How I Got Wooed By a 7 Year-Old!

Sometime after the kids and before Kardashians, ultimate players also caught onto the rage of sillybandz. After one weekend of ultimate, I went from 0 sillybandz to 4. Being someone around children a lot, I instantly became a hero in their eyes. I quickly obtained superhero status because 3 of my 4 sillybandz were glow-in-the-dark.

I enjoyed the new found fame and showed off my sillybandz to a little girl at church, Abby. She wanted to see them glow, so I took her somewhere secluded, dark, and private (okay, we went into the bathrom--only place without windows and I could control the lights). Abby LOVED them, she kept flicking the lights on and off to see them glow. In the end, I gave her my (glow in the dark) diamond ring sillyband because afterall "if you like it, then you shoulda put a ring on it" right? She told me that she 1804981509813590 sillybandz at home and she'll bring me one next week.

Thus the chase began. Abby kept forgetting to bring me my sillyband, I suspect she was simply playing hard to get. Then one time, this happened.

"Abby, where's my sillyband?"

"Hehh... I forgot.."

"When will I get it?!"

"Tomorrow?"

"How will I see you tomorrow?"

"Oh.. there's no church tomorrow?"

"Nope, it's Monday."

"Oh... I'll call you!"

I laugh, "Oh, you'll call me?"

"Yeah!"

"Ok... call me tomorrow then."

"Wait! I don't have your phone number!"

I laugh even louder now, "Ask your mom, she probably has it"

"Oh okay!"

She runs off. This kid is too cute.

Abby runs back with a pen and paper in hand.

"What's your number? I'm going to write it down!"

This girl's going old school--writing down digits? Wow. I had to give it to her. Broke down the wall around my heart.

"How do you spell 'Teresa?!'"

Of course, she played it cool and never called me. Typical. Not that I was sitting by my phone and waiting or anything.. Months go by. I was slowly piecing together my heart again. The fire was cooling...

This past weekend, she was a flower girl at a wedding. I noticed that she had a sillyband on, so I asked if I could have the one that she had on.

"No! This is the one you gave me!"


Absolutely adorable that she would wear the diamond ring sillyband to a wedding. I wonder if she planned it or maybe her parents choose it for her. The next day at church, I noticed that she had on two sillybandz. One of them was the diamond ring, and the other a sombero which she kindly gave to me. In return I promised to bring her another one next week.

And so it continues..




EDIT: In the picture, you can see half of my face on the very left! Hilarious, just noticed that.

Recruitment

At what point are you over-recruiting? I've been involved with recruitment a couple times before but now I'm just wondering if recruiting for club is different from college.

In college, it was just really being persistent, selling it easy, and trying to get them hooked. And I think for the most part, it was fairly effective. My second year of recruiting (3rd year returner), we had enough girls for 2 teams. And when I talk about recruitment, it's not just getting the girls to come out but also getting them to stay. Some as much as you want them to leave, they won't. Others you beg and plead, but they just won't commit. But is that the right approach? There have been a couple of girls that I've spent considerable amount of time on trying to get them to stay with the team. Either meeting with them privately, listening to their concerns, telling them what I see, etc., etc. And at one point, I just felt like I was just stroking their ego, like nothing I say would make a difference but they liked hearing about how they are really good and that the team needs them. Now I'm not sure if that's what was really going on, but I feel like if I keep making all this effort and response is always very wishy-washy, not committing, but not saying that you aren't; it just seems like you like the attention and what you're hearing. I don't know if that's just me. I've wanted to quit the team before, and I didn't really talk to anyone about it because it's my choice to make and I didn't want to make a big deal or seem like I want the attention.

So now I wouldn't say I'm actively recruiting for club but I do know people that are trying out for other teams. I always share my experience but I largely leave the decision up to the individual and just to do "what is right". And I'm not sure my different approach is because I'm not captaining anymore or that I've learned it's not always best to be over-assertive. But I guess with club it's also different, you know that they do want to play it's just where they think they can achieve whatever goals they aim for. I'm not really sure where I'm going with this, but I just noticed that I'm a lot less assertive and I really do think it's because of previous experiences and I think recruitment on these two levels are fairly different. But then again, you do need to cater to each individual at the same time. It's interesting and I'm bored.