Lots of non-writing things to celebrate these past few weeks. The biggest is being head coach to my son's soccer team. My Latino community is huge on soccer, and they have a lot of expectations from the coaches. I've been on the other side of this equation and I have heard loads of comments and criticism from parents about the ineffectiveness of volunteer coaches, time wasted in practices where kids are taught nothing, some kids playing more than others, how some kids suck and should be benched, favoritism, benching the girls, and so on.

Yes, it's a VOLUNTEER coaching organization, yet expectations don't change.

So, at the first practice, I explained this to each parent: