We lost almost every game!

But I still loved it. Here's why.

When in doubt, kick it out!

I coached my daughter's elementary school soccer team for the seventh season in a row this spring and we lost almost every game. I loved every minute of it.

It’s recreational soccer, and the rosters get scrambled most seasons. This year we were “Team Royal Blue,” and I think it was my favorite despite the disappointing win-loss record.

We had a fantastic group of kids who improved every week and didn't lose heart even after getting blown out a few times. But there's another reason I had so much fun:

I made a conscious effort to focus only on things I could control and detach from everything else.

A lot of this involved phrasing problems as questions, finding answers that required only things that my co-coach and I could control, and generally just trying hard to look on the bright side.

A few examples:

Question 1: “How can we get these kids to listen?”

It was tough keeping control of the kids in practice sometimes. Everyone wanted to tell me what position they should play, what drill we should do next, and that they needed their shoes tied tighter.

Being young kids, they all seemed to have a constant stream of non sequiturs they wanted to share, loudly.

I couldn't control any of that, but I could control myself. So, as the kids got louder, I made my voice quieter. And, I made sure everything I said was something they'd want to hear:

• "If you’re listening to me now, line up to pick your jersey numbers."

• "The first two kids who stand silently beside me will be captains for the scrimmage."

• Eventually, once it started working: "If you're clearing the ball, kick it to the sidelines, not the middle," or "Watch out for No. 9 on the other team; she's really good."

It usually worked. At least, as long as nobody with extremely cute dog happened to walk by. I couldn’t really expect to compete with that.

Question 2: “We keep losing. What can I possibly say?”

Our team was very young—it's a league for third and fourth graders, but we had only two fourth graders. A year or two makes a big difference at this level.

Still, we lost our first three games by a combined 15 to 0!

Winning isn’t really the point at this level (although, practically speaking, it’s also not not the point), but I was concerned that the kids would lose confidence quickly.

So, I focused on what we could control.

Example: We went down 3-0 in the first half of one game. So, I told the team that as far as we were concerned, the second half was a completely new game.

We managed to play to a 0-0 draw in that second half.

It was a small victory. Things like that worked at least half the time. The kids didn't get overly dejected.

I also made a huge effort to be the “cheerleader-in-chief” as well as coach, making up awards on the spot, calling out good plays and improvements, and sometimes just being a goofball dad.

If I looked like I was staying positive and having fun, I hoped, it would make it easier for everyone else to have fun, too.

Even in decisive losses, we found things to be proud of—solid defensive plays, good hustle, not allowing the other side to get any “easy” shots, and even scoring the occasional goal.

It's more fun to win than it is to lose. But, it's less not-fun to lose 3-1 than 5-0!

Question 3 :“The referee just made a horrible call. How should I respond?”

We got better. Games got closer. But in a key moment in a close game, a referee missed a big call that gave the other team a significant unfair advantage.

They scored immediately. I could feel the wind being sucked out of our kids’ sails.

I thought: “No matter what else happens, Team Royal Blue needs to see me stand up for them.”

So I forcefully objected—loud and angry, but calculated—right up to the line where I figured parents would think I was taking things too far, but without quite crossing it.

(My co-coach did a good job playing “good cop,” and holding me back!)

The goal wasn't to overturn the call; that wasn’t going to happen. Instead, it was to make sure that (a) the referees knew I was paying attention, and that (b) the kids knew I was proud of them and that I thought they were doing the right things.

Afterward my little almost-a-yellow-card tirade, we also had to move quickly to reassure the kids that bad calls happen, life goes on, and we needed to put it behind us keep playing hard.

That was a good lesson, too.

Question 4: “We finally have a lead! How do I coach them to hold onto it?”

In our best game, we fell behind 2-0, but the girls kept their heads, battled back, and tied it before halftime. Then we took a 3-2 lead with 10 minutes left.

Wow, did I ever want them to hold on and win this one!

But, the other team was bigger, stronger, older, and determined. Our kids were exhausted—and there are no timeouts in soccer! One small mistake could make the difference.

I also worried that if we did lose, one or two of our kids would wind up blaming themselves and feeling terrible. So, my co-coach and I quickly thought of what we could control:

• (a) the clock, and

• (b) our substitutions.

Every whistle, we subbed two or three players. When we sent them back a minute or two later, they went into the game with six words from me ringing in their ears: "When in doubt, kick it out."

“Out,” meaning “out of bounds.”

We must kicked the ball out of bounds 30 times in the last few minutes, and we played almost the entire remainder in our end—frustrating the other team and eating up the clock.

It wasn’t pretty, but buttoned everything up and preserved the win—our only win of the season!

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One of the great things about coaching like this, second only to having yet another “thing” that my daughter and I like to do together, is seeing that the kids really do get much better over the course of the season.

Some of these girls will stick with soccer, others might move on to different sports or activities—but I hope they all remember this season with pride. I know I will.

Besides, in grade school soccer, the season always ends with cupcakes.

How hard is it to have fun when you know there will be cupcakes at the end?

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Thanks for reading. Photo by Photo by Samuel Ramos on Unsplash. I wrote about some of this before at Inc.com. See you in the comments.