PELE(li) 6.2
Eli 6.2 is playing YMCA soccer again this fall.The kids are bigger and faster in this league--they're 6-7 years old instead of 4-5. The field is twice as big, too.
Eli doesn't seem to care.
I'm not exactly sure when this happened, but Eli, as unlikely as it sounds, has developed some grit. I think it may have been during that 1k kids race, when he realized that he could keep running even when his body wanted to stop.
Two weeks ago, he had two thirty-yard runs with the ball, both times after he'd kicked it free from the scrum. Not a real scrum, mind you, but in a soccer league with little kids, most of the game is a virtual scrum, with everyone surrounding the ball.
The second time, he took off down the field, and somehow he understands now that he has to kick the ball well out in front of him so that he can keep sprinting down the field. No one could catch him. When he got near the goalie, he flicked with the ball with his right foot into the back left corner of the goal.
"WHOSE KID WAS THAT?" I asked Gloria as we cheered.
It was a beautiful run with the ball. I know it sounds odd to use the word "beautiful," but it was my boy, and he was sprinting down the field and no one could catch him, and it was very, very beautiful.
He played so well that one of the parents started yelling "GO E! GO E!" every time he touched the ball. And he played his ass off--he must have run twice as far as the other kids, and he never came out of the game.
After the game was over, he walked up to me and I gave him a big hug, and he said "How did I get so good?"
"I don't know!" I said.
He couldn't have gotten it from me, because all I gave him was the Pulled Muscle Gene. The first time he pulls a muscle, though, I can motion to the other parents and proudly say "I gave him that."
What's really funny is that his team, to put it politely, is at the bottom of the table. Actually, his team can't even find the table--they're getting pounded almost every game. Quite a few of the kids on his team are, um, disinterested.
I realized this last Friday, during his weekly practice. The team was scrimmaging, and in one particularly memorable sequence, Lester, Annie, and John were laying on their backs on the field while Emma turtled on the ball.
That's not some sophisticated soccer term. She was lying on top of the ball with her arms around it, pretending to be a turtle.
Danny was playing goalie, so it's a good thing that Emma was turtling, because Danny's entire strategy in goal is to make clawing motions like a cat when the ball gets too close.
This strategy will not improve a team's chances for making it to the Premiership.
Nobody cares, though. Everyone seems to enjoy playing the games, and even the kids who are chasing butterflies or turtling or pretending to be lions seem to have a good time.
In the midst of all this, though, Eli plays hard the whole game. Last Saturday, they played a team with a really gifted athlete. He was seven and was incredibly fast and had excellent skills with the ball.
Eli started out in goal, and he made five saves on this kid in the first ten minutes of the game. When he rotated out of goal, though, the scoring barrage began--this kid was truly fantastic, and he was driven.
The score piled up againt them, but Eli kept running all over the field, and in the fourth quarter, he was still running while everyone else was tired. Near the end of the game, there was a loose ball near the goal and Eli pounded it into the net. It was a sheer blue collar goal--he just kept grinding and grinding and finally got rewarded.
Yesterday, we went to a rock climbing gym, and he went up a forty-foot wall five times in thirty minutes. I expected him to start glowing or hulk out or something.
I went up that same wall twice and felt like I was hauling a refrigerator up with me.
We were taking off our climbing shoes, and I said "Little man, you're like Spiderman on that wall. I just can't keep up with you."
"Dad, I've been to rock-climbing camp," he said.
"It's more than that," I said. "You're just strong. You're all power and no weight."
Eli smiled and thought about that for a few seconds, then he started laughing and said "If I'm all power and no weight, then you must be all WEIGHT and no POWER!"
That is correct, sir.
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