It's been a long time since I was a 7-year-old girl. But looking back, I think I might have liked playing on a soccer team called Green Death.
Alas, a crop of girls in Scituate this year never got the chance. As first reported in the free (and gleefully uncouth) publication Barstool Sports - and then broadcast nationwide in a collective tizzy fit - the world couldn't handle a coach who tried, and failed, to be a comedian, poking fun at both the overzealous culture of youth sports and the overbearing cult of self-esteem.
In case you missed the flap, here's a quick rundown: The official name of the Scituate youth soccer team for 6- and 7-year-old girls was "Team 7," but in a long e-mail to parents at the start of the season, coach Michael Kinahan declared that the team would henceforth be known by its grittier nickname.
He also suggested that parents put their kids on a diet of veggies, fish, and "undercooked red meat." He noted that the players would "get bumps, bruises, and even bleed a little. Big deal, it's good for them. (But I do hope the other team is the one bleeding.)" And he proposed a new anthem for youth sports overall. "Some say soccer at this age is about fun and I completely agree," he wrote. "However, I believe winning is fun and losing is for losers."
"Ironic" was once the watchword for Gen-Xers like me, but apparently no one appreciates a joke when it comes to the tender feelings of young girls. In part that's no surprise; we've all read too many stories of violent hockey dads, parents screaming from the sidelines, kids caught in the middle, just trying to have fun. And there are questions about whether Kinahan has crossed the line himself. Apparently, a 12-year-old referee quit his post last year because of the coach's behavior.
Still, if Kinahan's sense of sportsmanship was ever in doubt, his gracious resignation letter says it all. "While I'd prefer to go down swinging," he wrote, "it's really about the kids and it just makes more sense for me to take the year off."
Kinahan's main sin, it seems, is that he tried to send a joke via e-mail. (He later sent out an annotated version of his note, pointing out, for instance, that he doesn't really want to see anyone bleed.) He was pilloried, too, for daring to poke fun at everyone-gets-a-trophy culture, the notion that kids need to be coddled, protected, and shielded from pain of any sort.
"A lot of parents out there - not all - are just allergic to their kids experiencing adversity of any kind," says Harvard psychologist Richard Weissbourd, author of new book "The Parents We Mean to Be: How Well-Intentioned Adults Undermine Children's Moral and Emotional Development."
"Kids need to experience adversity," Weissbourd says. "It's how they develop coping strategies."
The win-and-lose culture of sports, Weissbourd says, teaches particular lessons - about teamwork and hard work, of course, but also about the tougher stuff: how to support your weaker teammates even when they let you down; how to appreciate another team's success, how to invent enemies; how to manage anger and shame.
And for girls, he says, sports offers something more: the chance to be physical, assertive, and forceful in ways that our society hasn't always valued.
Girls are actually in a privileged position these days. They're allowed to be princesses and tomboys at once, to cuddle their baby dolls one minute and save the world as Lava Girl the next. And to play sports with as much grit and toughness as a boy ever could.
Playing for a coach with passion - not to mention a sense of humor - seems like another privilege. And there are signs out there that some people are ready to view girls' sports with a sense of perspective. Soon after the Scituate story broke, Dave Portnoy, the Barstool Sports publisher, printed up a set of "Green Death Soccer" T-shirts, emblazoned with the slogan "Losing Is for losers." As of early this week, he's sold nearly 500 of them.
"People want it for their softball team," Portnoy says. Here's hoping grown-ups can play with as much fierceness and passion as a group of 7-year-old girls.
Joanna Weiss can be reached at weiss@globe.com. 
