Vienna Youth Soccer is the most unexpectedly hilarious thing I've experienced in this area since I dined at a quirky little well-reviewed restaurant on Route 123 and was told by the server, "We have four specials tonight ... I'll tell you about two of them."

My daughter has now been part of a VYS team for four seasons and for each of the seasons that she’s played, her team has worn a different color T-shirt. As a group, the girls come up with a name based on this color — so in the past, they’ve been the Red Dragons, the Blue Dolphins and the Yellow Bees. I know … "Awwww," right?  

And this season, they’re purple. After considering and rejecting several names such as Purple Seahorses, Purple People Eaters, Purple Piranhas and Purple Poisonous Snakes at the first team meeting, they settled on … wait for it … the Big Purple Balls.

I don’t know if the other team parents are enjoying this as much as we are, but we find it makes going to the games a lot more interesting. For instance, I notice the team parents inevitably truncate the name. There are a lot of cheers of simply, "Go Purple!"

Last weekend, my daughter raced into the house after her game screaming, “Mom! The Big Purple Balls beat the Green Queens!” — which sounds less like team names for a bunch of suburban 6-year-old girls and more like some kind of Mardi Gras-themed drag soccer event.

We really shouldn’t be surprised by how funny this is because of the team history of ridiculousness. For instance, there was the one time her coach, who has been with the girls for the duration, sent the following e-mails to all of the team parents the year the girls were the Yellow Bees:

Parents,

The fields are open. I will see you there. We will have many teams there, so parking might be interesting. Look for the guy in the yellow >censored<. That is our color this season. -- Coach Tom

Which was almost immediately followed by a second email:

That earlier e-mail was missing one very important letter. I will be wearing a yellow SHIRT (and a very red face!) -- Sorry, Tom

He is also the coach to whom my daughter e-mailed a questionable piece of original art at 3 a.m.

My daughter really loves soccer and has noticeably improved her skills and participation from when she first began playing. She really looks forward to her practices and games and has a lot of good friends on her team.

I might even venture to say she's having a ball.