Drive! A Day In The Sports Parenting Life

8:35 a.m.: Drive to first-grade flag football

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"Got your cleats on? Got your water bottle? Got your mouthguard?" In 10 minutes, my 7-year-old needs to be at the flag football field, a 15-minute drive away, and we are hustling out the door. Or, more specifically, I am hustling him out the door -- the role of the parent on a typical fall Saturday is chauffeur-valet-administrative assistant-cheerleader.

And for my wife and I, this begins not just a typically jam-packed Saturday, but arguably the most jam-packed Saturday of our sports-parenting lives.*

(*Before we get on our way, one crucial point to emphasize: As I hustled our kids to their various activities, it struck me that these scenes are the epitome of privilege. It's so easy to get lost in the wacky schedule logistics or can't-believe-I-missed-recording-that-play-on-my-phone moments, when the reality is that across the country, youth sports opportunities are woefully underfunded. As you open your wallet -- over and over and over -- for your own kids' youth-sports experiences, I encourage you to sit down with your kids, seek out programs in need and pick out one to support. Your kids may get more out of that process than any single sports game they might play the next weekend.)

8:50-10:30 a.m.: First-grade flag football

On the first offensive play of the game, just in front of our end zone, my kid runs for a touchdown, his first ever. I am watching him rumble down the field, and I keep waiting for the other kids to pull his flag (he does, too). But he just keeps going all the way into the end zone -- his teammates are shouting, his coaches are shouting, the other parents are shouting and I'm jumping up and down, if only because I know instantly that this moment will be an indelibly amazing memory for him. He is nearly levitating as he runs to the sidelines for a hug.

As I text my wife (scrambling to get our older son and 3-year-old into the car and over to a basketball scrimmage) the news about the touchdown, I am simultaneously grateful that I was completely in the moment while watching it and yet a little sad I don't have it recorded to show his mom and grandparents (or for posterity).

Almost all of our own childhood sports memories from the '70s, '80s and '90s are limited to that -- memories: Some vivid, some hazy, some entirely blown out of proportion. Most? Forgotten. Not so for our kids -- there are endless photos and video clips. Sometimes you luck into catching your kid on video in a memorable moment, but it raises a larger question: Are you actually "lucky" or depressingly distracted?

And other times you catch another kid's great run on video -- like another dad reveals to me he did with Jonah's touchdown romp. I barely know this other dad, but I embrace him like we just won something. My kid has his memory, I've got my memory and now his mom and family can vicariously enjoy it, too.

10:30-10:45 a.m.: Drive to fourth-grade basketball

When your kid plays sports, it is mostly about driving: from home to practice, home to games, practice to practice, game to game, to the grocery store to pick up the post-game snack, to the house of the friends you are carpooling with. In this case, it is one parent frantically driving from one kid's game to the sibling's game (chaperoned by the other parent), which has got to be the most common of all of the Saturday drives.

10:45-11:15 a.m.: Watch fourth-grade basketball scrimmage

My wife and I exchange a brief hello at the gym in the hallway before she is off to take our younger son to his soccer game. I get 25 minutes or so to watch the basketball game.

After four years of having me as his primary basketball coach, my older kid is on a team this year with a "real" coach. And thank god for that. His new coach is affable, knowledgeable and experienced in teaching 9- and 10-year-olds. I have intentionally stayed away -- I don't sneak glances at practice, and I don't really talk with my kid about the team, beyond "Did you have fun?" For someone typically involved about these things, it has been a huge maturation for me to be able to create a little space, as much as I might want to be more involved. And so this is my first time watching him and his team play.

And ... things are great. They're not Team Takeover, they're not the Sixers. The coach is great, and the kids are attentive, play hard and smart and seem to be enjoying themselves. It is the best question you can have: What more could a parent want?

(Note to self -- and this will surely be the subject of a future column: The most productive sports-parenting strategy has got to be "Back off.")

11:15-11:30 a.m.: Drive to first-grade soccer

More driving: From the older kid's basketball scrimmage to the younger kid's soccer game. Despite having to jump on the highway to get there from an outer suburb around the Beltway, the drive is surprisingly fast and easy -- I really don't care whether my kids win or lose in their sports games, but thrill of victory I feel over the commute is electrifying.

