More than just soccer

I have written before about how much I love the folks at Santa Cruz Soccer Camp. This year, we’re at it again. Energy Girl, a.k.a. my 8-year-old, wouldn’t dream of  a summer without at least two weeks spent with Bill, Katie, and the rest of the gang out at Delaveaga Park. I don’t know what her reasons are, but I know my reasons for getting her there.

Last week she spent her first week at camp, and on Friday all the parents and kids assembled in the shade (or sun, depending on their relationship with our good friend Sol) to hear about their kids’ great accomplishments. Bill Trimpi, owner and resident drummer, welcomed us all with words of wisdom: “Less testing, more fun!”

Bill and his gang know kids. When they introduce themselves, they each state their real name, their camp nickname (last week, of course, everything was Harry Potter), and their “real” life job. These people are the educators and the educated. From kids in high school who have come back to their favorite camp to coach, to directors nurtured by the camp who have gone into education as their life and their passion, they each stand up proudly to state that their goal is for kids to have fun… and to learn.

There is no contradiction here: All of us learn when we have fun. None of us learn when we are working at it like we are pulling our own teeth out. The folks at Santa Cruz Soccer even made a DVD about their approach, “Learning through Enjoyment.” Their point is that when we are having fun, our brains are receptive to learning. This is when ideas become “sticky” — they stick in our heads long after the experience is over.

The lessons learned in Santa Cruz Soccer Camp are sometimes about soccer. No one on that field is half-hearted about soccer. They love the game, and they teach it well.

But the lessons are also about learning and life: The game means nothing unless you play it well and honestly. The game is not worthwhile if you win it through means that make you less of a good person. The game happens in the real world, where you are a person whose actions really do reflect on you as a person.

Most kids need this lesson because it’s just a lesson from life. Some kids need this lesson even more pointedly. I appreciate that Bill and his friends don’t want to leave out the kids who need their message most. In school, these kids are those difficult kids. You know the ones: you have wished more than once that they would just disappear and let your kid get on with learning. But those kids are part of us, all of us. And Santa Cruz Soccer Camp is as much for those kids as for your kids.

The amazing thing is that watching a day at camp, you probably wouldn’t be able to pick out those kids who make their classmates’  and teachers’ lives so difficult. They’re having fun. They’re learning, but they’re not being tortured by rules and tests. They are integrated into the whole. If you have a “normal” kid, this might not seem so important to you. But to those of us with kids outside the norm, it’s everything.

A friend of mine asked my daughter a question that her son had about the camp: “Is this a camp for kids who are really good at soccer, or can anyone come and enjoy it?”

My daughter answered quickly and assuredly: “Anyone!”

She is “anyone.” She is a girl who often seems to make the wrong choice of what to do in complicated social situations. She has her mother’s weak eyes, and when that soccer ball comes at her face, I bet she sees two of them, just as I did when I was a kid learning the sacred Midwestern sport, baseball.

But at Santa Cruz Soccer Camp, she’s a star, and so is everyone else. She leaves on Friday with no complaints. She leaves that much more able to negotiate the real world, where adults are not always there to help her. Some of those adults are out to trip her up, but the lessons she learns at soccer camp serve her well.

Life can’t be camp all year long. But when it is camp, I am thankful that Bill and his friends are there to teach us all.

Santa Cruz Soccer Camp is having a pretty good year despite the recession, but there is space in all the upcoming sessions. You can register online, or take a chance on it and turn up Monday morning. They are also offering Spanish immersion, which is pretty darn cool. I’m trying to think of something bad to say, in order to make this a balanced piece, but I’m coming up short. OK, here it is: Make sure to pack an icepack, because the lunchboxes sit out in the sun and get very hot. There it is, the skinny on Santa Cruz Soccer Camp…