A few dents in their heads? No big deal

Off WE GO TO ANOTHER soccer game, I and several of the star players, wiggly as “Soul Train” dancers. A sorority of highly trained soccer talent, ready to take on the world and drink boxed drinks.

“I have a dent in my head,” the little girl says from the back seat.

“I have a dent in my head too,” Marisa says.

They are talking about their hair, I think, though I’m not exactly willing to pry. My luck, it’d turn out they actually do have dents in their heads and we’d spend the first three quarters of our game in some emergency room, with me going, “It’s just a dent, it’s just a dent. Can’t you just Spackle it or something?”

“Who are you again, sir?” the nurses would ask.

“I’m their coach,” I’d say, and that’d pretty much explain it all.

Yes, I’m their coach, which seems to explain a lot of bizarre things. For one, those black, knee-high referee socks I wear to the doughnut shop on the way to the game. As you may know, refereeing youth soccer is the equivalent of having jury duty once a week.

As compensation, they make you dress up like the mayor of Dusseldorf. Or a cornet player from an oompah band.

“I have a rash,” the little girl announces from the back seat as we near the field.

“I have a rash too,” says Marisa.

“All rashes aren’t bad,” I explain.

“They aren’t?” Marisa asks.

“There’s good rashes?” the little girl asks.

“Of course,” I say.

The kids, they’re learning a lot this soccer season. For one thing, we’ve been observing the Lakers, “a sea of serenity in a world gone mad,” as my buddy Paul puts it. From the Lakers, our soccer team has learned selflessness and “not to say the first stupid thing that pops into our little heads.” A good lesson, for almost anyone. In almost any line of work. Even local TV news.

We’ve also learned important soccer fundamentals, such as making fists when we run, something that doesn’t come naturally to many girls, whose tendency is to run with their hands open in case they slam into a tree or a handsome little boy with a nice trust fund. From their mothers is where they learn this.

“Make a fist!” I yell as they race down the field during drills. “Make a fist!”

“Why?” they yell back.

“It’s more aerodynamic!” I scream.

“So ... what are we going to do next?” my assistant coach whispers.

“Heck if I know,” I say.

“Scrimmage?”

“Why not,” I say.

So we scrimmage a while, then we take a water break, during which the girls exchange hair-care tips and examine one another’s cuticles. It’s like being backstage with the Rockettes. But not in a good way.

“Your hair is so straight,” Monique says, combing Kendra’s hair with her fingers.

“I like your hair better,” Kendra answers.

“What about my hair?” I ask.

To this, there is only silence.

“Your hair is so straight,” my assistant coach finally says.

“Thank you,” I say.

Otherwise, it’s been a good and productive year. We have lost only once, near as anyone can tell, though we don’t pay a whole lot of attention to wins and losses. Like the Lakers, we’re in it for some higher calling. In many ways, we’ve transcended the sport.

“OK, girls, let me ask you,” I say in my pregame speech, “what do we never, ever do?”

“Talk with our mouths full?” one asks.

“Swear in church?” says another.

“On defense, we never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever kick the ball to the middle,” Katie answers proudly, as if reciting the Pythagorean theorem.

“Ever?” I ask.

“Never, ever, ever, ever,” Katie announces.

And with that in mind, we take the field, a parched and cratered piece of real estate that the city carefully waters twice a day. Once at 6 a.m. and again at 6:05. In one little spot, all the water accumulates in a muddy, Nile Delta sort of way. It’s a mangrove, actually, where mosquitoes lie around naked all day, meeting other mosquitoes and making mosquito love.

While pacing the sidelines, I’ll wade through this mangrove many times. By halftime, I’ll have six strains of malaria.

“Go girls!” I’ll scream from the stretcher as they cart me away. “Keep running!”

“Where’s he going?” the goalkeeper will wonder.

“Coach, the game’s not over!” the midfielder will scream.

“I think he has a dent in his head,” the paramedic will note as they slide me into the ambulance.

“Um, I think he’s a coach,” someone will point out.

And that pretty much explains it all.

Chris Erskine can be reached at chris.erskine@latimes.com.