Why would you ever tell your players that? It just means you’re trying to lose by less, which gains you… what? I’ve never understood soccer coaches who drop 5-6-7 kids back on defense or directly shadow strikers to try to stem the bleeding. That just gets the attackers closer to your goal. You want to beat a team you believe to be more skilled than you? Put a few of your fastest players and strongest ball handlers in back to beat back the assaults/possess the ball up field and encourage your team to take risks, make runs, build attacks from the back, do the unexpected.

Better you lose 0-10 learning how to attack with flair and intensity against a strong team than relentlessly kick the ball out-of-bounds or upfield (in both cases back to the other team) so they can attack you over and over. It’s like hiding in a castle and routinely collecting all the projectiles, arrows, etc. that missed and bringing them back to your attackers to use again. Drives me crazy as a coach to see my players and my own kids struggle with what they’ve been taught in club against this insane school soccer mindset. You see it over and over. And yet you wonder why more kids are considering playing sports outside of school year round…

So much is written about how NCAA soccer cripples us as a soccer nation because it’s not conducive to the development of elite players. Please. It’s the 4-6 years of playing for teachers who don’t know the game, because the school won’t allow non-teachers to coach or even *help*. Yet the football teams have 15+ assistant coaches. Yes, there are fantastic school coaches out there and horrible club coaches. But on average school soccer is stifling our kid’s creativity and development on the soccer field during some of their most formative years.

At a recent match, the ground was very wet/muddy and my player had gotten fouled a few times, and going in hard – hit the ground. So she was VERY muddy. On the way out she had this exchange with a teammate (it’s paraphrased but you get the idea):

Teammate: “I had fun, but didn’t like being knocked down in the mud”

My Player: “but you like to play soccer…”

Teammate: “yeah, I like to play soccer”

My Player: “well, that’s soccer and it happens”

Teammate: “well, I like to kick the ball and run, but not get muddy or get pushed.”

My Player: “ummm… then you don’t really like soccer”

That’s funny!

When you cross that touchline – you are a warrior.

No opponent is going to step aside so you can score at will all by yourself. If you blindly turnover the ball to ‘be safe’ your opponents will only thank you. If you stand around waiting for the ball, your opponents will only pass you by. Yet at times it can seem that’s all you’re encouraged to do.

But you know better. That is not how you’ve been trained.

You don’t clear it – you possess it. You don’t stand still, you are always in motion. You don’t ‘stay in your circle’ you dash across the field and do the unexpected. You don’t ‘just kick it’, you bring it up field to start an attack or score. You don’t do it all yourself, you send the ball to open teammates, even if they’re near your own goal. You don’t fear the lightning quick striker, you steal her thunder and the ball at a full sprint. You stay right behind her shoulder, ensuring she knows you are always there. You don’t fear the distance, you drill the shot at the corner. You don’t watch the shot get taken, you dive in for the tackle knowing you’ll have more to show for it than dirty socks.

You’ve trained too hard for too long and endured too much to conform to some prim idea of how girls should play soccer. Soccer itself grew out of a war game and you have a warrior’s spirit. Don’t ever forget that’s part of why you love ‘the beautiful game’!

I’ve coached youth soccer for ten years now and still feel like a novice, learning every day. My practices this year are probably a lot different than years before. I’m always trying to adjust my sessions to better fit my ever improving idea of how a player should develop at a young age. I’ve started to settle on the organized chaos theory. If the kids are running around and having a blast with a ball at their feet in U5/U6 – life is good! But it’s been long enough that I’ve forgotten how utterly terrifying it was to coach my first season of U6. When I happen to talk to some of the coaches at our younger age groups, almost universally they think they are doing poorly. They know they are green, they know they are ‘new’, and they usually have no yard stick to measure THEIR development by. The most obvious measure is also the worst at young ages – the score. We rarely KEEP score at young ages, but you know when your team is beating another team or not. The problem is, the team scoring the most goals at U6 is NOT necessarily the best team overall in terms of coaching and development. More often it means they have a big fast kid who can dribble and run to the goal and score. Over and over. But the other team may be doing a better job of individual possession and exhibiting better soccer technique. Guess which coach thinks he’s rockin it and which one thinks he’s doing poorly…

We need to do a much better job of reaffirming when coaches are doing well with criteria that focus on player development, NOT the score. The coaches who leave U5/U6 with confidence in their ability are often the ones who happened to have big fast kids that score over and over. Some of those will develop a coaching sense of ‘pass it to the big fast kid so we can score’ as they move up in age. We need to do a better job ensuring the coaches who ‘get it’ are recognized for their efforts and ensure they’re the ones who stick with it, while also trying to get the ones measuring themselves by the score to see the error of their ways and to focus more on player development.

Case in point. I was coaching one of my teams and I hear these peals of laughter and squealing from a bunch of kids. Field space is tight, so there are 5 or 6 teams on this one baseball outfield. I’ve already had a coach upset because he doesn’t have enough room for his U7s to ‘work on passing’ and dribble between cones. Guess how excited those kids were. Yet I look over and see this other coach, with U5 or U6 boys, practicing in a 20x20yd box. He pretty much took whatever scrap of field he could find for his practice. These kids are laughing and squealing and running all over their little square. The coach is full of energy and giving high fives and the kids are having a BLAST. They all have soccer balls at their feet, running here and there and everywhere. This is one of our newer coaches. I thought that was pretty cool, but turned my attention back to my practice and kept working with my group.

