The Man vs. The Machine

This afternoon I got to run practice as our head soccer coach is also the cross country coach, and was at a meet today. So, I got to oversee the 26 players on our roster as we get ready to wrap up the regular season. My JV kids will play tomorrow in their final game before they final varsity game of the year on Saturday. So, we got practice taken care of, and I'm not sure the varsity kids like me much anymore. Maybe I should clarify, I'm not sure they ever did like me. At any rate, we did some running. Ok, we did lots of running, but at least it was their own fault for missing penalty kicks. 24 foot goal, 12 yards away, only you and the goal keeper. Tough? Only for our team, apparently. The usual success rate is between 85% to 90%. Ours is more like 60%. Only took us about half an hour of shooting and running to get it all taken care of. So, what does this have to do with a machine you ask? Well, that part came after the practice was over and the kids departed.

It is the coach's job to not only do practice, coach the kids during the game, and yell at the referee (that one is usually optional, although judging by my last few games I've refereed, I think it's become mandatory recently....). It's also their job to make sure the field is ready to be played on before the game. So, I got to paint the field for the first time this year prior to our game tomorrow night. It's not too bad, the lines are too wavy. At least they aren't any wavier then when the head coach does it. But, the problem was with just a couple lines to go, the painter quit working properly. It decided it wasn't going to paint properly, and kept plugging up at the nozzle where the paint comes down to the grass. So, we had a little "fight" about it. As one of the volleyball coaches said, "It looks like the painter won." Well, I'm happy to report, the painter didn't win. My response was, "The painter didn't win, but every battle does come with some casualties." If you're wondering, we have to repaint the field about once a week, whether we want to or not. But, the field, as you would guess, it all grass. I wonder how long it takes line paint to wear off of fingers.....and hands and arms....