Soccer boundaries 1 - Coaching

As Barb's job was, the girls called her "Coach." Carl was his assistant and the girls called him Carl. Barb knew football, knew how to get the kids to work their butts and they love it. Barb knew how to drop a corner kick five feet from the net. Carl wasn't especially athletic, but he was happy to trot, the cheerleader. Good pass, Heather. Watch out, though."

In the field, Barb was also "Coach" for Carl. " Bet, coach," he would confirm as he drilled his group at crosses. "Not until you see the ball in the air!" he said for sure. I was hoping the girls would think he knew it himself. Barb, horsetail pushed the back of his bill cap, gave him a thumb up.

Basically, Carl loved to be there with the kids, cheer them up, talking about tournaments as if they were so important. Win or lose, the girls were learning about working hard, thinking ahead, seeing themselves as winners. In three or four years more would be university, probably none to compete intercollegially, but with what they had learned in 14 as tools for the arts, engineering, medicine, wherever they pointed out.

In time, Carl did it in shape. Two practices late afternoon to week later Saturdays later on Sundays when they made tournaments only meant balancing their projects.

His daughter Kathy and Andrea Barb were best friends, but he was also the team scorer. Kathy could go by and Andrea had a coach's progenie job. Long, false, goal! But both as a coach and assistant wanted the points, they also ensured that everyone played time. Sometimes a girl who never scored got her skills together and dribbled one right in.

Barb and Carl plus an eighth and ninth grade clutch together made for good football.

Carl could have expressed it in the light of helping the girls, or maybe even staying in shape, but the fact is that he really enjoyed working with ("for", he would recognize with a smile) Barb. They knew each other well. They were not known so well, he realized that they could become known too well, the distinction "also" vs. "too much" is significant.

The elements were obviously there for the border crossings. Divorced woman. Divorced man. Extract from the game. Hug. I need to talk. Forget the side lines of a play field and the game ends behind the stands.

The elements were there for the border crossings except for two that did not want to ruin their friendship. Barb knew everything about crossing lines. His divorce, he said, was because, casually treated, such lines vanish. "Don't let that shit happen," as she said clearly, without thinking much ahead."

Some probably thought they both had something. What is stopping two adults? They're not going to church or anything. So what? But people who presume they tend to be the same one that ruins their own lives. Coach and Assistant Coach knew the boundaries have reasons.

But Barb also knew the frivolity of a limit. A little rarity, never intense, never perpetuated, works well if both sides know the rules. Familiarity, of course, but familiarity within the limits.

Carl, in turn, knew his company worked because he was careful. For tournaments that require a stay overnight, for example, he would have his own room and Barb would end with everything that many of the team could pack in his. Hotels never cared about their additional sleeping bags, as any number of girls causes less wear than just two of a team of children. But parents don't want their girls to stay with a man, even a trustworthy one.

Once after dinner (Sizzler, the girls had voted), Barb had brought his role back to Carl's room to escape the hyper-teenage cluster. When he slept in the other bed, he had gotten a team to wake her up, not wanting to be alone with her sleeping. Stupid? No? Not a bit! That's why it worked.

Carl may have been against Barb in the heart, but he would scrutinize on the other side. They could crawl a little over each other when he dives into his truck, sure, and she wouldn't act raped. It wasn't that he didn't like the push of a chest through his arm. But deliberate brushing, he realized, could become a habit. For a male trainer in a girls' league, that kind of thing is noticed.

Barb had even said once, "There is no reason why mine needs the damn thing, but a guy's eyes never stop wandering," returning to his van to slip into his sports bra under his Hawkeye sweatshirt. It had been his eyes, he knew, even though he had tried to avoid them. It seemed even a little diffused, like, "What do you say if I get headless, good friend, because they're not much and then we'll work with the girls in defense of the area?" I had that kind of ease with her. We're sexual, of course, but we're not gonna let him overwhelm the camaraderie. We're a team that will have fun playing football.

Carl figured he was smart enough to avoid obvious obstacles. The sex I needed had with her old right hand, she told her. Not so often, but enough. Wendy, his ex, implied he was a coward for not jumping to shit every time he felt a little boring. I knew how to get a better sex somewhere else and hell with him!

But Barb knew Carl maybe better than Wendy. "You're not gay. Shit, you and Wendy made a baby. We could compare notes, maybe," making it blush. "You're very curious about my underwear, aren't you? Oh, I forgot about mine?" pretending horror, laughing and adding, "You burn; you fire. It makes sense to me. Hang in there, buddy."

The girls had given Coach the Iowa Hawkeye shirt, despite her protest that she was a Iowa statesman, a Cyclone. It was because he never missed seeing anything. Carl agreed.

Carl and Barb shared the tribulations of raising girls of great will, PTA, Bluebirds, science fairs, orchestra concerts without two violins tuned the same. Soccer was the passion of girls now, but as parents, they'd probably be comparing notes about dating rules in a year or two.

"Do you know why things work between us?" Barb asked one day.

"Respect, an exaggerated sense of what is ridiculous, understanding the goal, many things, right?" Carl really thought he understood what a goalkeeper should do - load against a single breakthrough, etc.

"Sure, but why do things remain solid?" he continued.

"Why?"

We know ours.

Carl thought. "Yes, I suppose so." He knew well and well what he meant. He felt his chest when they were carrying the truck.

"We do it," he laughed at the laughter he loved. "But shit, you know what, you're a rule book that you think mine is here," drawing a line on his forehead. "But maybe she's here and you never discovered it," she spread, not some kind of Barb to do, and moved the line to her neck.

"For a lucky guy, maybe."

"But so you know, I know you know I'm a girl." He wrinkled his forehead. "Too many you know, maybe?"

