every year. That is, except for my own kids who are ages 9 to 11 — I always coach them; they have no choice. (Cue the smiling emoji.) What doesn’t vary are three of my goals for these kids.

I’m not trying to mold the future Lionel Messi, or coach up the next Alex Morgan. I realize my limitations, not to mention the limitations of many of the kids on my team. Some of my kids appear to have allergies to soccer balls. Others tell me they’d rather be eating dinner. Rarely do I get all 12 kids at a practice and this spring I have yet to have all 12 kids on my team show up for a game.

It’s all good. For about 10 weeks each spring and fall I have them for an hour a day, two days a week and for a game on Saturdays. I have three things I want to instill in these kids. They are very simple and by the end of the season I simply hope that someday down the road they might remember at least one thing — Can I dream and hope for maybe two things? — Coach Matt taught them.

Here they are. Three things. It’s not exactly Coach John Wooden’s Pyramid of Success, but it’s the best I’ve got.

1. Teamwork. The very first thing we do in our very first practice is gather in a circle and every player learns everyone’s name. We also get little details like ages, grades and where they go to school. It’s a little thing that I hope builds a bond, builds a team. The other thing we do is work on passing. I am all about passing and talk throughout the season about being unselfish. When one of my players scores a goal, I cheer loudest for the one who passed the ball. Even when the passes are unsuccessful, I let the kids know that’s exactly what I want them to do and to keep doing it. The idea is to form the idea in their head that it’s better to serve than be served. That being part of a team is more about what you can give than what you can take. I can always hope these lessons will carry over into the rest of their life, eh?
2. Make a weakness a strength. We practice over and over using the weaker foot. We do drills continually where I force them to use their weaker foot. I routinely tell my players that I don’t care if they miss, but when they have the opportunity I want them to take a shot with their weaker foot. Since most of my kids predominantly use their right foot, it’s left-footed shots. I want them to learn that through practice and effort and diligence, what was once a weakness can become a strength. I’ve seen over the course of the season some kids make amazing strides in this area. And my hope is that they will carry this concept with them to school, or to their future jobs, or elsewhere: That perceived limitations can be overcome.
3. Have fun. Maybe I’m oversimplifying things here with this goal, but these kids can lead complicated lives. I want their time when I am coaching at the soccer field to be the best hour of their day. We laugh, we treat other kindly, we pass to each other, we have fun. We’re going to work hard and they acquire skills, but I hope that at the end of the season they have 11 new friends and great memories. We’ve moved as a society to treating youth sports as an industry, as a means to an end of a scholarship or some other parental “goal.” Parents can be flat out lunatics about youth sports. Not on my watch. It’s a few days before the last Saturday of our season and I couldn’t tell you our team’s record right now. But when I think of my kids I think about smiling faces. That’s all that matters and I hope that’s what they think also.

A big family teaches kids something they can't get anywhere else

It's all about teamwork. And fun.

I admit, I'm biased. I am biased toward our big family. A big reason is this idea that we're a big team. I was telling a friend the other day about a team I was on way back in the day in Bend, Ore., that was the best team I've ever been on. In my senior at Bend High School our cross country team had the fastest runner in the state transfer out before the season started. It could have been a big blow.

But we had a couple of freshmen -- Brent Westfall and Jimmy Robertson -- come in and join the varsity and along with Dave Williams, Scott Nyden, Chris Hamilton, Jared Anderson and yours truly, we ended up winning the state championship by 69 points. What I loved about the team is that it was a bunch of guys from different backgrounds -- a few of us also ran track but we also had a golfer, a couple of baseball players and a national-class cross country skier on the team -- who worked hard and enjoyed being together. There were also races where one or two guys may not have the best day, but other guys were there to pick up the slack. It was simply a great team.

A family should be many things. One of those is a team. I like to think our family operates like a team. It's cool to see kids fill different roles naturally. We have a couple of them who often do the dishes without being asked. Talk about a blessing!

Some of our kids, before serving themselves at mealtime, dish up the youngest kids at dinner. Without being asked.

We have some kids who are comedians. They make us laugh. We have kids who take care of Flopsy and even organize the search parties when she makes her frequent hops to freedom.

We have kids who pitch in with the cooking. And man can they cook! We have kids who organize family games of soccer or capture the flag or hold family board game nights.

