What to do about M's father?

By Donna Olmstead

The recent death of Salt Lake City, Utah, soccer referee Ricardo Portillo makes me incredibly sad. There isn't a game on earth that is worth someone's life. I read that his family says the parents of the 17-year-old keeper who hit him in the head should bear some of the blame. I guarantee you that neither the parents nor anyone else on the sidelines intended for Portillo's death to happen. But time and time again I've watched negative energy result in unintended consequences.

We were at a U9 rec league soccer game Saturday. These kids are at the age where some of them are beginning to show a real talent for soccer and the rest of them are just having a good time running around in the sun.

One little girl, we'll call her M, should be on a competitive team. She has two older brothers who practice soccer with her, and the lessons show in the way she moves, handles the ball and watches the players around her. She's the team's top scorer, of course. And she's a nice kid.

The coach is great with the players. He plays them evenly throughout the game and encourages them with positive comments. He's not the type of coach who keeps his strong players on the whole game with the object of winning. I wish we could clone him.

And I wish we could banish M's father to the parking lot. Actually, to a parking lot in another county. Or state.

When a player whom M's father considers to be weak is playing defense, he snorts and makes comments such as, "Well, now they'll score for sure."

When a player besides his daughter has the ball, he yells that they should pass it to her.

And, with M's father on the sideline, who needs a coach? He knows everything about soccer and "coaches" at the top of his lungs.

Besides not having a volume control, one of the problems with M's father is that he really doesn't know everything about soccer. For example, when the keeper picked up the ball outside the box, M's father yelled, "Penalty kick!" Of course it was just a hand ball, but he really didn't want to hear that.

I'm not sure how to handle parents like him. Sitting at the other end of the field helps me a little, but it doesn't do anything for the parents around him whose feelings he's hurting. He simply goes into his own world when the game begins and becomes unconscious of everyone else.

Because at this age the kids still are shorter than the parents, they get to run through a "parent tunnel" at the end of the game. And they love it. It doesn't matter who won or lost, they run through smiling while the parents yell encouragement. Then everyone gets a treat.

We tied this game 4-4. When M's mom told her husband it was time to form the tunnel, he looked at her and said, "They don't deserve a tunnel. They didn't win." And he picked up his chair and walked off the field. I hope M didn't notice that he wasn't there.

I don't know how to handle M's father. Actually, I know I can't handle him. And I'm pretty sure he doesn't realize that the negative energy he is sending to the players and to the players' parents will have unintended consequences. At the very least, he's ruining the game for the people close enough to hear him. Let's just hope that's as far as it goes.

(Florida resident Donna Olmstead has been involved in soccer through both her children and her grandchildren, as well as housing professional players and owning and running an indoor soccer facility. She is a freelance writer and spends weekends trying to remember at which tournament she's supposed to be cheering.

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Sleep well, play well (The teenager's challenge)
 

(For those parents and coaches welcoming a new generation of teenagers, the Youth Soccer Insider republishes this article, which first appeared in May 2011.)

By Dev K. Mishra, M.D.

I'm sure anyone who's raised an adolescent or teenager can attest to the idea that teenagers don't get as much sleep as they need.

For the adolescent or teenager a number of outside influences take place: more demands on time for homework, socializing, sports, music, or any number of other activities. Let’s take a look below at some reasons why sleep patterns change, what the proper amount of sleep is, and how it can affect sports performance.

Why sleep patterns change in a teenager
Each of us — no matter how old — has an internal clock that follows roughly a 24-hour cycle. The internal cycle has a wide range of effects on many different body functions such as body temperature, release of hormones (human growth hormone is released in larger amounts during sleep than wakefulness), and amount of sleep required.

In younger children the normal body clock would have them fall asleep around 8 or 9 each night and wake up in the morning when they’ve had enough sleep. But in puberty the surge in different hormones produced by the body changes all of that and it becomes very difficult to feel sleepy often until after 11pm. Throw in the required time on Facebook and you can see where all of this leads.

How much sleep does a teenager need and how many teens actually get that?
Most sleep researchers tell us that the typical teenager should have 9 hours of sleep per night. Right now many of you are saying to yourselves “get real, that’s impossible” for most teenagers.

As the father of two teenage boys I’d have to agree. Several studies of teens have shown that about 90% get less than 9 hours of sleep per night and unfortunately 10% said they typically get less than 6 hours per night. The definition of “sleep deprivation” in teens is not completely clear but generally means that the teen is consistently getting less than 8 hours of sleep per night.

How sleep deprivation affects school and athletic performance
Anyone who’s sleepy can be awfully moody but there are many negative consequences beyond that. Being tired during class will obviously make it more difficult to concentrate or even stay awake during class, and there is evidence that being sleep deprived leads to poorer school performance. And most tragically a sleep deprived teen driving a car can lead to disastrous consequences.

