90 Days: Friday, January 3 (Day No. 90)

(This is the time of year when the horse racing season for the Ivory Pine Syndicate is winding down, but the soccer season for the Rosevelt Soccer Club is gearing up. Here's a 90-day glimpse of the day in the life of a horse racing managing partner and soccer club administrator.)

Awoke, 5:28a

Rosevelt SC admin, 6a-6:30a; 3p-3:30p

Launched our new website and worked on a few last-minute admin tasks before our first training sessions of the season.

Ivory Pine Syndicate admin, 6:30a-6:45a

First Tracks Cumberland has been posting retrospective photos from the 2024 season, and today's post featured Sixby Hanover's win on May 25.

We still have a few admin-related loose ends we need to tie up from 2024, but we're gradually turning the page to 2025. I don't regret our partnership's decision to retire Sixby this year, but I will miss attending his races almost every week.

Worked at Westbrook High School, 7:30a-2:30p

Coached Rosevelt SC training sessions, 4p-6p

One of my only soccer-related regrets about all the time and effort we've devoted to building a soccer club (and to a lesser extent, a soccer ecosystem) from scratch is how much of my own coaching career I've had to sacrifice. 

I earned my first varsity soccer coaching job before I was 30 years old, which is pretty young. And every minute and dollar we've had to put into building a club over the last eleven years was a minute and a dollar I didn't invest in my own coaching career. In fact, I've had to largely give up coaching over the last couple seasons because our club passed a policy prohibiting day-to-day administrators such as myself not serving as a head coach or a primary assistant coach. 

Overall, all the administrative work we've had to put into both our club and our state's and country's ecosystem in general will be worth it, but sometimes it's tough not to be wistful about how much more enjoyable the experience would be if we inherited a strong, comprehensive soccer ecosystem that featured a bountiful number of community-based clubs that were founded decades and decades before we were born.

Asleep, 8:30p