Week Eight. End of an Era.

     What a great final game.  Both teams played so beautifully.  The Sharks were all grace and power and the Bears were all tenaciousness.   The highlights of the game are here.

     I went back through the old posts here trying to find the first appearances of Sam E., Jackson, Austin and Elizabeth.  This Saturday was their last game on the U6 team and seeing how far they'd come I wanted to have a look back at where they started.  In that final U6 game they played with a team unity that was too graceful to simply be called "cooperative"...it appeared choreographed.   These four play with energy, even exuberance and yet also with calmness and assuredness, dominating the play, and they also lead their teammates in subtle (and in Jackson's case, not so subtle) ways and have, over the last few sessions, introduced new players on the team to the Sharks' signature style.
     I would describe that "style" in one word: "fearless".  You'd assume that by fearless I meant their willingness to crash into other players for the sake of getting the ball.  Certainly every player on the team  has that quality.   But what I'm thinking of is a fearlessness when trying new things, when daring to use a new move or learn some new skill or trusting your teammate to play his position while you play yours.  In short, they don't fear failure.  They take chances and risk stumbling over their own attempts to expand their skills all for the sake of getting better at the game they love, and it seems that for them, for these four players, that has always been their natural attitude.   If the Sharks have a style it is "fearlessness" and the foundation of that style is joy.  Like Ernie Banks, the Sharks would always say "let's play two."



     So, looking back I found the earliest mention of Sam E. in a post from January 10th of 2010.

    "Will and Sam, attacked the ball tirelessly." 

Not very portentous.   But by the next game it had become apparent that Sam was going to be a player.  In the post from January 18th of 2010 I quoted Sam as saying that he wanted to play "that run around with the ball everywhere game".   That, in retrospect, is a portent given how disciplined his play was this past Saturday.  He was making beautiful passes, seeing the whole field, and of course still throwing in a jaw-dropping move here and there.  At one point in this last game Sam made a spin move and the Referee, who is a varsity player herself, said to me "did he just do a Maradona?"  I thought "yes, but he probably made it up himself."   I also found this (now) ironic quote from Sam in a post from August of 2010, one of his first U6 games:

"Coach, I'm never gonna score a goal."

     Jackson, Elizabeth and Sam Atkins joined the U4 team in the Spring of 2010 and jumped right in, showing their quality immediately and immediately beginning to form a team-bond with Sam E.   That was a great session and then it was on to U6 and their first session as the Sharks.  Austin, I think, started playing with the team in that next outdoor session,  Fall 2010.   What a transformation he's made.  In that first post that mentions Austin I noted that his powerful kick would be effective once he got the hang of keeping his head as to where the goal is.  Now, I'm sure, he could find the goal with a blindfold on.
     A post from this past May shows the Sharks beginning to reach their potential as a team in terms of working across the field in a unified attack.  That game, looking back, really set the bar.  From then on we all wanted to see them working like that and they just kept getting better and as new players came on, like Diego and Samuel, they just had to get with the program because that's how the Sharks play.  Now Sam E., Jackson, Elizabeth and Austin are going to make the jump up to U8 and I know that what will happen is that they will, as a group, challenge their new teammates to get better by continuing to set the bar high.  Here we go!