What a Rush!

Juggling a tray of orange slices with two bottles of Gatorade, the mother of two clenches the car keys with her teeth and uses a hip-check to shut the door of the weathered Dodge Caravan.

Late again.

Uniformed, excited, her boys take to the field, ignoring once more those painfully maternal instructions that mark the start of each Saturday like a captain’s coin toss.

“Remember to stay in your positions,” she says. “And tie your own shoes, Brian. . . . Sheeesh! I can’t do everything!”

That same exchange, or variations thereof, echoes throughout Orange County and the nation, where the commitment of weekend sports rests like some gigantic, seasonal boulder in the midst of family life.

Soccer parents--more specifically the van-driving soccer mom--was an image politicians played with this season. But the race for public office pales in comparison to the running that goes on in households with kids in sports--soccer or otherwise.

For families with more than one kid or more than one sport to keep track of, there’s often very little breathing room. Many of the kids piggyback right into the next seasonal sport, creating a blur of overlapping practices, games, team pictures and pizza parties.

Soccer, baseball, basketball and hockey are among youth pastimes that have made “Hurry up!,” “Let’s go!” and “We’re late!” battle cries of the ridiculously busy.

In addition to everything else that must be done--from homework to the dishes--most players practice at least a couple times of a week and play one or more games on weekends. It is their parents who haul them back and forth--many taking time off from work to do so. Parents often commit in other ways too: from coaching to producing newsletters to taking snacks.

As interest kids’ organized sports grows--soccer has seen dramatic growth in recent years--so have the thrills and stresses they involve.

In the American Youth Soccer Organization, the best-established league in Orange County, the number of players in the county has reached nearly 60,000. The teams, divided into 28 regions, play a 10-plus-week season--often studded with out-of-town games. And while the regular season will end in a few weeks, families are already beginning to brace for . . . playoffs. Victory is certainly sweet, but losing out in the playoffs has its reward too: The season actually ends.

Although the numbers are not as large as soccer’s, ice hockey is also popular among Orange County youth--half a dozen ice rinks in the county host play. Ice Chalet in Costa Mesa has about 400 kids a year signed up for the sport; Side by Side in Huntington Beach also signs up about 400 a year on the ice, and another 400 play roller hockey.

Hockey tends to be equipment-intensive--especially from the perspective of parents who need not only to buy, but also help their kids keep track of all those pieces.

“If we have time, I get him halfway dressed before we leave for practice, then finish up in the car,” says Joy Giczewski, 39, of Fountain Valley, a mother of three. Her 8-year-old son, Chris, has been playing ice hockey since he was 3. “You get used to it. We just throw the huge bag of stuff in the station wagon and go.

“There’s been times when he’s forgotten his helmet, and we have to race back,” Giczewski says. “There’s always a glitch somewhere, but it gets better as they get older.”

Giczewski says her son “eats, sleeps and breathes ice hockey.” It’s a sport that costs about $400-$500 a season--there are two a year--in addition to the $300 or so it takes to outfit the player in gear.

The costs--in terms of both money and effort--are worth it, she says.

“You don’t want them to fall into some sort of limbo area, running with kids whose parents don’t care where they are or what they’re doing,” she says. “We know what he’s doing. . . . We’re involved.”

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Kathryn Agnew of Newport Beach is a mother of 10 who taxis her three youngest--twin teenagers and an 11-year-old daughter--to soccer practice, weekend games and horse shows.

“It’s frantic. Everything is lists,” says Agnew, 55. “It all has to be organized, or I’d go insane.”

She color-coded the activities when all of her kids were young, but, says Agnew, with just three at home now, she gets by with a big date book and lots of reminders.

“I have this huge calendar that hangs on my pantry door, and I have pads of paper everywhere,” she says. “Everywhere I go, there’s a pencil behind my ear.”

On a recent Sunday--not even a game day--she drove back and forth time and again between Huntington Beach and Newport so her kids could participate in an equestrian competition and team picture day--11 riding events, three picture times.

