Mommy Lion in full attack mode

Today was a very long day. Today was flag football " super bowl" sunday for the Furse family. My son Cade was playing in the superbowl for the 5-6yr old division, my daughter Shea and son Alex were playing in the semi-playoffs first and if they won would be playing in the superbowl for the 7-8 yr olds and my son Kellen was playing in the superbowl for the 9-11yr olds.

Ok, game #1 the 7-8yr olds won to make it into the superbowl. My son Cades team won the 5-6yr old superbowl by 3 touchdowns, it was super fun they haven't lost a game for over a year, they are just amazing. Then it was off to the superbowl for my son and daughter. Well, lets just say, two seasons in a row this team has gone undefeated to only lose in the superbowl, its so heartbreaking but the kids seemed to love the trophies they got so they looked happy and it didn't seem to bother them.

Ok, the game of the day, our 9-11yr old Bucs playing the Vikings. Over the last 2 years fall and spring we go back and forth between who wins and who loses the super bowl, we were fortunate the last two times to win but this year the Vikings were stronger, faster and a mighty opponent. Anyhoo, my son Kellen plays quarterback and also defense, he had an incredible first half, a few long touchdowns some great runs it was awesome. The only problem that I was noticing is that the Viking's had a blitzer who came hard at Kellen almost every down and twice in the first half almost knocked him down, he hit him hard and Kellen lost his balance and had to really get his body together to get the ball off, I commended Kellen for his ability to shake this kid off but I was "pissed"that this kid was doing this and there was no call for a penalty and the kids coach didn't do anything about it. I understand the adrenalin of the situation, it very well could of been completely unintentional and just him being full of energy during the plays, that being said I was getting a bit frustrated. This is FLAG FOOTBALL no TACKLE.

Ok, we are up 18 to 12 with just about 8 minutes to go to play and kellen drops back to pass and this kid comes rushing in and completely takes him out, Kellen is down and grabbing his knee, he is crying and just really upset. Phil runs over to him to check on him and now I run out to check on him. Phil said it didn't look good, the way his leg bent back, etc... I looked at the ref and just said, " Are you kidding me, this is the 3rd time this kid has done this to my son and now he is really hurt, how can this keep happening, this isn't tackle football, this is why we play flag". The ref gave the kid a roughing of the passer penalty which gave us a first down but I still had to carry my child off the field and make sure he was ok.

To make a long story short after assessing him and getting him to calm down he ended up being ok, shooken up and I'm sure he'll have a nasty bruise on the inside of his knee tomorrow but he was ok to go back into the game and play. Our Buc's ended up winning 18 to 12 and are the SuperBowl 9-11 champs.


What I was mad about was that the coaches on the other team didn't take the child out for a few downs to make sure the child understood that his actions weren't right, to reinforce and to have the child check in with himself regarding his adrenalin and to make sure he knew what he was doing was a bit " too" aggressive for FLAG FOOTBALL, but that didn't happen, And, it took 3 hits to my son for the referee to give a roughing of the passer penalty to their team, which maybe if each time this happened to my son they were penalized he might not of been hurt late in the game. I also wish that the child who did this to Kellen apologized to him after the game, which he didn't. As a parent my son would of been dragged by his ears to apologize to the coach and the child if he or she ever did that, intentional or not, and to also make sure the kid was fine, its just what you do, its the right thing to do.

I'm not an alarmist parent, I'm one whose daughter was bleeding during the middle of her game today, I wiped off her mouth told her to put her mouthguard in and get back in to play, it takes a lot for me to get pissed and I was pissed today. Don't mess with mommy lion because you don't want to meet her on any field.

6 hrs today at the flag football field, two super bowl champions and 1 runner-up, it was a great day. I am a big supporter of good sportsmanship and that should come first in any situation, its not only the child's responsibility but the coaches, parents, and refs to make sure this occurs on and off the field, thats just my two cents.