Cameron Nealeigh, our 4-year-old grandson, has always been an active boy. The slender kid is a good eater, but he burns it off with his nonstop activity.
Although his Hoosier cousins play Little League baseball or softball, his parents figured that game would be too tame. So they enrolled him in soccer, figuring the nonstop running would help him burn off some of his pent-up energy. They were right.
We caught one of his games in the beginning soccer league in their hometown of Monroe, Ohio, on a recent Saturday morning. He and some of his teammates are just learning what the game is all about (so are his parents and grandparents), but it’s becoming evident he’s a fast learner.
In the Monroe league, there are six players to a team. They all play equal time, alternating periods. There are no goaltenders (the goals are smaller) and three team members play at a time. That makes for an interesting game as six little boys swarm after the ball and try to kick it into the goal without much regard for the kind of team play seen on the high school level, much less the international game. One coach from each team is on the field with the kids, the better to keep some semblance of order in a game where the kids tend to run into each other trying to gain or keep possession of the ball.
Three more experienced players (they’re probably a year or so older) start the game. That left Cameron on the sidelines during the alternating periods. Naturally his nonstop curiosity diverted his attention from what was happening on the field to what there was to get into on the sidelines. Promptly he began playing with a pump used to inflate the soccer balls, sending his dad around to the other side of the field to straighten his young son out. Then he and Noah, a teammate, took turns hiding under the blanket they were supposed to be sitting on. Then a kid came on the sidelines carrying a football (the American variety), and Cameron decided he’d like to try that game for a while.
Meanwhile, the whistle blew to end the period, and Cameron was sent onto the field for his turn to play. When the ball came his way, he knew exactly what to do with it, booting it in the direction of the goal without worrying where his teammates were. His first kick on goal misfired, but he scored later, accompanied by the kind of fist pump you’d expect to see from a seasoned player. He kicked the ball in the goal on one other occasion, but the officials invalidated it because all six kids were mixing it up inside the restricted zone around the goal.
Rachel, his mom, told us he had scored six goals by himself in a previous game. I suppose it was too much to expect an encore this time.
Cameron’s team was clad in yellow and black, complete with the long socks and soccer cleats and all the stuff soccer players wear. Coincidentally, the referees wore yellow and black outfits, leading a casual observer to wonder if the sides were uneven. They actually weren’t, but the score was. Cameron’s team had an insurmountable lead even before Cameron got on the field, and the other team hadn’t even had possession across midfield. It wound up being a shutout.
Offense and defense aren’t concepts easily understood by 4-year-old boys. What they do understand is if they kick the ball and it goes in the other team’s goal, it’s a score. And if a kid has the ball on a breakaway, his opponents try to run him down from behind, and it often ends up with bodies scattered all over the field.
Cameron had both parents, four grandparents, an uncle and aunt and two cousins watching him play. In spite of the distraction (a couple of times play resumed while he was mugging for us), he usually was in the middle of the action.
He and his parents think maybe basketball will be another such outlet for his endless energy. We’ll see if he learns how to dribble and pass. Combined with kicking, that would make him a triple threat.
Jim Bailey’s column appears on Sunday. He can be reached by e-mail at jameshenrybailey@earthlink.net.
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JIM BAILEY: Grandson learns how to soc(cer) it to them
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