“We came from the horse show, pulled into a no-parking zone. My daughter put her soccer shirt over her riding shirt to take the picture and off we went,” she says. “It was pretty crazy.”

She almost made all three picture times: Her youngest was in the middle of a riding event as her team’s photo was being snapped.

In some households, carpools take off some of the heat.

Gayle Manning, 37, of San Juan Capistrano says a new driver’s license in the family doesn’t hurt either.

“It’s still chaos around here,” says Manning, “but I feel like I’ve got a new life since my son is driving. It’s a lot easier.”

For the Mannings, the logistic nightmare that exists when weekend sports take over is nothing new. Five of the six Manning children are involved in basketball, baseball, soccer or combinations thereof.

“The kids just know that we’re a large family and that it’s just not possible for me to sit through every game,” she says. “A lot of the time, they’re playing at the same time, and I just circle the fields so I can be there.”

The common cold, an appointment with the orthodontist or an out-of-town guest can throw a monkey wrench into the schedule--even parents with just one child involved in a sport seem to lose control of time.

“I don’t know how it happened,” says an exasperated David White, a Westminster father of an athletic 9-year-old. “First, we signed her up for soccer, and before you know it, we’re doing about 9 million sports. . . . It just snowballed!”

The kids dress en route to practice, eat on the run and relate school-day events from the back seat of the car. Yet these young athletes and their parents keep signing up. The reason: They believe that the hustle is worth it in the long run.

“It gets to me sometimes. . . . It rules your life,” says Seal Beach mom Shannon Sharp, midway through son Jake’s second soccer practice of the week.

“But we don’t want them to be sidewalk loafers,” she explains. “You know, the ones hanging out with their skateboards? . . . The kid equivalent of a couch potato. It’s important for them to find a sport and be involved. . . . I think it’s something for their mind, body and spirit.”

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Sometimes kids and parents can get so caught up in the rush that other childhood pastimes get short shrift. Kids and families need downtime--time when no particular activities are planned--say counselors and health professionals.

“I’m all for childhood sports,” says Orange County school psychologist Cathy Pieper. “But we’re organizing our children into oblivion.”

Too many regimented sports can add a great deal of stress to a child’s life, warns Pieper, and prevent them from relying on their own ability to choose activities and think for themselves.

“Children, on the whole, work hard at school,” Pieper says. “And parents need to realize that, just like them, kids put in a full day.”

The key is a happy medium, Pieper and others say.

“The prospect of sportsmanship is good, but there does need to be a balance,” she says. “Parents need to take cues from their children regarding their interest and level of ability. They should allow them to make choices about leisure time and give their kids some downtime.”

Finding that balance for each child is a challenge for parents. While few would deny that kids need some unscheduled time in their day, many parents believe strongly in the benefits that come from organized sports--from being physically active to learning responsibility.

The crush of kids on soccer and other sports fields throughout the county on Saturdays makes it clear that the attraction is indeed strong--for players and their families.

“I think it’s educational and great,” says soccer dad Todd Chidester, cheering on son Chas from a blanket on the sidelines of a game in Rossmoor. “It’s a great way for them to learn to be part of a team.”

Another soccer parent, her voice raspy after a morning on the sidelines, says some days it almost feels “like there’s a tornado in my house.” She has four kids playing soccer--all different times, all different fields.

But the trade-off comes when you see your child having fun on the field, she says.

Her 6-year-old--his freckled cheeks flushed--takes a drink from his plastic water bottle and squeezes the rest over his head as he jogs off the field at the end of the game.

“Did you see me, Mom? I almost got a goal!” he tells her, dripping wet and beaming.

His exhausted smile makes her smile too.

She rounds up his siblings--including a 10-month-old sister--for the trip home. There is a tug on her sleeve and a request from the soccer forward:

“We have time, Mom. Can we go get pizza?”