Some thoughts on Thursday’s Hopkins County Central/Webster County girls soccer game, all of which have very little to do with the actual game (for that, see Friday’s Messenger):

Of all the coaches in our coverage area, Webster’s Tom Welshans has the most entertaining sideline patter of them all. I think at the next Trojans game I cover, I might keep a recorder running throughout and transcribe some of the results just to give you all a better sense of the sheer verbiage he expends over the course of the game. My favorite was the suggestion, directed a player of his who had reacted slowly to a play, that maybe she shouldn’t have had that McDonald’s hamburger before the game. This might have been a joke about her sluggishness in general, rather than a crack about her choice of pre-game meal, but I’ve actually also heard another soccer coach warn his girls not to eat fast food before their next game, so I have to ask: Is this a common problem in girls soccer? Something the coaches really have to watch out for? Maybe the girls are just eating the wrong kind of fast food, as this commercial subtly suggests…

I think Welshans’ intensity was rubbing off on Central assistant coach Samuel Folk, because as the game progressed, Folk could be heard almost as easily as his counterpart, although Folk doesn’t ride his players anywhere near as relentlessly. (It takes a thick skin to play Webster girls soccer.) This may be a scientific phenomenon worthy of further study. I think I’ll call it the Welshans Effect.

Also amusing was the poor ball girl working the scorer’s side of the field in the first half of Thursday night’s game. She was several years younger than the typical ballgirl, and thus much shorter, and had a tough time keeping up as a result. She had good reflexes, though, ducking at the last minute to avoid an out-of-bounds kick that had honed in on her head. After a little while of other people getting to the ball, the frustration started to set in, and she reasserted her identity with a little ditty, which went like this:

I’ve got a ball
In my hand
I’m the ball girl
La la la la la la, etc.

If only the laments of every person on a soccer field could be expressed in this manner. Like, say, the referee:

I’ve got a yellow card
In my hand
I’m the referee
La la la la la la la

Or a sluggish soccer player:

I’ve got a McRib sandwich
In my stomach
I’m the midfielder
La la la la la la la

Or a sportswriter waiting out another delay in the game:

I’ve got a deadline
At 10:15 p.m.
I’m the sportswriter
La la la la la la la

Why am I saying “if”? I sing that last one all the time. Anyway, check out today’s Messenger for more on that game and future installments of this blog for more accounts of people bursting into song at sporting events.

-Dave