This Youth Coach Who Can't Get His Kids to Run Through the Banner is All Youth Coaches

Behold someone who in this moment learns the lesson we all must learn in this life: The best laid plans of mice, men and youth football coaches often go awry.

Here’s my favorite part of this. When he has the most human reaction you can have in an inhuman world of wearing the whistle:

Yup. Been there. Thrown that. The Hat Toss is the way of conceding to the universe the utter futility of what you’re trying to accomplish. How you’re giving up all your afternoons, skipping out on overtime at work, missing dinner, breathing in clouds of dust in the summer and getting your clothes soaked through with mud in the fall. All to teach a complex game to a collection of brains not yet fully formed enough to understand the instructions “Run through the banner!”

That’s the body language of a man who’s truly defeated. Defeated because he knows it’s all on him. That getting kids to “Run through the banner!” at that age requires at least 20 minutes of explaining it and at least six practice runs before it goes 90% right. Because even with that investment in time, there’ll be at least two to three kids who say they thought you meant for them to do the exact opposite. Plus at least one who’s chewing on his mouthpiece and picking boogers instead.

So nice try, anonymous coach. I feel your pain. Ask not for whom the hat is thrown. It is thrown for thee.