Flag Football

One of the things I imagined when I considered adopting was the idea of them playing sports. I've always really wanted to have to juggle various sports and buy all the gear and attend all the games and cheer them on! I didn't have one specific sport that I wanted them to be interested in...could be soccer, football, baseball, karate, tennis, whatever. On the first day that I met Josh and Joey, Joey said he wanted to play flag football. I told him that I'd look into it and find a place he could play. When I asked around, Upwards was suggested to me. Upwards is a local church flag football program. The literature promised fair play time, patient coaches and spiritual guidance. I was concerned that Joey is 8 and hadn't played before. I didn't want to have him join a more competitive league and never get to play or learn.

We went to Evaluations to let the coaches get to know the players skills and divide them properly into teams. That's where I found out that Joey has a great throwing arm, but he isn't such a great catcher. That's what Josh said, "Joe's not a great catcher" and that proved to be true. After we left the Evals that night, we were headed to swim lessons at Lifetime. In the car, Joey asked me why they had talked about prayer and the Bible. I explained that Upwards is a church league on a church's property. He started to cry and said "I don't want to play in a stupid Christian football league." "Why did you sign my up for a stupid church league." "When I tell my friends I play flag football, they'll make fun of me for not playing real football." It went on and on and on. This was particularly confusing to me as Joey loves to go to church each Sunday. He looks forward to it all week. He gets up easily on Sunday mornings and loves to tell me what he learned after church. He fully participates in saying Grace at mealtime and bedtime prayers at night. Honestly, this took me by surprise. I wondered at the time if he'd been disappointed in his performance at the Evals or if it had been harder than he expected, so he might have been using this as a decoy issue. At swim lessons he wouldn't get out of the car and just wanted to lay on the backseat and cry. Finally Josh told him that he needed to use the bathroom, so Joey stopped and we went into Lifetime to swim lessons. Always interesting what can make him stop. Two days later he was talking about how excited he was to play flag football. When I asked about it being a church league, he said "Yeah, I'm over that."

Registration for Upwards is down this season, maybe because of the economy, so fewer players are signed up. They decided that instead of splitting the players onto teams for the entire season, the teams would change each week. They will practice one Monday prior to the first Saturday and then for 1 hour on Saturday's before their games. Practice at 9am and the game at 10am. This is good and bad news. The good news is that I get Monday nights back. The bad news is that I thought Joey was getting 2 days of exercise. Oh well. The one Monday night practice went well. He didn't catch many balls, but he threw well and tried really hard. When I suggested to Joey that he might have an easier time catching the ball if he wore his glasses to play and then he could see it, he said he didn't want to wear his glasses and be a dork. He thought he didn't need them. It hasn't occured to him yet that people look dorkier not catching balls than they do wearing glasses. I've decided to let him come to that decision on his own.

After having an unforgettable drought this summer, Austin starts getting rain a few days before Joey's first game and we thought it might get rained out. Luckily the Upwards coaching staff were on the ball and moved the game into the gym. Football inside, you ask? Well...this is the first game for a bunch of kids most of whom have never played the sport before. They don't know about downs, lines of scrimmage, etc. The opportunity to run some plays, even without grass or punting, is fantastic! Meghan and Josh and I were Joey's cheering section. His team the first week was called the Cowboys. He sat out the first series and then got to be quarterback for his team's first offensive drive. He made more completions than anyone else. Many were to the other team, but they were completions nonetheless. The coaches stood right behind the quarterbacks and called the plays and told all the guys what to do. When a player has the ball and it running towards his goal, all the other boys just run along side. Most don't understand that they should be trying to pull the ball carrier's flag. When they would miraculously move the ball a few yards, they would all go back to the original line of scrimmage to line up. The coaches would call out to them and explain that they now need to line up at the new line of scrimmage. Can't help but start to wonder how and where I picked up my football knowledge. Obviously we all get taught sometime and this is these guys time. At the end of each game, the coaches give out stickers for their flags. This first week, Joey earned a blue star that represents Effort. He's so psyched up and can't wait for the next game.

That week, we took the football to the park almost every day. Joey and I threw it back and forth. We talked about watching the ball all the way into his hands. We talked about moving his feet to get to wherever the ball is. But mostly we just threw back and forth. The longer we'd practice the better he got. Maybe it's a good thing that practice is the hour before the game. Perhaps a long warm-up is exactly what Joey needs.

Yesterday was Joey's second game and his first outside. He says this was his first "real" game because it was outside and he got to wear his cleats and they had yardage markers. During last week we had gone to Academy and purchased cleats and a mouthguard. Earlier that day he had asked about looking for one of those things that go around the back of your head and hold your glasses on during sports. Ha!! I had waited long enough. He'd already decided that it might help him to be able to see better during play. We found an orange eyeglass tie that is sure to keep his glasses secure. During game two, Joey played even better than the first one. He pulled the flag of the best player during the first run of the game. He was always right in the action, but rarely in the huddle. As his team was on offense and in a huddle between plays, Joey always seemed to wander to the line of scrimmage and the refs would say "Joey, get back there and find out what the play is" or "Get on into the huddle Joey". He ran much faster and looked much more coordinated and comfortable which had to be the cleats. For this game, his cheering squad was Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt Chris, Meghan, Josh, Sparkie, Charlie and I. He often seemed more interested in whether we were watching him than in playing the game. The coach gave him a Gold Star sticker this game for Sportsmanship. I love Joey's enthusiasm and optimism and patience and teamwork! And Joey is absolutely loving flag football!!