I Stood Corrected

Next week my son's U-9 travel team will be playing in the Piscataway 33rd Annual Fall Classic Soccer Tournament, and they will be seasoned veterans, as they played their very first travel team games last year, in the 32nd Annual Fall Classic as wee little six and seven year olds; my favorite memory of last year's tournament happened during a wild rainstorm, and not a warm summer thunder shower, this was a cold pelting downpour, but we were playing our damndest, my son Ian pouncing on balls like a wildcat in goal and the rest of the team slogging through the mud, but one boy -- ironically the tallest on the team -- ran over to me on the sidelines and said, "Coach, I'm cold!" and so I told him all I could think of (remember, it was my first time coaching very young children) . . . I said, "Be a man, Danny, it's only rain," but he put me in my place with his reply: "But Coach, I'm not a man, I'm just a little boy."