Brenton sprung for four large pizzas on Sunday and is notorious for making late-night family Taco Bell runs. Those are MVP type of performances.

Seth loves to snuggle. Ask Evie how valuable that is when she comes home from college. Last time she was home I walked into the living room and she had both Seth and Judah snuggling with her on the couch.

Kids help other kids get dressed and ready for church. They all help pick up the toys. MerriGrace cleans the bathrooms and no one asks her. Is she an angel?

What the kids learn is that part of being family can entail sacrificing your own interests for the good of the group. Certainly the kids could always look out for number one and not help out their brothers or sisters, or do dishes, or clean bathrooms, or take care of pets, or spring for pizza and all the other stuff that they do.

But they love being a part of this team. This family.

I am so thankful.

Parents and the insanity of the rise of youth travel sports

The best kind of soccer: In the back yard ...

Even if there may be an occasional injury ...

That requires being stretchered off the pitch.

This might not be a real popular blog post among many sports-minded parents. They might not be wanting to hear it. I might get cyber hate mail. I'm going to write it anyway.

It's been close to eight years now since an unforgettable moment that occurred on a baseball field and helped cement my opinion of youth travel sports. Ethan was 14 at the time and playing in a tournament in Danville, Va. Against my better judgment I had traveled with him to the tournament for the weekend so he could play baseball, the sport he loved. It was a lovely spring day, sometime in May. That's where the pleasant memories of the day ended, however.

During one of the games while legging out a single, Ethan had strained his hamstring. After checking on him I began walking over to the concessions stand to fetch a bag of ice, a journey that took me by the opposing team's dugout. As I was walking over to the concessions stand there were a couple of plays in the game that got the opposing team's manager riled up. Quite riled up. The second play was an incidental collision in a bang-bang play at first base in which his player, the running batter, pretty much got unintentionally taken out by one of our players. If I remember correctly, it was right after one of his batters had gotten hit unintentionally by the pitcher.

But the opposing manager was losing it. He was storming around and yelling and gesturing and essentially making a fool of himself. At a baseball game of 14-year-olds. As I was walking by the dugout watching this spectacle, I saw him turn to his team and tell them that if Gloucester was going to play like that then his pitcher would throw at their batter's head. I was stunned. What kind of coach tells his players to throw at the other team's heads? Especially a coach of 14-year-olds? It stopped me dead in my tracks and I blurted out to him, "Hey!"

What happened next, I kid you not, I am not making up. He looked right at me, grabbed his crotch in front of the team and everyone else and asked me if "I wanted to go." He wanted me to fight him right there basically. To say I was flabbergasted is an understatement. Behind me were parents of the opposing team's players sitting in the stands. I turned around, looked at them and asked if the Neanderthal behind me -- apologies to Neanderthals -- was their manager. When they nodded yes, I said, "That's embarrassing. My kid would never, ever play for him." Then I walked away.

I tell that story in the larger context of a trend that boggles my mind: The rise of youth travel sports. It's become more than a cottage industry. Crazy dollars are spent by parents in America on youth travel sports. This article in the Washington Post (Link: Youth sports gone wild) taps it at $7 billion annually. That's enough money every year to pay for around 220,000 kids to attend the average private college in America. Let me ask you something: What would be a better investment?

The rise in youth travel sports hasn't been driven by kids. It's parents. A lot of parents who have lost their collective minds if you ask me. If you're thinking you're going to get your kid a college scholarship, you are wasting your time and money. Your kid, yes yours, has a less than 1 percent of a chance of earning a college athletic scholarship.

My sense is that parents are doing it more for their own entertainment and to fulfill some sort of warped idea of parenting in which they have to have the best of everything for their kid. Taken to the limits that means thousands of dollars spent every year on topnotch equipment, coaching and team fees, travel costs and a whole bunch of other things. For kids as young as 8 or 9 years old.

From a pastor's perspective, youth travel sports represents a compromise: When it comes to Sunday morning games, what's more important? Church or the game? I've seen it happen almost every time. Church loses out. So what's the message to kids from mom and dad? Sports is more important than their faith. So parents, don't be too surprised if your kid walks away from his or her faith when they grow up. You've set the example and let your son or daughter know what's really important.

