Rant.

Quickly, today’s run was up the Pylons track (12.95, 1 hr), and was pretty darn good. It was a training run with the Hockey team, which the guys performed pretty darn well on. It is a pretty steep run, and they did very well to finish it! Not everyone has been running as much as I have! In fact, probably very few have. Certainly no sane people!

If you don't want to listen to a rant, stop now, I fully accept that I tend to ramble.

My rant starts with some background. I play indoor soccer with a team from my brother’s work. We are a team of very much football amateurs, which unfortunately won their grading games, and are in the top grade. So we usually are playing against much better opposition, and they usually win by a lot. That is not to say that we are not competitive, rather that we just lack some of the more flashy skills, that are fundamental it seems to success in indoor.

Losing is an interesting concept, I care when I lose hockey, I get depressed about it, blaming myself for every missed opportunity, every missed decision. I am becoming better with age, but the fact remains, I care a great deal. So when it comes to indoor football, I don’t care. I care so much for hockey, that everything else I see as a fun release, where I just enjoy playing, whether I win or lose. 

So today’s game was against a team of younger guys, likely all teenagers. They were highly skilled, certainly well above our skill grade. So, as it has been the trend of late, we lost. As I said before, I don’t care that I lost, it has happened before and it will happen again. Why I am so angry, is the way that the other team acted. Early in the first half (losing 3-0), one of their players went down in a tackle. Nothing out of the ordinary for indoor soccer at all. He comes up, looking for a fight. I simply respond, ‘Why?’ So he continues, and the ref settles him down. It was from that point that my interest in the game disappeared, and any respect I had for them vanished.

It continued through the game, at half time, their best player was playing with the ball, kicked it at our goal, and hit our goalkeeper in the back. One of my players reacted, saying “What the hell?” (or something along those lines), to which the opposition began getting angry about. He was wearing a NZ football shirt, with his name on the back. I respect his achievements, but it doesn’t give him any special privileges, and I sure as hell will defend my players. He refused to back down about his kick, I was standing in the middle of the field, telling both players to calm down. His refusal to accept that he had stuffed up was tantamount to the size of his ego. On the football pitch in his world, he could do no wrong. He was the master. So how could he have made a mistake? So he got angry. And threatened. And yelled. And then tried to kick it really hard at one of our players.

That player reminds me of too many athletes and sportspeople I have seen. They achieve so much so early, that their maturity is unable keep up, and so their ego becomes massive. What will happen to them? Who knows. Wayne Rooney is an example, teenage superstar who has not really achieved much since. But then, look at Dan Vettori, one of NZ’s greatest cricketers, he began his career at the ripe age of 17. But then again, maybe he will get smart to the wrong person, and end up with a broken face.

If by some miracle he reads this, I have only this message. Everything you say and do has power, by treating others in the way that you did today, you didn’t gain power like you planned to; you lost it. And it hurt you. The path to happiness is not paved with swear words and threats, but with hard work, collaboration and honour. And honour is what you, today, have lost.

CP