By Mike Gordon
Advertiser Staff Writer

What I know about playing soccer, you can fit in a shoe, or maybe a whistle, but I love it when the players on my team call me coach.

Trust me, that's a word with power.

It's transforming. In a single syllable, it can take me from ordinary grown-up to greater purpose.

Suddenly, I'm a mentor, the guy setting an example, the father who knows when it's better to pass than to dribble.

Sounds hokey, I know. And yet ... somehow ... it feels right.

It wasn't always like this.

While many fathers aspire to become youth coaches, I never wanted to commit the time. My mantra: Too busy to volunteer.

My daughters convinced me otherwise. Those silver-tongued darlings can work guilt like that Beckham guy can work a moving ball.

Bless their little hearts.

When I was the same age as my 8-year-old, I played Little League baseball. My father didn't coach any of the teams I played on, and I never thought twice about it.

Having coached both my daughters, I wish he had.

Now, my children and I connect on a different level. We argue tactics over dinner, celebrate the same joys at practice and come home feeling equally exhausted after games.

We're in this together.

I never want it to end.

Of course, this is only half the story. There are other players to coach. To teach.

At every practice, we work on skills that I only barely know myself. But we're in this together.

If someone nails a goal or makes a clean pass or steals an opponent's ball, I'm ecstatic. At the end of each practice, I'm nearly hoarse.

And if I'm lucky, there are smiles to go with the grass stains and the sweat.

Keep it fun, someone told me. Well, what isn't fun about this?

This is how a lasting impression becomes a positive lesson. Where you learn to love a game, cooperate, pick yourself up by your shinguards.

It's the reason, I suspect, that I can remember the name of only one of my own youth coaches: Mr. Lum.

He was a thin man with high cheekbones who never yelled harshly at me when I struck out or dropped a fly ball.

He took our team into town to see the Islanders play baseball. He gave each of us a new ball in hopes we could get someone's autograph.

When I finally hit the ball, he was the first to shake my hand.

We lost the championship game that year, but no one really cared.

I still have a photograph of that team, tucked in my scrapbook.

The team I'm coaching this fall began practicing a month ago.

The players are a good bunch of girls who often forgive me when I mix up their names.

They played their first game under a broiling sun and they held their own. I was sure they would win. They didn't.

Afterward, I left the field wondering what I should tell them about victory and defeat.

That's when I noticed that no one seemed to care. They were red-faced but grinning.

"Coach," one of them finally said, "that was a fun game."

Reach Mike Gordon at 525-8012 or mgordon@honoluluadvertiser.com.