Sorry for the double post, but I just got back from kicking the ball around for an hour with the Street Soccer Seattle team. They are headed to DC this Wednesday to dominate the Street Soccer USA Cup! It's been great to see the excitement and teamwork build over the past month or so that I've known of their existence and I'm sure they're going to do great.

As this was a pickup game today there were several people who aren't on the actual team playing and one of the players got punched in the stomach as retaliation for a little too much crowding. It was over in an instant and the kid who threw the punch was down doing his foul push-ups almost before I realized what was going on which made me wish there was a little more made out of the incident. Obviously the kid knew there would be repercussions but either he wasn't able to control himself or, in a split second, he decided that the repercussions were worth it and that's an unfortunate attitude to let pass without more than push-ups. He did actually leave after a few minutes but I think that was of his own volition, without any involvement from the coaches aside from talking with him about it and talking to the guy who got punched and waving it off as somebody who "has a lot of stuff going on right now." I would have liked to have seen some resolution between the two involved like an apology and a hand shake before telling the guy that he was done playing, but just for today. But, what do I know, I don't know what kind of training the coaches have but if they are trained in conflict resolution then my opinion of whatever training they received is, obviously by now, pretty low (the training only, of course, the coaches themselves are great guys out there selflessly serving their community in a very clever fashion).

Anyway, apart from that outburst, the rest of the evening's play was quite enjoyable. Everybody was in high spirits and getting very excited about their trip. I wish them the best of luck and look forward to hearing how well they did at their next pickup game in 2 weeks.

That's all for now, maybe I'll be back tomorrow with tales from my lunch at the totem pole...