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.

It's time for a reset of the measure of success for families in America

What success looks like in the Sabo family.

We have a way of measuring success in America that centers around a consumer economy. It's the insatiable appetite for materialism and the accumulation of things. Tragically, it spills over into the church and our kids with devastating consequences.

Our uniquely American economy of success is measured by things we don't need but buy anyway. We drive big new SUVs so that we have ample room to haul all the stuff we bought at Costco back to our McMansions that have huge garages to store all of our junk accumulated non-essential items. We wouldn't be caught dead with flip phones so we're armed with the latest technology everything -- much of which we have to ask our teenage kids how to operate -- and our walk-in closets are bigger than the bedrooms we grew up in and have enough clothes and shoes contained within to outfit an island nation.

Our secular practices have carried over to the religious. Our churches are virtual rock concert halls, becoming glorified entertainment venues with bright lights, big screens and all the essential high-tech bells and whistles. It's merely churchtainment, an emotion-driven vehicle that's a shallow push for "relevancy" in a culture that's increasingly ambivalent to Christianity. As a result, on any Sunday in any city in America it's possible to go church clubbing in our churchwear without ever hearing the power of the Word.

We are what we worship, essentially.

So where does that leave our kids?

We measure success in our kids by their accomplishments that we can post ad nauseum on social media. And we're motivated by our dreams of their success -- that we also can post on social media. The measuring stick is their future earnings and we're driven to ensure they're the top-performing kids inside and outside of our social circles.

We're consumed by the youth sports culture and no cost is too steep -- The best equipment! The top sports camps! The number 1 travel teams! -- to make certain our kids are the best at the one sport we select for them they pick. We're driven to get them into Ivy League schools so we make sure they do all their homework every night -- beginning in pre-school -- and harass any teacher who dares to give them less than an `A.'  We also make sure our kids are deprived of nothing -- whether it's processed food that's actually making them sick, high-tech gadgetry, prescription drugs to get them to "concentrate" and "focus," or colleges that will leave them indebted in perpetuity.

Meanwhile, they are spiritually impoverished.

We value all the wrong things and the consequences are tragic. We're lying to our kids by our actions, treating the world and the things of this life as the singular objective for them. It's the gospel of me. Sadly, it's a sentence of a life of emptiness. We're creating a generation with an insatiable drive to find fulfillment in things that will never satisfy.

These things I've mentioned, the houses, vehicles, sports, school, gadgets and other things, in and of themselves aren't bad. It's the place they have in our lives though that's the problem. It's their hold on us. They consume us. And it's reflected in how we value them and the resulting messages we send to our kids.

Take a step back. What's your measurement of success in your kids?

I've had to do my own reckoning in this. I've had to ask myself and pray through if what I'm valuing is what God values. Is what I'm seeking for my kids reflected in the life and teachings of Jesus?

They're hard questions. Especially in the culture we live in. Yet they are good questions. After all, what's more important? This temporary life and its earthly rewards? Or eternal rewards and a life together as a family with Jesus.

Jesus said that His kingdom is not of this world. So why are we so intent on creating a world for our kids that's the opposite of what He taught?

I can tell you this also. There's no greater joy I have in my kids, particularly my older kids who are making their own lives, than to see them following Jesus passionately. To know that for them, Jesus is both their savior and their Lord.

That's the true measure of success.

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.

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?