Leimamo’s Life

Yesterday’s football game brought back memories of my time as a football mom. It was one of the greatest things about being a mother of three sons. When they were old enough to play sports, I signed them up. It didn’t matter what sport it was, it just gave them something to do where they could be around other kids their age and work off some of their energy. They loved playing sports especially when my brothers would come out to watch them play.

They were fortunate to have other relatives watch them play since they played for military leagues with military children who didn’t have family here to support them. I remember wanting to sleep in on the weekends but was never allowed to because we had to be at game sites which were played around the island as early as 8:00 a.m. Once the game started, I quickly forgot about how much I wanted to be in bed. I used to pack lunches for all of us because we usually had to sit through three different games since the boys’ ages put them in different age groups. That meant we were there from the beginning to the end of the day. The thing about local families is that we feed our kids after a game and I don’t mean serve them a bag of chips and a drink like the other military families do. I mean real meals. Other families used to pass by our tarp and ask if we were selling plate lunches.

When I volunteered to be team mom, I tried to get the families to potluck after games and was surprised to learn that they didn’t want to join because it was too costly for them. I even remember how hard it was for them to do fund raising to earn monies for trophies, jackets, uniforms and banquet expenses. One year I was so frustrated with the parents of the team that I gave them a choice to fund raise, pay their share or have their children go without. It was time the parents start getting involved with their kid’s activity instead of treating the team as though it was a way to get rid of their kids for an hour three days a week.

Another thing that frustrated the hell out of me was those Football Fathers, you know the type. Those who are never around during practice, never volunteer to help coach but during the games they are always yelling at the coach about plays that were called. I know not everyone has time to run down to the field or gym to attend every single practice but when it’s game time, don’t act like you’ve dedicated hours with these children. Know your place and let the coach do what he’s been doing for those many hours spent with your child, time you weren’t willing to give up for them or their team.

I have a few videos of the kids playing sports and sometimes I bring them out when I start to miss the good old days. The days when they were still my little boys and I was kept busy planning snack schedules, planning fund raising, shopping for the best trophy our money could buy and seeing the happiness in their faces when they were called by the coach to recieve their trophies at the end of season banquet. The glory days.

Now I’ll need to wait until the granchildren are ready for sports. I wonder if Kamalani will mind breaking a nail or two playing football?