I coached sports for all 3 of my kids. Great times.

One year, I had a superior athlete on my youth football team. A foot shorter than everybody else and skinny as a stick, the boy had the gift of speed. He’d run like the wind, arms and legs flailing wildly. It looked like he’d cover distance twice as fast as the other kids.

I took full advantage of the situation. Every game, I started by getting wonder boy the ball until we’d racked up enough points to be comfortable. Then the others got turns. We went the regular season undefeated and I began to convince myself I really had coaching talent. Maybe I could help out at the high school, or the local college! The sky was the limit, I was a natural.

Then came the championship game, also against an undefeated team. Their team had a wonderboy, too. He was actually faster than my speedster!

Predictably, their coach played it just like I had. Through superior speed, they took a healthy lead early in the game and never let it go.

I enjoyed all my years of youth coaching, but that year was just magical. Right up ‘till the last game. It was a memorable year.