Hair.....

Okay, it has been nearly a week since I have written here, so there is a lot to catch up on. This week has been all about hair, in one form or the other. Hair you say? Yes...good old human hair. Here is what I mean.

Let's go back to last week. Last Thursday I told the boys on Bullets that if they won every game this season (no loses, no ties) that I would shave my head. That seemed to breathe new life into them as they crushed their opponent that night 5-0. On Sunday we played that team again, but this time missing 3 of our top offensive players. We still were able to keep the pressure on and won 1-0. We were now 4-0 and I started to think it was possible I'd be bald before school vacation started!

Our next 'hair' story has to do with "The Amazing Race". This week was the two hour finale of the season that my aunt and I had applied for. I was sickened all season watching that disgusting "Sawks" fan "Boston Rob" of Survivor fame cheating and coniving his way around the globe. Talk about an ugly American! My family were all rooting for the husband and wife team of Uchenna and Joyce. Uchenna had started the race bald, but along the way Joyce had to have all her hair cut off when she took part in an Indian ritual in order to win a "Fast Forward". These two struggled with bad luck constantly but never quit trying. They nearly missed winning because at the very end of the race they were begging for money to pay their cab fare to the finish line! Suzie was in tears as the made it to the final carpet in time to hear Phil declare them the winners. It's great to see honest, caring, hard working people win over lazy, manipulating, slackards like "Boston Rob".

Now we move onto Wednesday night. I had dinner plans with my football buddies (Bill, Bob and Eugene) and decided to trim my beard before I left. I started with the normal quarter inch setting that I usually used. For some reason it didn't seem to be trimming the way I liked it, so I moved down to the eighth inch setting. Now that was doing that job! I made quick work of the beard and moved onto my mustache. Well, I guess using the eigth inch setting wasn't the smartest thing to do on my mustache as on the first swipe it took away nearly my whole mustache. As I stared at myself in the mirror and said "Oops!", I realized that I would now need to take off all my facial hair and proceeded to do so.

Now we come full circle, back to the soccer team. As the boys arrived last night for their game, they all noticed my missing 'hair'. "Coach Bichler, I thought you weren't going to shave until after we won ALL of our games?" I explained to them that I had meant the hair on top of my head and we went on with the game. It turned into a very close game in which we had possesion of the ball nearly 65-70 percent of the time. Each side had some great opportunities with us having the best one. One of our players had the ball, all to himself, standing directly in front of the goal, with no one including the goalkeeper within 5 yards of him. He slowly, calmly kicked the ball and watched it sail wide right, completely missing the open net. We had several other chances last night but none as open as that. Even with the referee constanly making illogical calls and often not making any calls in dangerous situations, we managed to hold on for a scoreless tie. As one of our players made his way off the field, he came over to me and said, "Well Coach Bichler, I guess you won't have to shave your hair off".