A couple personal notes (aren’t they all?): First, today is my oldest son’s eighth birthday, which is, like, wow. He’s awesome, and I hope he has an awesome day. I got him, among other things, a Ronaldo away Real Madrid kit, as CR7 is his favorite player. I’m not as big a fan, but Jack likes that he shoots a lot, scores a lot, and generally has a lot of confidence and swagger. Can’t hate that.

Second, said child plays competitive club soccer. Said club had a town hall-type meeting last night to talk about the overall philosophy of their platform, the benefits it offers our players, and what it was doing to improve it further. We’ve only been involved with this thing for a season, but have generally enjoyed the experience. I can certainly see that playing with this club and group of coaches has made Jack a better player. More importantly, he loves it.

Anyway, ahead of the meeting, the club noted that there would be a question and answer session once the presentation was finished. Some parents either didn’t get the memo or ignored it completely, and used the forum as an opportunity to complain about facility conditions, playing and practice fields, or why their kid wasn’t getting a certain amount of support or attention.

While those are all valid concerns, this wasn’t the place to ask those kinds of questions, or the people to ask. I thought it was a passive-aggressive way to voice your complaints. If you’ve got a problem with facilities or field conditions, talk to the person with the ability or authority to field those kinds of complaints. That person isn’t a guy who’s in charge of player development philosophy, or at least it isn’t at our club, and the parents know that. If your player isn’t getting the kind of support you think he or she should, then the person to talk to about that is the coach. If you don’t get anywhere with the coach, then hey, there are twelve other clubs here in town that you can go to and find a coach you like better.

None of this has anything to do with Louisville City, of course. Most of the time these blurbs don’t, anyway. I’m still salty about drawing against A-T-L-U-T-D-2 last weekend and am taking it out on well-meaning soccer parents. Sorry.