It Makes a Difference to the Sheep

may very well be soccer. Every kid, it seems, plays in a local league at some time or another. I am old enough (or lived in the wrong parts of the country as a kid) to have missed the soccer craze as a youth. But now my six-year-old son is on a county rec team. So I guess that makes us soccer parents. To make matters more interesting, the county is desperately short on coaches. Luckily one of our neighbors who played soccer for years stepped into the breach. But he needed an assistant, so there I was, running around a field trying to herd energetic but chaotic six-year-olds in a sport I know little about. Actually quite fun.

And yes, just like George Stephanopolous's description of the Clinton cabinet, they all run after the ball in a giant clump.