8-Teen-2-Six...

Sometimes you have to be an A-hole as a coach. Even when dealing with 8-year olds. And so it came to pass last night.

Opening drive of the flag football game. Third play of the game and The Playmaker makes an interception to give us the ball on the Falcons 30 yard line. We immediately score.

Then the sheeet hit the fan.

We go for two and a kid drops a wide open pass in the end zone.

On the very next play, the defense allows a Falcon to run all the way down the sideline for a touchdown. Three Buc defenders have clean shots and fail to yank the flag. Three other Bucs stand and watch the kid run by.

Then the Falcons get the two point conversion because two Bucs were too lazy to make a play on the ball.

Now trailing 8-6, the Bucs march down the field before stalling with not one, but two drops in the end zone.

Mercifully, halftime arrives.

Our norm is to talk to the kids in the end zone in front of the parents. Last night, however, the Head Ball Coach announced, "Get your water bottle and get over to the soccer net." The soccer net is a good 30 yards away from the parents. Then for first time in memory, we tore into the kids. Each of the three coaches took a turn getting pissed.

Boys, it comes down to a total lack of effort!

We get the ball to start the second half. Still pissed, we decide to go for the jugular right away. We line up three kids wide (wide!) left. The Playmaker snaps the ball to the QB in the shotgun. We have one of our Big Guns lined up as a running back to the left of the QB. (Kind of in a pistol formation.) The three wide kids are all told to run down and outs. (As in, get the hell out of the way...) The QB takes the snap and hands to the running back, who proceeds to run a wide sweep toward the right sideline. The defense goes into attack mode and then the RB carries out the play to A-B-S-L-U-T-E perfection. He throws a prefect pass to The Playmaker who catches it and outruns the lone defender to the end zone some 30 yards away.

12-6, Bucs.

Cruise control the rest of the way. We don't allow a single first down. And just for kicks, we throw a TD to a kid who hasn't caught the ball all season.

Bucs 18 Falcons 6.

The ass-chewing worked.

Big Time.

For the game, The Playmaker had 1 interception, 3 catches for 60 yards and 1 touchdown.