Barb picked up the ball bag, "So here's a question for a mathematical boy."

Get away.

"Say this field is 50 to 100 meters. So if the area remains the same and we move the touch lines to 60, what about the distance between the target lines?" For Carl, they were the "sidelines" that was widening, but Barb knew the correct terminology.

"They're coming, but I need a calculator."

"Smart boy, and why would there be more annotation?"

Carl imagined X and O on a clipboard. "Because the defense extends, I think."

"Two two! So in addition to athleticism, in what social activity is the goal also 'to aim'. Barb's smile hit Carl who was being prepared.

He laughed when he took his fist. "You are terrible, especially for a woman."

"Help broaden the boundaries," Barb replied. "To win more, I mean. Why is it so terrible that we talk about football, Mr. Assistant?

Carl could never run like that with another woman.

THE PILLO

It was later in the season. Carl?

He knew from Barb's voice that something weighed in his mind. Have you looked too closely at one of the girls? He was supposed to do it sometimes, but Barb didn't let him know, did he? I knew I wouldn't go anywhere.

Shoot, when he and Barb joked about a "growing" player, it was generally in the context of physical attributes. "I'd better get you to be a bigger shirt," to fill your figure. Or maybe, "better size than one below", for a still worn plane with loose enough to see football shoes from your neck. Barb knew he'd noticed. He even shared Andrea's tidbits, information that trainers should be sensitive to. Lana, half back, knew she'd "passed too" and was in the mood for weeks. "This is not the time to catch a girl about teamwork. He's thinking a little closer to home, for God's sake. It scares me to lose his period." Carl best knows what makes a girl tick, or in this case, which could make Lana ticks a little more complex.

Barb continued his concern. "Kathy is your daughter, not mine, and you are a good father to her."

Carl looked at his friend. Barb read his thoughts about his own son? No thoughts, not even, just noting. "It's nothing," he denied, admitting like that.

"It can be whatever," she counteracted, "but it's nothing," occupying herself by gathering the T-shirts of practice, obviously not wanting to list.

Barb waited until the two of you walked to the parking lot. "We noticed them all, you're not some kind of weird."

"I hope not," he agreed.

"She doesn't."

Carl found a strange twist. Kathy? But before I could solve it, Barb continued, "Sometimes you find something secondhand."

"Most of everything I've found out, actually," he agreed.

"Well, here's something I think you'd better know... Kathy wants to take the pill."

"The pill?"

"You know what I mean, she doesn't want to be beaten."

"But she's just... how do you know?" realizing that "only 14" was not an argument.

"Andrea told me."

Andrea?

"My son is sexually active, Carl." Barb's voice was flat, almost masked. "We can't ignore it, assume it makes them grow."

Carl put his hand in Barb.

She looked down, "All you can warn is not to fuck someone who doesn't respect you. Don't take anything. Don't get pregnant. Boys can get rubber, but I still told Andrea to take the pill. Sooner or later he forgets or comes out or something. If it's old enough, you'd better be old enough to take care of things."

"Jesus," was all Carl could do.

"There's probably half of the team getting stuff from that health office, but if we go and raise hell, we'd deny them medical advice."

"Who? Kathy, I mean... I guess I don't have to know, but she's my daughter!"

"With no one yet, but he has decided."

Carl saw some light. "I'll talk about it.

"Carl, now listen. Each of them will start some time or another. You don't talk to these girls about something they know is gonna happen. It never works. It's about not rushing. Listen and try to listen."

"Hear what? What do you want to fuck?" Carl was frustrated.

"But here is where it is harder to explain," without worrying about asserting your query. "I guess you'll find out why I'm saying this sooner or later, but that's not the point. He wants to have sex because that's what girls do. Does that make sense?"

"Sure."

"And he wants to have it with someone who loves her. Is this weird?"

"No."

"Well, then." Barb swallowed and looked completely at Carl. "He said he'll sleep with his father if he will."

Carl was stunned. With him? I'm sure they loved each other. I'm sure you found her attractive, how come? I'm sure I'd idolize him sometime. But sexually? Him? Your daughter? He felt pale. Where did he fail?

"It's not so weird, Carl, that a girl wants that. Shit, it's common as hell. Maybe normally nothing comes from her; a puke face boyfriend beats her and she forgets. But sometimes, especially for a girl who goes for what she wants, it happens. Sleep with Dad sometimes. It's simple. Just a few times. They still love each other."

"But Barb, she's just a girl. You know I...

"I don't know shit sometimes about anyone, and sometimes you don't know anything about yourself."

"But still..."

"So this is what I say, take it for what it's worth."

Carl heard the escape plan. Barb would know.

"The pill takes three or four weeks to stabilize things. Barb weighed his advice and frowned. "As if it were a big reflective thing! So you have a little time, anyway. Pay attention to her. Getting ready is a difficult time for a girl, not like your zipper brain." "Be a real father, okay?"

"OK." But that didn't tell him where to go, he realized.

Barb continued, "It is his thing to find out what he wants; it has to be. Maybe she says yes and you say no and you deal with it." He smiled. "You know not, you're not a zipper brain. No lord."

Carl interrupted. "Do I have to wait to say that?"

"We don't always know what we'll say."

"It won't happen."

"So don't scare her, then," Barb was emphatic. Letting him sink so much, he seemed to support himself. "She'll want you to be the boss, the father."

"Don't do it, that's what I just said."

"No, stupid! Don't be the boss. Let her move the limit at her own pace. She's not used to that, the physical part... the shit is serious shit."

"Are you telling me?"

"Do you know how much I trust you? Enough to tell you about having sex with your daughter, you shit!"

Barb said it would happen! Maybe in three or four weeks!

He won't.