Like Big Brother, But On A Smaller Scale.

Note: This post is part of Fatherhood Friday at Dad Blogs, where all the cool kids are hanging out. (Moms are welcome over there!) I *might* even have a column called “Teen Angst” there. Welcome to my visitors from DB; thanks for stopping in!

Our varsity lacrosse coach is fabulous. He is from the northeast part of the country (where lacrosse has been huge for years) and is very, very passionate about the sport. He still plays, in fact. He is well known for being very, very tough when it comes to the game (or practice) in progress, but also has the ability to goof off with the boys in other settings.

Something he is very, very serious about is letting the boys know that off-season training is a must. He doesn’t care how you do it, whether you pay for some of the local training programs or just do your own thing at home; he just wants you to Do. It.

Last night we were outside our local Dominick’s grocery store, and my boys were selling coupon books to benefit the lacrosse club. (we were the only ones who signed up for this shift.)

Although the boys would rather have been just about anywhere else, it wasn’t that bad. The older boy stationed himself at one door and I stayed at the other door with the younger boy, who was wearing one of his brother’s jerseys because this will be his first season and his uniform hasn’t been ordered yet!

The older boy, who could sell ice cubes to an Eskimo, decided that the selling should be a competition, and he sent me a text that said “+1” every time he sold a coupon book. Of course the younger boy insisted that we do the same from our end, so the two hours we were there were filled with text alert sounds, fits of laughter, and the occasional running of the older boy down to our end of the store to yell, “IN YOUR FACE!”

At some point I had to go to my car for a minute. Upon returning, I noticed that the younger boy had a woman in front of him, and she was talking on the phone while digging through her purse. She looked vaguely familiar to me but I couldn’t place her. I heard her say into the phone, “Yes, it’s for the lacrosse team! I know, I’m buying one!” She pulled the phone away from her ear to ask my son, “Are you going to the XYZ program?” He looked at me, confused. I said, “Oh, that’s one of the training programs that’s available right now.”

He looked at her and said, “No, I haven’t started going to any of those yet.”

She smiled and said, “Well, Coach says you’d better get busy!”

I guess you never know who’s “watching”!