Hyrum the Hammer

We love our Hyrum. We thought that this Spring would be a good time to get Hyrum into organized sports. I (Ben) often wrestle with Hyrum which has brought out an aggressive streak in him and we have been eager to get him an outlet of some kind. We thought that soccer would keep Hyrum’s attention long enough to learn the sport and get involved with the other boys.

He plays in the 3-5 yrs old grouping which puts him at a size disadvantage. We show up for the first game and Hyrum introduces himself to his coach as Hammer. Many of the neighborhood boys had struggled with Hyrum’s name and just started calling him Hammer. They have since grown out of this problem and can easily pronounce Hyrum but still call him Hammer and Hyrum now occasionally will introduce himself as such. When his new soccer coaches heard he introduced himself as Hammer and saw his enthusiasm for life they were really excited to have him on their team.

Hyrum soon discovered that many of the older kids are bigger and faster then he is and he struggled to keep up with the game. As soccer games are at this age group, a scrum of children follows the ball everywhere around the field. Hyrum is normally in the middle of these scrums, running with the crowd as I scream for him to find the ball.

Two weeks into the season Hyrum was bored with the game of soccer and instead of finding the ball in the scrums he looks around at the legs of the other kids. When he sees an opening he dives at the knees of one of the other soccer players (his team or the opposing team, he isn’t picky). He lies on top of this child and groans like someone pushed him down and he just happened to fall on top of someone. The child he tackled usually glares at Hyrum while Hyrum looks over his shoulder for the phantom pusher. The other kids usually gets up a runs after the ball while Hyrum stays on the ground, moaning, until someone comes and helps him up. Now, I didn’t teach him this. I’m not sure where he learned it. As far as I can determine he might have picked it up while we were watching a soccer game on the TV and the announcer said something about a tackle and Hyrum figured the rest out on his own. I’ve coached around not tackling during soccer and we have not had a problem for a few weeks.

This last Saturday, however, Hyrum found a different way to enjoy soccer. Before the game I reminded him that we don’t tackle and that he needs to watch were the ball goes. He told me he was ready to play and to do a good job.

In the second half of the game there was a typical scrum at midfield. Hyrum was on the fringes and I was yelling for him to get involved. A boy on the other team tripped and fell close to the ball. He was close enough to the ball that he was trying to cover his head while he laid on his stomach. The scrum passed and Hyrum ran toward this boy who still laid on the ground. Hyrum took this opportunity to jump up (he was going for air) and land on this boys back, grabbing the back of his shirt collar, and pretended the boy was a horse. The opposing team’s parents started laughing. I was yelling at Hyrum to get off of the kid. (I noticed that both coaches were doubled over laughing.) When Hyrum heard me he tried to call timeout (smart kid to try but timeouts are not allowed in soccer) and ran over to our side of the field. I got after him for tackling the boy.

In his own defense, Hyrum called out, "I didn't tackle him. I giddy-uped him”. (This boy looked like an 8 year old and could have easily done as Hyrum commanded but he didn’t move.) Hammer, as always, is showing more of his unintentional comic ability than his athletic dominance.