3rd and 4th grade games.

[Hawks Coach]

I used to run a rec soccer league for our homeowner's association. A little kid from one of the townhomes next to the field used to come up with his dad and kick the ball into the big goal at the end of the field by his house. We had a 5-6 year old team and he was 4, but he really wanted to play so we let him hang out with us.

For several games he never really gets to the ball. He finally gets his big chance, and he is right by the hockey goal we use for peewee soccer. He dribbles right past the goal, past the endline of our 30X40 yard field, and about 20 yards away to, you got it, the big goal at the end of the field. He buries a shot in the corner of the big goal, leaves the ball there and comes running back in full goal celebration.

When we all stopped laughing, we sent one of the older kids down to get the ball so we could get the game going again.

You only have these moments in the peewee games.

[TimB]

One of my favorites in a girls 11-12 yaer old game-I had a girl complain because someone was trying to block her shots. I told her they were allowed as long as they didn't foul,and I would be watching.
kids are great!!!

Tim

[Bobby]

Here's a cheesy one.

The kid running the scoreboard at the venue (a new venue) pressed the wrong key (this is a Daktronics AS-3100) on the console and it was running in soccer mode. Nobody knew what was happening until I came between games and fixed the problem. I was surprised nobody saw the defects -- clock wasn't running in tenths, penalty counters weren't running . . .

Sometimes you have to watch the scoreboard operators, especially with the current generation of scoreboards being extremely complex compared to the electro-mechanical scoreboards of the past where you had one for each sport and pushed buttons, compared to today's tricky membrane keyboards.