Soccer boundaries 1 - Coaching

When it was Barb’s work, the girls called her “Coach.” Carl was her assistant and the girls called him “Carl.” Barb knew soccer, knew how to make the kids work their asses and love them. Barb knew how to drop a corner kick off the net. Carl wasn’t really athletic, but was happy to walk around, the more encouraging. “Good job, Heather. But watch the out-of-bounds.

On the field, Barb was also “Coach” for Carl. “You know, Coach,” he’d confirm that he shipped his group on crossovers. “Not until you see the ball in the air!” Said with certainty. He was hoping the girls knew that themselves. Barb, ponytail pushed the back of her account cap, gave him a thumb up.

Carl loved being with the kids, cheering them up, talking about tournaments like they were so important. Winning or losing, the girls learned hard work, thinking ahead, seeing themselves as winners. In three or four years, they’d be college-bound, probably not to compete, but with what they’d learned at 14 as tools to the art, technology, medicine, wherever they’re aiming.

Schedule wisely, Carl made it fit. Two late practices a week plus Saturdays plus Sundays when they did tournaments meant he balanced his projects.

His daughter Kathy and Barb’s Andrea were best friends, but also the team’s scoring machine. Kathy could pass and Andrea had the footwork of a coach’s progeny. Long passage, fake, target! But as much as coach and assistant wanted the points, they also assured everyone is playing time. Sometimes a girl who never scored her skills together and dribbled one in.

Barb and Carl plus an eighth-year-old claw made together for good soccer.

Carl may have said it in the light of helping the girls, or maybe staying in shape himself, but the fact was that he really enjoyed working with what, he would conclude with a grin, Barb. They knew each other well. They didn’t know each other that well, he realized they might be too good to get to know each other, the “so” contradictive.

The elements were clearly there for crossing borders. Divorced wife. Divorced man, excitement of the game. A hug. I need to talk. Forget the playground and the game ends behind the bleachers.

The elements were there for border transitions except two who didn’t want to ruin their friendship. Barb knew everything about the border. Her divorce, she said, was because, normally, such lines fade. “Don’t let that shit happen, like she blows it up without thinking ahead.”

Probably some people thought the two had something. What’s stopping two adults? They’re not going to church or anything. But people who assume they’re the same people who ruin their own lives. Coach and assistant Coach knew boundaries have reasons.

But Barb also knew the frivolity of a border. A little raunchiness, never intense, never perpetuated, works well as both sides know the rules. Confessity, sure, but trust.

Carl, in turn, knew their companion was working because he was careful. For tournaments that stay overnight, for example, he would have his own room and Barb would end up with how much of the team could take in hers. Hotels never cared about their extra sleeping bags, like some girls wear less and cause tears than two of a boys’ team. But parents don’t want their girls comrades with a man, even a reliable one.

Once after dinner, the girls voted. Barb brought her papers back to Carl’s room to escape the hyper-teenage cluster. When she turned up on the other bed, he took some of the team to wake her up, and didn’t want to be in the position to be alone with her sleep. Stupid? Not at all. That’s why it worked.

Carl could have blended against Barb in the huddle, but he’d go the other way. They might crawl a little over each other when they crawl into her van, and she wouldn’t act violated. It wasn’t like him pushing a chest over his arm. But on purpose, he realized, can become a habit. For a male coach in a girl’s competition, it’s noticed.

Barb had even said, “There’s no reason I need that damn thing, but the eyes of a man never stopped wandering, back to her van to jump her sports bra under her Hawkeye sweatshirt. They were his eyes, he knew, even though he was trying to throw them. She even seemed a little amused, like, “What do you say I go topless, good friend, because they’re not much and then we work on the girls at the zoo defense?” She was comfortable with her. We’re sexual, but we won’t let it overwhelm. We’re a team having fun playing football.

Carl thought he was smart enough to avoid the obvious pitfalls. The sex he needed with his old right hand told himself. Not that many times, but enough. Wendy, his ex, implied that he was a pussy not to fuck every time she got a little bored. She knew how to get better sex and to hell with him!

But Barb may have known Carl better than Wendy. You’re not gay. Shit, you and Wendy made a baby. We can compare notes, maybe, make him blush. You’re curious about my underwear, right? Ohmigod, did I forget mine? Looking for fear, laughing and adding, you’re burning, retreating. Makes sense. Hold on, buddy.”

The girls had given Coach the Iowa Hawkeye shirt, despite her protest that she was an Iowa Stater, a Cyclone. It was because she never saw anything. Carl agreed.

Carl and Barb shared the tribulations of raising strong-willed girls, PTA, Bluebirds, science fairs, orchestra concerts without two violins using the same thing. Soccer ball was the passion of the girls now, but as parents, they’d probably compare notes about dating rules in a year or two.

You know why things work between us? Barb asked one day.

“Respect, an exaggerated feeling of what’s ridiculous, understanding target movement, lots of things, right? Carl really thought he understood what a goaler should do, a charge against a breakthrough, and so on.

“Of course, but why do things stay good?” She followed.

Why?

“Boundaries. We know ours.

Carl thought. “Yes, I think so.” He knew what she meant. He felt her chest when they loaded the van.

Yeah, she laughed at the laugh he loved. But shit, you know what? You are so rule book that you think mine is here, signing a line on her forehead. “But maybe it’s here and you never figured it out,” she whispered, not doing Barb thing, and moved the line to her neck.

“For a lucky guy, maybe.”

But I know you know I’m a girl. She shrinked her eyebrow. Too many “know,” maybe?