My wife has already dropped the older kid off at the field and left him in the care of other parents; before I arrive, she has bolted off again to try to find a decent season-ending gift for the parent-volunteer soccer coach. Our basketball-playing son will hitch a ride to his next activity with another family.

11:30 a.m.-12:15 p.m.: Watch first-grade soccer season finale

We talked about my son's first-grade soccer team a few weeks ago. Today, they are on the field playing the other first-grade team from his school, and the familiarity -- between kids on the field and parents on the sidelines alike -- is a refreshing change of pace from the usual polite-but-awkward smiles and silent judginess about over-competitive displays among parents. My wife gets there at halftime, holding the hand of our 3-year-old, who is along for the ride.

12:15 p.m.-12:30 p.m.: Drive home to pick up cleats

More driving. (Sense a theme?) In this case, it's after the younger kid's soccer game, and we're circling back home for a pair of cleats and shin guards my older kid forgot to pack earlier in the morning. Sigh. Meanwhile, my wife takes our other kids to the ...

12:30-1:30 p.m.: End-of-season first-grade soccer team party

First-graders will cheer about anything: "Piz-za! Piz-za! Piz-za!" The season-ending pizza party is a nice tradition. Still in their uniforms, the 7-year-old kids are giggling at a long table, scarfing slices and surreptitiously lettering their names into a card for the coach. Next: "Tro-phies! Tro-phies! Tro-phies!" Everyone gets a trophy, thankfully. ( They're only in first grade, for crying out loud.)

1:30-1:40 p.m.: Drive to fourth-grade soccer

More driving, this time to the older kid's soccer game. I need a Waze for kids' sports. I need a more fuel-efficient car. I need a few more minutes between each scheduled event so that every single Saturday isn't spent racing around -- always getting caught in other kid-sports' traffic, always getting caught at the same stupid red light, always getting caught without an easy parking opportunity at the field.

1:40-3:20 p.m.: Substitute for usual fourth-grade soccer coach

I used to be the assistant coach of my older kid's soccer team, but I "retired" to let a far more qualified parent take over. But he was unavailable on this day, so I volunteered to fill in. In the absence of knowing any actual pregame drills to take the kids through, I had the kids lay down on the grass in the sunshine and visualize kicking the ball into the back of the opponents' net. They awkwardly laughed like 9-year-olds, but at least they tried it.

Missing two of our best players, we are matched with the best team in the division -- a technically expert crew with intimidating yellow-and-green kits. Our kids pull off a stunning 2-1 upset, and what is most amazing to see is how it seems to click with them the larger life lesson about the kind of massive effort it takes to overcome a tough, competitive situation.

(By the way: The kid who drilled the winning goal hadn't scored in two years, and self-indulgently, I couldn't help but wonder if the pregame visualization contributed even a smidgen.)

3:30-5:30 p.m.: Sit on couch to watch Florida-Georgia

Any ambitions about limiting kids' screen time on the weekends goes out the window today -- and most fall Saturdays. The kids get to zone out on their various devices while my wife (a Gainesville, Florida, native) and I enjoy the Cocktail Party, decompressing on the couch and staring slack-jawed at the screen. On a typical Saturday, the logistics would end there -- but on this day, it was closer to halftime. All parents know what was coming at 5-ish ...

5:30-8 p.m.: Halloween

Between the two hours the kids spent giddily racing from house to house and the scoreboard-watching they do when the bags get dumped onto the living room floor, you bet your Twix that trick-or-treating is a competitive sport -- if there were an Amateur Athletic Union for stalking sweets, my children would qualify for the national championship. If it wasn't for our own parental sugar rush from dipping into the kids' candy stash, it is hard to imagine finding the energy to traipse all over the extended neighborhood with three separate kids' friend groups at the end of such an overscheduled day.

1:59 a.m.: Turn back the clock

An extra hour of sleep after the most hectic kids' sports day of our parenting career? The most satisfying logistic of all.

Dan Shanoff writes about sports and parenting for espnW. Join the conversation about handling endless sports scheduling and logistics in the comments below or at facebook.com/danshanoff.