Don't spare us the cutter

Another interminable meeting of all club coaches tonight. As usual, this thing takes an hour longer than it should. Why? Because some of the coaches are a little concerned about the forthcoming try-outs. More specifically, they are concerned at how best to let  kids know they’ve failed to make the cut. No, seriously, grown men and women don’t have the cojones to evaluate the skills of a nine or ten year old and then tell them to go take up another sport.

‘I think we should at the very least all do our best to let the kids down gently,’ says the club president.

‘It’s our duty to encourage them to play sport not tell them to give one up,’ reckons another do-gooder.

‘There has to be a way to be more inclusive in how we run the club,’ says the coach of the girls U-11s. She brings her kids to meetings. Enough said.

‘Is there a way if I don’t want to hurt a kid’s feelings I can carry extra players on my roster?’ asks the man in charge of the boys U-14s, somebody who really should know better.

They blather on for the guts of two hours, theorizing about all sorts of ridiculous stuff like how some kids mature physically faster than others. Which is really just a way of making excuses for the weaker boys and girls. I sit there with arms folded and steam coming out both ears. Finally, I can take no more. Time to speak.

‘I can’t believe what I’m hearing here,’ I say, throwing my pen to the floor to add dramatic effect. ‘This is nauseating. Have you forgotten what this is? This is travel team. This is not CYO or PAL or PC tree-hugging soccer. This is travel team. It’s for the elite, the few, the proud, the future marines! Our best and our brightest. It’s not our duty to coach kids who can’t play or aren’t strong enough to compete. It’s our duty to send the weaker sisters on their way to play games like tennis where there’s no physical contact. Or to tell them to devote more time to their studies. Our job  - and all of you seem to forget this – is to foster the strong, to take the good ones, the great athletes, the bigger kids, and to teach them how to impose their will on people!’

Obviously I’m very proud of this speech but here is one more sign America is doomed. Less than half the room applauds my Churchillian call to arms. Depressing stuff.