I am so thankful we didn't have youth travel teams growing up. I played parks and rec soccer, basketball and baseball and had a blast. I didn't have my entire weekends -- or weeks for that matter -- taken up by tournaments. I played a lot of pickup games with my friends during the year and if I didn't feel like playing, I didn't play. You think kids on travel teams have that luxury? Like they can really say, you know, I'm kinda sore today, or I really don't feel like playing today so I think I'll skip practice and do something else instead. Is it any wonder that there's a dramatic increase in injuries among kids who play year-round sports? Link: Kids get hurt

When I was growing up, our family vacations weren't built around my next travel team tournament. We had actual family vacations. You know, things like Disneyland, Yellowstone, Mount Rushmore, even Washington D.C. We even had vacations where we spent actual quality time with relatives and went to actual family reunions, not another reunion of my teammates' families at the Holiday Inn by the sports complex in Sportsaddictsville, U.S.A., followed by dinner at another Cracker Barrel.

I'm wondering how much of the youth travel sports is driven by insecurity. Maybe there's a fear among parents that if their kid doesn't play on a travel team that they are somehow not as good of parents as their friends or acquaintances whose kid is on a travel team. Maybe there's a fear they aren't doing what's best for their kid and would somehow be failing them. Maybe they just can't say no if their kid asks to play on a travel team.

Here's another thing parents. Your kids never get those years back. All that time spent shuttling them back and forth to practices, or going to tournaments, or going to Dick's Sporting Goods, or being at the tournaments and going to the doctor or the emergency room and I could go on and on ... Is it really worth it? You're the one making the decision for them. Can you live with it? Might there be better ways to spend time with your kids? Is there a balance in there between your kids' love of sports and not making it so all-important?

I'll finish with another story. Many years ago, one of my sons was on an All-Star baseball team at the age of 12. Much to my horror and shock, the coach of the team promised the kids that if they won the game he would take them to Hooters. I was in disbelief, as if I was living a "Bad News Bears" moment. When they won the game, I told my son he wouldn't be going to Hooters and explained why on his level, for reasons that included the objectification of women and the very nature of the restaurant itself. He was fine with it when I explained it to him.

Of the 12 boys on the team, my son was the only one who didn't go to Hooters. Later, a few parents came to me and said if they had known my son wasn't going, they wouldn't have let their 11- and 12-year-old sons go either. They didn't want their sons to go, but allowed them to go along with the team so they wouldn't be left out. Really? Folks, it's called parenting. You can make the right choices for your kids.

So parents, the ball is in your court, so to speak, with youth travel sports teams. What's the play?

A Difference In `Justice' In America And The Middle East

Refugees arriving on a Greek island

A good friend of mine told me the story of a little boy with an arm that ended in a stub below his elbow. My friend was a volunteer soccer coach in a league of refugee boys in a large Midwestern city. The boys and their families were Muslim and had left their homes behind to come to America. They hailed from places like Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Eritrea and Syria, countries that swallow up their residents in sinkholes of bombings, shootings, starvation and other means of violent death.

One day at soccer practice my friend asked the Iraqi boy what happened to his arm. The boy explained that years earlier, when he was 4 and living in Iraq, he had stolen something in the market. He was caught and under Sharia law there was a stiff price to be administered for his crime. The penalty he paid was his hand that was hacked off.

Four years old.

I have a memory myself of stealing something in the store when I was a young child a little older than the Iraqi boy. I was standing in the checkout line at Wagner's Supermarket in Bend, Ore., and managed to filch a piece of candy and put it in my pocket. My memory is that it was a piece of hard candy. I glanced up to meet the stink eye of an older woman in line behind us. I don't recall anything happening to me; apparently the lady didn't rat me out. I certainly didn't lose my hand.

I tell this story because I've thought a lot about the refugees from the Middle East and Africa. We've all seen the pictures and read and watched the stories of the people who risk their lives to flee their countries in hopes that at least they may live. Or there's stories like that Iraqi boy, the one with the arm that ends in a stump.

I would encourage you to listen to this recent teaching by David Platt on the Biblical response to the refugee crisis. I have plenty of thoughts on the refugee crisis that I'll share in one or more upcoming posts. But listen to Platt's message as I found it enlightening: Message on refugees

Happy 13th Birthday To Gabe

Gabe teaching Seth the finer points of rivah wading.

