Top 10 Signs You Might Be At a Preschool Sporting Event

Any human who has ever sat through, watched, coached or even glanced at children aged five and under attempting the mechanics and self-control of organized sports knows one fundamental truth:

 It sure as heck ain't real sports, but it sure as heck is entertaining.

As I covertly giggled my way through my son's gymnastics class this past weekend, it occurred to me that, aside from that core truth, there are several things that are almost always happening when you get tiny humans together and force them to work collaboratively and reasonably.

This is, primarily, because tiny humans have no discernible reason and lack the ability to collaborate.

So, without further ado, here are the top ten signs you might be at a preschool sporting event:

10. Someone is in his mother's lap, sobbing as though he has actually had an appendage amputated. (The true grievance is likely snack related or because aforementioned child has been asked to do something. Anything, really. Breathe. Not hit someone. Actually participate. Parents can be very unreasonable at these events, you know.)

9. If there are any live animals within sight, there are a minimum of two children who have (a) noticed this fact, (b) diverted their attention and body away from the pursuit of sport and towards said animals and (c) may or may not actually now be in the process of being chased by an angry goose.

8. There is one kid who talks the entire time. Most of what he or she shares is completely irrelevant to soccer, basketball or gymastics, but instead is a steady stream of non-sequitors, anatomical or physiological inquiries, "did you know" questions or urgent interruptions that are, again, irrelevent but said with such earnestness that the coach can't help but answer.

7. A parent who is red-faced. Facial flushing caused by one of the following phenomena: anger at child who has attacked other child, anger at child who will not participate but who begged to come, anger at ancillary child on the sideline who won't sit still for older sibling "sport" participation and has sat on neighboring friend's child and/or deep, deep embarrassment due to all of the aforementioned situations happening simultaneously.

6. A parent on the sideline is unashamedly and loudly bribing his or her child to do something, anything, to show he or she gives a rip out on the field. One might hear "I'll give you a pony if you just KICK the ball" or "you're up to $1, keep running!" Judgment of said parent may or may not be happening by other sideline parents.

5. There are one or two coaches involved in what is going on. At any given moment, they have a look that suggests they thought signing up for coaching youth sports would be full of adorable moments during which their kids would overcome deep and profound struggles and they would receive hugs and accolades for their patient and courageous coaching of the tiny angels but in reality they have been kicked in the shins at least three times, that one kid won't stop talking, those other two kids are chasing geese again and little Susie just wants to carry her purple purse around and flinches anytime someone attempts to kick the ball in her direction.

4. Snack is provided at the end. We know this because most of the children ask on their way into the gym, several times while the sport is being played and immediately afterwards. There is always at least one kid who can't have the snack due to allergies so the parent who brought the snack apologizes but is secretly irritated that food allergies exist and the parent whose child has the allergy already anticipated the drama and brought a special celebratory snack for the excluded child.

3. There is at least one parent taking the whole thing way too seriously. Calm down, Derek. He's three. He doesn't need to learn to slide tackle yet.

2. One kid on the field has literally no idea what she is doing, but she will happily run back and forth with a big smile on her face, occasionally stopping to pick a dandelion, which she will excitedly give to the coach or her mother, upon which the coach or mother has to act delighted that she has been given a flower but is secretly wondering why the child thinks it is appropriate to pick flowers in the middle of rugby.

And the top sign you might be at a preschool sporting event is:

1. You are the coach. You don't know how you became the coach. You hadn't actually even heard of this sport until your spouse signed your child up. But here you are. In charge of 12-17 hyper-energetic tiny humans who now want to know how to play pickleball and whether or not pickles will be the actual snack at the end of pickleball. You consistently have to ask other parents what the rules are, you have no prior cat herding abilities, you kind of want to quit halfway through each practice but, at the end of the day, you stick with it because you like your kid enough that you don't want him telling his therapist some day that his mom stopped coaching him and he could never play pickleball again because of the emotional trauma of her sports abandonment when he was 4.