In a test of reaction times at Stanford University, people who were tired because of disrupted sleep performed about as poorly as subjects who were legally drunk. The study is the first to show severe impairment in people who have only mild to moderate sleep disturbances. This was an older group of people but it’s easy to see that it could be true for teenagers too. Would you like to face a high and tight fastball when you can’t react?

As for sports performance, research by Dr. Cheri Mah at the Stanford Sleep Disorders Clinic has shown that members of Stanford’s women’s tennis team, men’s and women’s swimming teams, and men’s basketball team improved performance by increasing sleep times.

Some practical tips for sleep and sports performance in teenagers …
There are many good reasons for teenagers to get more sleep than they do, but once again reality can get in the way of a good plan. So do the best you can to get as close as you can to 9 hours of sleep for your teen.

At the very least there are special situations when you’ll want to pay special attention to “sleep preparation” for performance. Do you have an important tournament or championship game coming up? How about a national team tryout? A college identification camp where you’ll be traveling east through several time zones? Here are some simple tips:

* Increase your sleep time several weeks before a major event.

* Make sleep as much of a priority as technical skill, fitness, and nutrition.

* Go to sleep and wake up at the same times every day.

* Turn lights off at night; use bright lights in the morning.

* When traveling from west to east for competitions try to get out to your new time zone several days in advance to acclimate to the new time zone and avoid jet lag.

Mexico Diary: Lots of hype but no Goooool

By Mike Woitalla

The back of a van in Mexico City’s Colonia Condesa is covered with bumper stickers, one of which reads "Jesus Saves …" followed by smaller type:

“He passes to Chicharito… Chicharito scores … Goooool!”

Javier “Chicharito” Hernandez is Mexico’s most popular player for his exploits at Manchester United and high-scoring rate for El Tri. The 24-year-old hit the net 30 times in 45 games for Mexico going into Tuesday’s qualifier against the USA.

But he did not score against the Americans. Brad Guzan did the saving. And every Mexican daily on Wednesday morning had a photo of a frustrated Chicharito on its front page or cover of its sports section.

Pictures of Hernandez holding his head in his hands, grabbing the goalpost and screaming in disappointment, looking skyward with a grimace. The headlines:

La Aficion: “Pure Anguish”
Reforma: “Oh, What Pain”
Esto: “And No Victory”
El Universal: “Pressure Cooker”
Cancha: “Oh My God!” (in English)

Ovaciones’ giant letters screamed “What a Drag” — then it pointed out there was no goal in Azteca, no victory, no personality from El Tri.

The game kicked off in 57-degree weather at 8:30 p.m. local time — a puzzling decision by the Mexican federation, which once always scheduled its big games in daytime, figuring the heat would wilt its foes.

The usual army of vendors sold hats, flags, plastic trumpets and wigs that mimicked the mane of goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa. Those who bought flags wasted $8, because poles were not allowed in the stadium.

A mariachi band entertained the fans before the game, and team mascot “Kin,” a cartoonish looking Azteca warrior, tried unsuccessfully to start a wave. The big screen issued a plea: "Show our good manners and nobility and remain absolutely silent during national anthem of the USA."

There was some jeering, but not that much. And one does wonder why it’s deemed necessary to play anthems at such games when they are so often booed. Everyone in the stands seemed to sing the bellicose Mexican anthem.

When U.S. coach Jurgen Klinsmann entered the field, he greeted Mexico coach Jose Manuel "Chepo" de la Torre and they walked with their arms around each other’s shoulders.

One thing that’s clear after watching Klinsmann — on the field at games and practice, or when he speaks to the media pre- or post-game — he certainly does appear to enjoy his job, which exudes a confidence that's likely to infect his players.

After kickoff, the Mexicans seemed nervous, three times kicking the ball out of bounds while under pressure. But Giovani dos Santos began threatening down the wing, although kept choosing unwisely to deliver his balls in the air. In the seventh minute, the Mexicans strung nearly 20 passes together, each greeted with 100,000 oles. But the Mexican fans' cheering was sporadic, often spurred by images from the big screens or in response to the “USA” cheers from the section of about 400 U.S. fans.

With a few minutes left in the game, the cups of beer started flying, at the U.S. fans and into the media section. Why none of the 900 policemen on hand ever go into the stands to deter the such action continues to puzzle.

At the end, the Mexicans jeered their own team and chanted “Chepo Fuera!” — demanding the sacking of a coach who three games into the Hexagonal has delivered three ties, including two at Azteca — the first also scoreless, against Jamaica. Unprintable were the chants directed at referee Walter Lopez, for not awarding a Mexican penalty kick or two.

There are still seven games to go in the Hexagonal, in which the top three finishers qualify for Brazil 2014 and the fourth-place team plays off with New Zealand for a spot. The result is certainly a boost for the USA, which has four home games left, and isn't devasting for the Mexicans, who although in fifth place are only two points behind leader Panama.

In September, the two gigantes of the region meet again, in Ohio. We’ll no doubt get another avalanche of hype about how huge a game it is because these countries have such a long, complex history, blah, blah, blah.

Hopefully next time we’ll at least see a goal or two.