Gabe is celebrating his 13th birthday today, which means that among other things we're back up to having five teenagers in the house.  Gave is a brother with a big heart and an easy, contagious laugh. Just ask Claire. When Gabe really gets to cackling Claire just loses it and starts giggling as well.

He loves animals and every morning faithfully transports our bunny, Flopsy, from her spacious hutch to her bunny cage in the yard. Flopsy has become something of a neighborhood mascot. I've had people ask where I live and when I describe it several people have said, "Oh, the house with the bunny in the yard." Yep.

If you see Gabe in the front yard, he will wave to you. And keep waving until you wave back. So please wave back. Gabe loves the beach and catching minnows and little blue crabs in his net. He loves the snow and likes to ride his bike around the yard and will spend hours on end building Legos.

He likes to play soccer but is one of those kids who likes more to be a part of the team and making friends than the competition aspect of it. He's worked hard over the years and has become a very good soccer player, but he's one of those kids that is simply a great teammate who encourages the other players, is unselfish and works hard.

He's a joy to have as a son. Gabe is kind, patient, thoughtful and a good big brother, quick to help his little brothers.

Happy birthday Gabe. We love you.

Top Five Reasons Every Family Should Play Dress-up

Playing dressup builds character. Or something...

For some reason, every Thanksgiving when the college kids come home for Thanksgiving things get a little crazy at the Sabo house. As the neighbors can attest, the traditional Thanksgiving soccer match has morphed into a spectacularly audacious dress-up affair.

Passersby probably think it's a flashmob of eccentric thespians congregating on the Sabo lawn. Surely somebody has called the county's 911 emergency dispatch center on us only to be told, "That address comes up as the Sabo house. The kids are probably playing dress-up again. Happens every Thanksgiving. Just call us if you see a 40something-year-old bald guy out there playing dress-up. We'll come get him."

The roots of this annual dressabration go back several years to our annual Thanksgiving soccer match that drew a host of Saboites attired in their parks & rec soccer uniforms. Then they started wearing shirts representing club teams and it grew from there. Until, well, as you see above THIS happened.

But beyond alarming neighbors and passersby, a family dressabration has actual, tangible value. It can be measured, in other words. Don't believe me? Oh, ye of little faith read on and be amazed! We present to you, the top 5 reasons every family should play dress-up on Thanksgiving and take the sartorial flashmob out to the front yard to flaunt your threadsilicious splendor.

5) It builds family unity -- What says family more than everyone dipping into the bag of swag some call the dress-up clothes bin to reach new heights of sartorial sumptuousness? Face it, some people never outgrow the need, the desire, the desperate addiction to playing dress-up. (It's ok. You can come clean. Go ahead and let us know in the comments section that you daydream about playing dress-up. Honesty is the first step to treatment for those of you addicted to donning princess dresses or Spiderman suits.) As each Sabo lad and lass appeared with their clothing creation, there was a loud cheering of siblings and a steady dose of encouragement and congratulations. It was impressive and truly a team effort.

4) It builds leadership -- Truth be told, there could be some reluctance among some of the more reserved -- sane? -- Sabo offspring to looking like a caveman, for example. That's where the true Sabo leaders step up and show their brothers and sisters what it means to be a Sabo. Which sometimes entails donning outrageous ensembles that are so sketch it would lead people to call the cops.

3) It builds creativity and imagination -- It would be a darn shame to go through life without letting loose your inner dress-up child. What's better than rummaging through the dress-up bin and finding outrageous combinations of duds to create a whole new persona? What's better than coming up with combinations that leave your brothers and sisters rolling on the ground in laughter? An imagination is a terrible thing to waist. Er, waste.

2) It promotes role playing to nurture depth of personality -- Childhood is too short to waist, er waste, on not cutting loose and getting crazy with the dress-up clothes every once in a while. Our kids have always loved role playing and creating an entire "town" of characters. (ICYMI: The game of "Town" -- Sabo style) They learn new ways to interact, developing accents and traits and becoming professionals and playing roles. I'm not gonna lie, it's fun to watch.

1) It encourages confidence -- Some of our kids can be pretty reserved and quiet. They're more behind the scenes types. But with the encouragement of the older kids and their other siblings, they truly go for it at the annual Thanksgiving bash and come up with some outrageous combinations of outfits. Cheered on by their siblings, they learn that they can't come up with a "wrong" combination of clothes and that they are only limited by their imagination. It's a blast to watch them go for it.

