It has been awhile since I wrote much about sports at all but Id like to recap and update a little before we start into the fall sports season.

Right now we are on the only break from sports we have seen this year. Baseball ended a couple weeks ago. Soccer doesn’t start for another week or so. Swim is in a bit of a hiatus because Bean sadly didn’t make State Championships again this season. So we have a little lull which has meant some time to stop and breathe many nights and some time to reflect on what has been accomplished.

Starting with swim. We knew coming into Zoeys 11 year old year that the drop in qualifying times was going to be very hard to do as she wasnt able to reach the 10 year old times last year until a week after she turned 11 then she would have been solid. This year has been a lot of learning for her and for me and my wife. She started learning that decisions outside the pool affect times inside the pool. She learned that to swim fast is not racing and that racing is giving everything till you almost faint. She learned how to make the finals in an event. She learned that finals mean pushing even harder. She learned how to take a loss and how to learn from it. We are still working on many portions of being an athlete at 12 years old (she won’t turn twelve for a few more months) which means taking things like diet and other types of exercise seriously. I do not doubt in my mind she will do fantastically in this short course season coming up as she has found a new gear lately and has been working  harder than ever to be faster and to compete at a higher level.

Soccer was interesting for us so far this year. Ellie’s team was strong this spring. Strong enough I thought we had a chance to win it all and we did try We lost in the semis by 1 goal to the team that won it all the next game by 1 goal. If the ball travels differently on a few shots it’s us holding the trophy, not them. The thing I’m most proud of is the fact that the team held its head up shook hands and walked away happy with themselves. Honestly, it was Ellie’s best season also as she had two goals and had multiple assists from the corner kick she became so good at.

This fall we will be running an 11U team so I will have both my girls back this season so it will be fun having both my girls for the first time in a year because last season was still 10U so I lost Zoey to age and last fall my wife did a team so Zoey played for her. I’m excited about a new season and getting another chance to win a championship with both my girls.

Right after that, we will go right back to the diamond as I will be coaching another 6U boys baseball team. This is becoming my favorite place. I love the baseball diamond and I love helping young boys fall in love with the game of baseball. My son has the attention span of a gnat most days but he loves baseball and I can actually get a good 5 or 6 innings out of him watching live baseball and when we went to a real game he was engaged and watching everything the whole time. We spend a lot of time working to be better every day and I cant wait for another season to see how he grows as a ball player.

We are also doing something new this fall. The girls have wanted to play softball for a couple of years now and we are going to let them both play this fall. They have gotten gloves already and have been jumping in on our batting net and hitting into it lately. We will see how well this season goes and decide on the future of sports for the girls because doing both soccer and softball may be too much for Zoey with swim and due to age I’m not sure where Ellie will go.

We have a lot of sports to go this year and lots of practices ahead of us and I cant wait to write about each team and how things go until November when everything slows down for the year and we sit down and start planning the HUGE 2026 we have planned for sports.