August Extracurricular Activities

[mommyatty]

sdlaura- we have found since DD started playing goalie that it’s really vital for these really specific not-like-the-rest-of-the-team positions to have a coach who actually knows the position well. DD’s travel team has a goalie coach, but she’s absent a lot. DD literally grew more in a week’s worth of 2 hr goalie clinics with specialized goalie coaches than she had in months of being coached mostly by people who weren’t goalies. It was like she emerged as a whole new player.

Interesting side note- DD started optional workouts for her school’s field hockey team. She’s the only goalie for middle school. There was one goalie for high school, but this week a second one joined. The second one is a softball catcher who hoped to play D1 softball but broke her finger so badly she needed surgery. She’s entering her junior year and told DD her D1 chances are over because she’s missed too much time. DD told her “well, there’s plenty of room for goalies!”

[sdlaura]

mommyatty yes, DD went to a softball catcher retreat over an hour away last summer, but it’s like $2k for 3 days and hard to get into. We had a local catcher coach for a little while but she was super unreliable. So I’m really excited for DD to get some position-specific coaching, and it’s awesome that this coach who has played as a D1 college catcher picked out DD at the tryouts as someone she wanted to work with.

That’s funny because when DD played soccer, she was the goalie - I think some skills are a little transferable! DD also plans to try out for her school field hockey team this winter.

[waverly]

DD had her first tournament game and it went so much better than previous tournaments. For example, the ref and team we played against were so much better at not fouling and playing dirty. In fact the ref didn't even have to call any fouls, but if there were I felt he was compentant as opposed to some. We had one ref that was a minor and wasn't even stopping the game for injuries.

[mae0111]

I'm getting a little concerned about DD2's club soccer season. Her coach has always been a little flaky and disorganized, but it seems to be getting worse as the years go on. At the end of the season, he said he was going to run a week-long camp for the kids over the summer. Never happened. Then he sent out an email saying that practices will start the week of 8/26 officially, but that he's going to run a 2-3 day clinic this week and would be in touch. He never scheduled it and never emailed anyone, and it was supposed to happen this week. So we are paying tuition for summer practices, and we haven't had any summer practices. Head coach is starting a new FT job and a new varsity coaching job so maybe his head is spinning a little? He will have a true assistant coach this year. The assistant has coached DD2 (and almost every other play on the team) in the past, and seems to have a much better grasp of her strengths and weaknesses. So I'm hoping that he'll start to implement some changes. Last year, this team didn't win one regular season spring game. Their first win came in a tournament after the regular season; Assistant Coach coached the game and he shifted all of the players around. With the changes, the team found their stride and really played well.

DD1 is resistant to taking private music lessons. Right now, she plays piano, guitar, and ukelele. She's almost 100% self taught for guitar and ukelele, and she's recording and mixing on Garage Band, singing while playing. She's really quite good, and I'd love for her to explore everything more with an expert... but she is really pushing back. She has like 3 study halls every Friday and I can schedule private lessons at school during her day, so not even taking up after-school time or adding to our busyness... I think I'm just going to have to schedule it and push her along.

[campermom]

Whoops here go…field hockey twice a week, karate twice a week, and fall baseball schedule unknown. Kind of sounds like fall baseball will have games only, with only one practice starting this week.

So far, I only have one pickup conflict and I can get my parents or sister to do that; or find a teammate who lives nearby. Games and weather reschedules are a different story. I absolutely running around every single night of the week though, in both fall and spring.

Oldest DS stays after school most days for the HS team workouts so that involves another trip out daily but then I pick up little DS from aftercare anyway. I get off at 2:30 but have to keep little DS in aftercare bc school lets out at 4 and….we’ll see above. I would never be able to commit to a bus stop!