Barb picked up the ball sack, so here’s a question for a math boy.

“Leave.”

“Say this field is 50 by 100 yards. So if the area remains the same and we move the contact lines to 60, what happens with the distance between target lines? For Carl, they were the “side” she broke, but Barb knew the correct terminology.

“They’re getting closer, but I need a calculation.”

Smart boy! And why was there more score?”

Carl suggested X and O’s on a clipboard. Because the defense is spreading, I think.

Two of the two! Besides athletic activity, the target is also “to score.” Barb’s grin’s tipped Carl to being framed.

He laughed when he grabbed the braces. “You’re awful, especially for a woman.”

It helps enlarge the boundaries, Barb took himself in. To score more, I mean. Why is that awful that we’re talking about soccer, Mr. Assistant?

Carl could never wash around with another woman.

The PILL

It was later in the season. Carl?

He knew about Barb’s voice that something was on her mind. Did he look too close to one of the girls? He’d do it a few times, but Barb wouldn’t let him know, would he? She knew he wasn’t going anywhere.

When he and Barb joked about a player who grew up, it was usually in the context of physical attributes. “Better that a bigger sweater” for someone filling her figure. Or maybe, “better than one down,” for a flat chess chess with the top loose enough to see football shoes out of her neck. Barb knew he noticed. She’d even share tits of Andrea, information to which coaches should be sensitive. Lana, half-back, they knew they were too far away and they were moody for weeks. “This is not the time to let a girl work on teamwork. She thinks a little closer to home, for God’s sake. Afraid she’ll miss her period.” Carl better know what makes a girl tick, or in this case, which makes Lana a little more complex.

Barb moved on with her concern. “Kathy is your daughter, not mine, and you’re a good father to her.”

Carl looked at his friend. Did Barb read his mind about even his own child? No thoughts, even, just noticed. It’s nothing, he denied, so he admitted it.

“It could be anything,” she said, “but it’s not nothing”, keeping herself busy gathering the training sweaters, clearly don’t want to amplify.

Barb waited for the two to walk to the parking lot. We all notice them, both of us. You’re not a weirdo.

“I hope not,” he agreed.

Neither did she.

Carl thought this was a strange turn. Kathy? But before he could fix it, Barb went on, “Sometimes you find something secondhand.”

Almost everything I ever found out, he agreed.

Here’s something I think you know better… Kathy wants the pill.

The pill?

You know what I mean. She doesn’t want to get pregnant.”

But she’s just… I realize the “just 14” wasn’t a fight.

“Andrea told me.”

Andrea?

“My child is sexually active, Carl.” Barb’s voice was flat, almost masked. “We can’t ignore it, assume they all grow up.”

Carl put his hand on Barb.

She looked down, “All you can warn is screwing someone you don’t respect. Don’t catch anything. Don’t get pregnant. The boys can get rubbers, but I told Andrea to go into the pill. Sooner or later, he’ll forget it or it’ll come out or something. If she’s old enough, she better be old enough to take care of things.”

“Jesus,” was all Carl could magic.

Half the team gets stuff from that health office. But when we came in and raised hell, we deny that they get medical advice.

With who? Kathy, I mean… I don’t think I need to know, but she’s my kid.”

“With no one, but she’s decided.”

Carl saw light. “I’ll talk her out. You can help, I mean.

“Carl, listen. Each of them will start a few times. You don’t talk about those girls from something they know is gonna happen. It never works. It’s about not rushing. You listen and try to hear it.”

Hear what? That she wants to fuck? Carl was frustrated.

But here it’s harder to explain, not the trouble to confirm his search. I assume you’ll find out. Why I say this sooner or later, but that’s not the point. She wants sex because that’s what girls do. Does that make sense?

Of course.

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

No.

Okay, then. Barb swallowed and looked all over Carl. She said she’d sleep with her dad if he did.

Carl was stunned. With him? Of course they loved each other. Of course he found her attractive, how could he not? She probably would’ve identified him at some point. But sexually? Him? His daughter? He felt pale. Where did he fail?

" It’s not that weird, Carl, that a girl wants that. Shit, it’s perfectly normal. Maybe it doesn’t usually come off, a friend with vomit and forget about them halfway. But sometimes, especially for a girl who goes for what she wants, it happens. She sleeps with dad a few times. So simple. A few times. They love each other.”

But Barb’s just a kid. You know I…

I don’t know anything about anyone sometimes. And sometimes you don’t know anything about yourself.

But still…

So this is what I’m saying. Take it for what it’s worth.”

Carl listened to the escape plan. Barb would know.

“The pill takes three or four weeks to get everything stable. She has so much time to think.” Barb weighed her advice and frowned. Like it’s such a considerable thing. Shit! So you have some time. Watch her. Prepare for is a difficult time for a girl, not like your zippers. She smiled. Be a real dad, okay?

Okay. But that didn’t tell him where to go, he realized.

Barb moved on. “It’s her thing to find out what she wants, it has to be. Maybe she says yes and you say no and you’ll handle it. She smiled. You know how to say no. You’re not a zipper. No sirree.”

Carl interrupted. “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, Barb was empty. She sinked so much, she seemed to withdraw. She’ll want you to be the boss, the father. Don’t. You’re hurting her because you don’t know."

“Don’t. I just said that.

No, stupid. Don’t be the boss. Let her move the boundaries. She’s not used to it, the physical part… Fucking is serious shit.”

Are you saying it?

You know how much I trust you? Enough to tell you about having sex with your daughter, godsakes."

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

No.