Almost everything about that summer is warm, clean, colourful and near-perfect in my memory, even the green of the grass.

That’s likely because at the time I was a young man living a student lifestyle. It was the summer between year one and year two of grad school at the University of Waterloo. It was 1991, if memory serves, and because of the attractive delaying effect that grad school offered, I had yet to experience the pressures of adulthood, of full-time employment, of the so-called real world.

Perhaps I sensed that this would be my last “free” summer and I was savoring it accordingly.

For a part-time summer job, I was making a documentary-style video on behalf of the university’s Career Resource Centre. It was called “What’s in a B.A?” and it attempted to draw some tentative bridges between an arts education and the world of work. I was half-way through a master of arts degree in English, you see.

With some of my other free time, I agreed to coach a little kid’s soccer team. I’d played soccer and volleyball throughout my young life and had done some coaching along the way. When my cousin Carol asked me to head up a squad of seven-year-old dudes (she was one of the leaders of a local house league), I could hardly say no, even if I was not yet aware that every time you teach, you learn.

So many of my warm memories from childhood involve playing youth soccer with the North York Spartans based in the Willowdale area of Toronto. My team’s Irish-born coach, Sean Cunningham, lived directly across the street from my family’s house. His son, Noel, was on the team and my best buddy in the early years.

As our team aged, the sport became a very serious affair and we competed for all the top trophies in our age group. One year we made it to finals of the Metro Cup (a tournament for the best Toronto club teams), played in mammoth Exhibition Stadium, then home of the Toronto Blizzard pro outfit. I had a chance to win the game with a late penalty kick, but I missed, and we went on to lose in extra time.

So, given my background in the sport, even though the kids I coached that summer were mostly uncoordinated rascals, I applied myself to the task. We had fun, of course, but we were also principled and made good use of practice. My good buddy Dave, a former teammate from our time with the university’s varsity volleyball squad, agreed to help out as my assistant coach. Between the two of us, we were organized and also quite competitive. Some of the other coaches in the league took the competition part way too far, however.

When leading practices alongside other teams and particularly during games, I was taken aback at how much ranting and raving these volunteer coaches would engage in when marshaling their groups of seven-year-olds.

Some of the coaches were fathers of the players and these guys in particular could be quite, err, vigorous with their vocal encouragement.

During the end-of-season tournament, when the competitive juices hit their peak, one of these overly vocal coaches went into a tirade that I’ll never forget.

I was standing right next to him on the sidelines when he began to yell at his son, Steven, who was the team’s goalkeeper. The father/coach was irate, screaming “Steven! Steven! Steven!” to get his son’s attention, but Steven was not paying heed, likely out of embarrassment.

I was about to gently intervene, somehow, when finally Steven looked over.

“Kick the ball out of your hands!” yelled the father while anxiously miming the type of kick he wanted his son to perform.

Steven silently nodded and the father strode away, still seething.

When the season wrapped and there was a little gathering of the moms and dads, a few of the more engaged parents praised me for having been calmer than many of the coaches and for “hardly ever yelling.”

I mumbled something about how could I possibly yell at other people’s seven-year-old kids.

With a fair-but-firm approach, our team had done well, losing in the finals of the season-ending tournament. We had our share of good athletes but we also had a superstar who was clearly the best player in the league. He was the Wayne Gretzky of the age group: physically coordinated, fast, skilled, and understanding of the game beyond the “chase the ball in a pack” approach that most of his peers adopted.

Our Gretzky was so much better than everybody else, in fact, that other players rarely touched the ball and I actually tried to coach him individually. I pulled him aside and gave it to him straight. “To be a little more fair, you’re gonna have to start passing the ball some more,” I said.

He agreed immediately and complied in the next game, but the result was a disaster.

Little Gretzky duly held back and made several passes, but his teammates were not advanced enough to receive much less return the ball. With our normal flow interrupted, we performed very poorly in the game. Afterward, I promptly told the superstar to go back to his old ball-hogging ways, which improved things immediately.

Even for the very young, sports are not fair.

The parents liked me and the players seemed to enjoy the season, but l if I could re-do the experience, I’d try to be a little more fun-loving and personable. Dave the assistant had an easier rapport with the kids while I was a tad removed.

There was one player, Mark, who was mature for his age and not quite as naturally goofy as the other lads. He seemed to anticipate what the team needed. One time during a game, I had to urgently pick a player to substitute off. All the kids knew this and would not make eye contact with me—all but Mark. When I called his name, he emitted a loud moan but promptly left the field.

Later in the season, when the afternoons had begun to cool, in one of those transition times when practice was over and the players were waiting around to be collected, seven-year-old Mark walked over to where I sat and calmly motioned to me that he wanted to whisper something.

Through cupped hands he breathed the words in a low tone and I didn’t catch what he said, so I asked him to repeat.

The second attempt was no better, but on the third try I finally understood him.

He was saying, “I love you.”