Soccer: The Screenplay

Location: Trendy new hot spot known as the West Field

Time of day: Morning; super-duper, too-crazy early morning

Cast: Bleary-eyed parents, doting/camera-toting grandparents, bored siblings, unruly dogs, and a smattering of aunts and uncles

Scene #1:
Barely awake family enters the scene in their SUV, heading for the West Field. The husband pulls the car up to the curb slowly, carefully avoiding empty beer bottles left in the gutter from late night visitors to the park. A carefully choreographed routine unfolds as it has a hundred times before: pop the trunk, grab the folding chairs, the team banner, and the hammer (needed to properly install banner into dirt that could pass for cement).

If family is signed up for snack duty, standard equipment includes the cooler with halftime snacks, a second cooler with the drinks, and a third cooler with the snacks for after the game.

Heaven forbid the players might get hungry during the next hour.

Husband, wife, and bored teen sibling drag all of these things over to the field, then suddenly realize they left their coffee mugs in the car. Since no sane adult can watch an early morning soccer game without caffeine, wife heads back to retrieve the coffee. Husband attempts to impale stakes into ground in order to properly display team banner and bored teen sibling sets up folding chairs while stifling a yawn (barely).

Once family finishes their respective duties, they settle down into their chairs in preparation for the game. Then they realize that for the next hour, they will be facing directly into the sun, which is just now rising. In order to watch the game without causing retinal damage, sunglasses and hats will be needed. Which are back in the car. Wife sends bored teen sibling back to car to retrieve them. After he returns, wife sends him back yet again for sunscreen, which wouldn't be necessary except for the facing-into-the-sun thing.

Scene #2:
Twelve year-old girls begin to assemble on the field in a pattern loosely resembling two soccer teams. Several girls who still cannot tie their own shoes make their way over to their parents, who lovingly tie them and send them off with a kiss on the cheek.

The sidelines have filled with the cast of characters noted above, and they have brought reinforcements in the form of coffee, donuts, shaded chairs, and iPhones. Bored siblings have Game Boys, iPods, and other electronic devices intended to keep them occupied when they should be watching the game. Most of these devices make noise, and parents are too distracted to remind bored siblings to turn the volume off. This creates added tension in the other parents, who then need more caffeine.

The game is about to begin.

Scene #3:
The referee blows his whistle, and they're off! Much random kicking of the ball in various directions ensues, sometimes resulting in an actual pass to a player on the same team. One of the girls takes a soccer ball to the back, and in response all 21 other players heave a collective "ooh!" while holding up the play to see if she's OK. Parents and coaches yell, until the girls remember that they are supposed to play until the whistle blows and resume their play.

Parents from the sidelines determine that the coaches must not have taught the girls how to play properly, so they begin to weigh in with their own coaching tips. These may or may not align with tips from the actual coach, but this doesn't matter to the parents who do it. Coaching may include, but is not limited to, the following comments:

"Kick the ball!!"
"Run down the field and shoot!"
"Move up/down/ the field!"
"Remember honey, $10 for a goal!"
"Play your position!"
"Pass the ball! Cross it in front of the goal! Shoot! Shoot!"
"What was that?"
"REF!"

Scene #4:
End game.

Copious amounts of junk-food snacks, and/or donuts are handed out to the players. Cheers of "Good Girl!" and "Nice try!" are heard from parents on both teams.

The team banner is extracted from the grass and rolled up for another day. Chairs are folded, coolers retrieved, and bored siblings collect their electronic devices. Parents, coaches, and players exit the field to return another day.

The following Saturday the scenes repeat themselves. Same time; same characters.

(roll credits)