["Let Inga Tell You," La Jolla Light, published April 13, 2026] 2026
A few weeks ago, I wrote about a long-overdue file cabinet cleaning project and coming upon a folder of communications as a team manager to my younger son Henry s Lasers soccer team. The Lasers organization, a AA traveling team, professionally coached, seems to be long gone. But as I noted in my column, managing youth sports in the pre-internet, pre-cell phone, pre-Google Maps era was exponentially more difficult. For the next three columns, I am going to revisit team memos from that era which could not illustrate this more clearly.
November 4
To: Lasers Soccer team parents
From Inga, Team Manager, and General Purveyor of Unpleasant Financial News
(1) We need money
What, again? What are those team managers doing with our bucks, padding their kids' college funds? OK, OK, I've heard it. Our October coaching fees for Coach Trevor plus the Irvine Harvest Cup and State Cup registration fees, plus Coach Trevor s expenses for Irvine were all calculated by my predecessor on the basis of 12 paying players. Since one has departed, we only collected these fees from the increasingly grumpy parents of 11 players. By the principles of Boolean algebra, symbolic logic, deduction, and long division, this means we are short of money. The league maliciously refuses to act like a nice friendly bank and give us overdraft privileges. They do an automatic deduction of our account on the last day of the month for Coach Trevor's salary, so if your kid suddenly doesn't play, you'll know why. (Just kidding. We are mature adults and would never stoop to punishing kids for the actions of their deadbeat parents.) Other payments, for those who have asked, are made by the Team Manager (moi) submitting a check request to the League Manager; I have no direct access to our funds. We have paid both the entry fee to the Irvine Harvest Cup and to State Cup. The league has magnanimously (and because I begged them) come up with our $200 bond for State Cup (separate from our entry fee) but warns that if we do a no-show, we have to ante up the money ourselves to pay them back or consequences too dire to even mention will occur. (Something about your kid playing fullback on a rec team in perpetuity.) I figure if we bring everyone's account balances up to (X), we will have enough to pay the November coaching fees and cover the shortfall mentioned above.
(2) Thanksgiving Weekend Harvest Cup News
In keeping with National Youth Soccer regulations, we will be informed of our game times in Irvine with the absolute minimal notice possible to ensure maximum inconvenience, stress, and difficulty in Thanksgiving holiday planning.
November 16
Memo to Lasers Soccer Team parents
From: Inga, Team Manager
Attached, courtesy of the National Science Foundation's photocopier at my office, are copies of all the tournament information that was sent to me. Frequently asked questions:
(1) When are we playing in Irvine?
Our games are Friday at 12 noon and 6:40 p.m. Games on Saturday are 10 a.m. and 5:35. I am assuming that most people will come up on Friday morning and meet at the field no later than 11 a.m. (I doubt we'd be able to get into our hotel before mid-afternoon.) We'd have to win our bracket or be the wild card to play on Sunday which makes the hotel arrangements problematic, as always.
(2) How do we find out if a practice is cancelled due to rain?
I put that question to Coach Trevor. There was a long pause before he replied, "Why would we cancel a practice due to rain?" You could hear him thinking, "Boy, these California kids are worse weenies than I thought!" Keep in mind that Coach Trevor is British and if they cancelled due to rain, soccer would be extinct. I explained that it has nothing to do with the kids getting wet; the problem is that the kids' cleats tear up the field when it's wet in our arid climate. The roots just aren't very deep. Anyway, if it is so wet that we really can't practice, Coach Trevor will let me know and I will activate the dreaded Phone Tree.
(3) So, Inga, what is the best way to reach you since you work?
Shucks, I was afraid that someone was going to ask that. Four years of Cub Scout calls ruined my bosses' otherwise good natures about my volunteer activities. (The final straw was when someone asked my boss - a world-renowned researcher - what the requirements were for a Wolf Badge.) So I am going to give out my work number but ask that you not call me there for routine calls. Emergencies only. If a man answers, hang up.
(4) Unsolicited weather tip
Two years ago this team played under lights in Irvine at Thanksgiving. Despite my having grown up in the Snow Belt, I can say with absolute certainty that the coldest I have ever been was at one of the night games at that tournament. With all the hotel'a blankets and towels wrapped around us, we looked like candidates for a list of 10 Worst Dressed Inuits. (The main problem was the wind.) Anyway, since we're playing two evening games, come prepared to channel your best Nanook of the North.
[Stay tuned next week for Dear Lasers Soccer Parents - Part 2]
