That time he was benched...

There is no hiding the fact that Zane LOVES soccer - he absolutely loves it.  He also loves to hog the ball!  He is all about scoring and winning and that is it.  In my un-biased opinion he is definitely one of the better players on his team, that is mainly because he has been playing the longest and because did I mention he loves the game?!  He gets very frustrated when someone else doesn't do what he thinks they should've done with the ball or if a pass from someone else gets picked up by the other team.  To try and solve this frustration he has, he just tries to keep the ball to himself.  Most of the time, he is pretty good at doing that and pretty good at scoring with said ball.

The problem is...he's hogging the ball and not passing as often as he should be.  His coaches have been trying to work on this with him - they tell him that they know he can score, but he needs to not run up the score and pass the ball.  Telling Zane not to score is like telling a dog not to pee on grass. The coaches told the team after half-time that they all had to pass the ball 4 times before they were allowed to take a shot on goal - that wasn't meshing with Zane.  He tried, he really did try...but almost every time he'd try to pass the ball to a teammate it would get intercepted and he'd get so mad.  So once it was passed to him, he just took shots on goal...coach pulled him and benched him for a little bit!  The coach was not being mean, wasn't yelling at him or telling him he was being a poor sport or anything...the coach was just trying to explain to him that everyone on the team needs a fair chance. The coach is absolutely right - no one likes a ball hog.  I talked to Zane on the way home and tried explaining this to him more and I think he's slowly starting to understand.  It's so hard at this age though...

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't proud of him and wasn't impressed with his playing.  I absolutely LOVE to watch him play, I love his passion for the game.  I really hope this is something he continues loving and growing in and that we have many years of watching him down the road.  I kinda like being a soccer mom :)