As I was writing this I came up with a sixth reason every family should play dress-up. This is far and away the most important: It makes some of the best memories. Oh, and you can dominate the Facebook feed with a family dress-up glamour shot.

Of Words and Soccer Balls

We had traveled somewhere around five hours across the searing semi-arid desert of northeastern Nigeria, timing our journey to beat the crowds pouring out of mosques on Friday afternoon prayers. That's because, in all honesty, as an American it's better to keep a low-profile on Friday afternoons in the vast swath of Muslim-dominated northeastern Nigeria where Boko Haram is known to operate. Through villages we dodged kids and livestock, stopping for lunch at a roadside food stand where we picked up two women and a child who squeezed into the back seat of our SUV for a lift to town.

At our "picnic table" beneath a fraying tarp, slender young boys hovered around us, smiling and hungrily eyeing our lunches of boiled fish and rice. I left some of the rice and fish on my plate and as I headed to our SUV watched the little boys pick up our plates, only to have them commandeered by older boys who had swooped in. My last sight of our roadside eatery was a group of teens wolfing down the scraps as the little boys watched. 

To continue, go here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/words-soccer-balls-matt-sabo?trk=hp-feed-article-title-publish

Four Things That Happen When The Kids Come Home From College

Taylor proclaims his innocence: "What?"

You can count on four things happening in the Sabo house when our kids come home from college for the weekend. The first thing is that food consumption is taken to the next level. This past weekend, Taylor came home from Berea College in Kentucky since they are on fall break and he brought his lovely girlfriend Bethany Hayes. Then Ethan sauntered over on Saturday from Hampden-Sydney College and stayed the night.

With Taylor and Ethan home, that means the Sabo cafeteria is open pretty much 24/7. I planned accordingly and rented a U-Haul truck to make the obligatory grocery run(s) and received a line of credit from the bank and transformed the garage into a walk-in cooler. (Editor's note: This is non-fiction? Did I miss something or did any of those things you just describe actually happen?) Even then, we cut it a little close judging from the look of the fridge on Monday morning. But a family that eats together (albeit in waves of relentless consumption ... picture the Chinese Army attacking our fridge and you get the idea) is a family that bonds together.

The second thing you can count on when the kids come home is that laughter echoes through the house non-stop. The board games come out after dinner and it's pretty much a laughfest from then until the wee hours of the morning. The laughing only stops when there's a pause for a run on the fridge. On Saturday night they played the "Story Game" and Skyped in Claire from Oregon. It was a riot. Julie was in bed and laughing just at all the laughing. I was laughing even though my beloved UCLA Bruins were playing football on TV and they were losing. That means one thing: It was seriously funny. If you are feeling down and blue, you don't need a shrink. Come on over for game night at the House o' Sabo. You may die of laughter, but at least you'll be happy.

Taylor offers his bestest most sincerest sorry for destroying Brenton's foot

The third thing that occurs is the inevitable massive Sabo v. Sabo ultimate soccer match on the Sabo back yard pitch. The best thing about having like, twenty-five kids (Editor's note: Um, twenty-five? Try fourteen. You really need to quit exaggerating my love ... Author's reply: It's only 14? Seriously? Love you my love.) is that you can have a really solid soccer match in the back yard when the kids come from college. You can even have one when the kids don't come from college! It's a very entertaining affair, complete with copious goal-scoring, lots of laughing and the occasionally fractured leg, er "injury" (Editor's note: Technically it's called "diving" ...) that is a hallmark of world class soccer. Brenton was hurt so seriously in the match he had to be hauled off on a cart, but fortunately he was soon able to resume competitive soccer ran right back onto the field as soon as he hit the sideline. In the end, a good time was had by all, particularly the spectators who nearly busted a gut watching the theatrics that occurred during Brenton's "injury."

Brenton is delicately hauled off the field for his potentially fatal soccer injury

The fourth thing that occurs is that Calvary Chapel Gloucester is very blessed by the guest worship team. Taylor, Ethan and Bethany, joined by Madeline, blessed the fellowship with a wonderful time of worship and praise. One of the highlights of the weekends when the kids come home is that music frequently fills the Sabo house. On Saturday in particular, when the group was preparing the worship set, it was wonderful to sit and enjoy hearing them singing praise songs to the Lord. I am a blessed man. We are a blessed family.