In our first season as junior high soccer, we were eventually competitive with a far southwest county team that seemed to often compete with us as champions during my twenty years of school soccer; the tone was set in our return match with this team in our first season in an away game. Trailing 1-0 in the first half, our tri-captain was yellow-carded for playing aggressively and pushing his opponent. In this first season of junior high soccer, being yellow-carded was like a warning, but I immediately took control by substituting my tri-captain to give him a chance to cool off and to say a word to him.

He was very animated...wanting to get back into play. As a rookie coach, a bad decision was made followed by a (I believe) wise decision...............for this new coach..!! The bad decision was to relent to my heated and aggressive tri-captain to quickly substitute him back in where upon he immediately went straight to the opponent he had pushed and pushed again even more forcefully......thereby being red-carded which automatically meant he was thrown out of the game.

I was in a quandary; my team had to play the last minutes of the first half and all of the second half with one less player compared to the opposing team. The wise decision I felt I made as a "rookie" coach "on the fly" was to drop the three man attack to a two man front which helped cover for the ejected player and use the stronger and more talented middle striker more as a half back who could play more defensively. To my comfort and encouragement, one of my dads I had previously mentioned to you had (without notice) sidled up to me and mentioned the same idea....not recognizing what I had just done..!!!!

We won 2 - 1.........!!!!!!!!!!!