The love of the game

Last spring Babe asked Nas if he was ready to start playing flag football with an organization in our area. Initially, Nas seemed all about it! He was excited and looking forward to learning the sport. But as we talked about it more and more over the course of that week, I noticed Nas didn't seem quite as into it as he first did.

"Do you want to play football?" I asked. After all, I am not one to pay for the kids to do anything extra if they don't want to!
"No...I don't know how to play football," he said.
"That's why you start playing! So you can learn how the game works. You're not going to be good at anything unless you start somewhere," I told him.
"I want to learn how to play first." His mother's child.

Who wants to be completely clueless about anything, especially if the other kids have played before or just generally know more than Nas does? I understood. I don't like being thrown into new experiences if I can avoid it. Nas knew he could avoid this one.

"Babe, he wants to know what to do, at least basics I'm sure, before he starts with a team," I enlightened my dear husband who is nothing like me personality-wise.
"Okay, I'll work with him," Babe said.

After taking a "season" off - as my Mom would say - to work with Babe, Nas knew what to expect on the football field when he started playing in September. As I have mentioned here before, Nas is even good at flag football. It's like the coach tells him to grab flags, and that is just what the kid does. Coach tells him to run the ball into the end zone, and well, you get the picture.

What was new for us last week was when Nas asked me, "Mommy, if football players do good do they get taken out of the game?" I knew where this was coming from.
Obviously everyone needs to get a chance to play, so the coach rotates the kids in and out of the game really well, in my opinion. But after a touch down or a couple of pulled flags, Nas gets taken out - and he clearly didn't understand why.

"Baby, the other kids need a chance to learn the game and play, too," I told him. "You didn't do anything bad when the coach pulls you out, and he's not punishing you for being a good player, he just has other kids that need to get in the game like you did."

That didn't do it. And that was evident at last week's game. I knew Nas was getting frustrated with how things were going - the younger kids weren't "getting it done" when he knew he could, but the coach only let him run it once. The score was largely in Nas's team's favor so why not let the other kids take a shot at running the ball? I got it - Nas? Not so much.

Frustration led to tears when Babe asked his coach to explain all of this to Nas. It's a team sport and our son needs to learn to be a team player - now is as good a time as any. This lesson for him is going to take some time, but it is a good stepping stone.