Later that week, one of my parents asked me if I had noticed the very same practice and how much energy that coach had and how much fun those kids were having. I said that I had, and then it hit me that I’m sure nobody went to *him* and said that. So the next week, after another of his team’s high energy practices, I made a point to go over to him and tell him what a fantastic job I thought he was doing. He was shocked. He reacted like many newer coaches who think they can’t possibly be doing things ‘right’. I explained that at this age you can’t *teach* the kids stuff – your goal is to create a fun and high energy atmosphere where the kids are always moving around with the ball at their feet and are having FUN. I told him he’s more than accomplished that and to keep it up. He was beaming and as I left the park, I wondered why our league didn’t make it more of a point to do that. We try to mentor and offer tips when coaches need help, but we don’t really make it a point to approach those coaches who CLEARLY are good with kids and were running good sessions and say ‘Great Job! Keep it Up!’ If we did, I wonder how many more coaches we’d develop long term who ended up loving the beautiful game as much as many of the kids and experienced coaches? We work so hard trying to convince the parents that the score doesn’t matter at the younger ages, but I’m not sure we do a good enough job convincing the coaches the same thing when it comes to measuring your success as a coach. A U6 score is NOT an indication of how well your doing. Instead, how many of your kids are having fun, keep coming back each season, and are touching the ball a lot?

In short – we certainly need to keep working to educate our inexperienced coaches, but we probably can do a better job of telling them when they’re doing things right. Otherwise their only metric is…. the score nobody keeps.

David Beckham got sent off from a youth soccer match:

“It was the younger kids of Romeo’s club, and they’re playing in the game and there was a penalty given. And the kids are 7 years old and he sent the kid off.” After that, Beckham, who has seen his share of red cards in his career (including a crucial one in a World Cup match against Argentina in 1998), did what so many parents of youth soccer players have done — he opened his mouth.

“And I was like, ‘Come on, he’s 7 years old, Referee, you can’t send him off.’ And he looked at me and was like, ‘Yes, I can.’ And I was like, ‘O.K., well, you can’t, he’s 7 years old.’ And he came over and gave me a red card. He told me to get out of the park. For real.

#refereewin. Can you imagine the next time he’s chatting with other refs at a tournament? “Oh yeah? Well I sent David Beckham off!” Of course, it’s even more likely that the ref had no idea who he was!

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For starters, we are educators, not nannies. We are educated professionals who work with kids every day and often see your child in a different light than you do. If we give you advice, don’t fight it. Take it, and digest it in the same way you would consider advice from a doctor or lawyer. I have become used to some parents who just don’t want to hear anything negative about their child, but sometimes if you’re willing to take early warning advice to heart, it can help you head off an issue that could become much greater in the future.

He goes on to talk about more specific things he’s seen in his years as an educator. He also touches on how the bad teachers are often the ones who give the best grades because they want to be left alone. I’ve seen that in youth soccer as well. You try to address a problem player’s issues with their parents and suddenly you are a bad coach picking on their kid. A great read and one I’d share with as many parents as possible.

Even harder is how do you get kids to want to play with a soccer ball outside of practice. I’ve tried all sorts of tactics in my 10 years of coaching, but don’t know that I’ve ever gotten a player to do so (though I’d have no idea if they did).

So last week, after one of our U11 girl’s teams wrapped up practice, I was talking to their coach about some registration stuff. As the players packed up and gradually left with parents, I kept hearing this ‘Whap! Whap!’ I glance over to the fence and one of the quieter, smaller players on the team was drilling her soccer ball into the fence, over and over. Great way to practice proper technique when striking the ball. I briefly hinted that she might hit it better with her foot closer to the ball and approaching from an angle and left it at that. So, of course, I watched her closer for a bit to see how she did, and I see that when she would turn around at her ball to face the fence again, she wasn’t just turning around. She was doing an excellent reverse scissor! Over and over and over. Every time she’d do the move, she’d let this grin slip onto her face.

Now this 10 year old player is not one of the strongest players on the team and she doesn’t have a dominant personality. But over the course of last season, she would dribble the ball with increasing confidence, even under pressure, despite her teammates imploring her to ‘get rid of it!’. Then I see this. I cannot WAIT to see how this player develops, because she clearly WANTS to get better. Plenty of players work hard at practice or rely on raw athleticism. But few make a point of pushing themselves on their own and putting themselves under pressure on purpose. Their coach could practice reverse scissors with them for weeks, and none of them would try it in a match. I bet this player will – because she perfected it on her own.

I wish I knew how to consistently make more players do that, because no amount of coaching can equal that!

Despite the variances due to climate, most USYSA affiliate soccer calendars are driven backwards from the USYSA National Championship Series. Regionals, State Cups, and regular seasons to determine cup seeds all factor in. For our state, that means we wrap everything up by Memorial Day. The weekend before is the State Cup final four and the 2-3 weeks before that are the State Cup events. So that generally left March and April for travel matches.

However, the sheer number of ‘cup’ events packed into May were stretching the state office staff too thin. So they needed to spread out into late April. Suddenly the end of the season was in mid April and you still had Easter weekend to contend with. Then add in the weather. April showers are common, and even here in NC we seem to get occasional winter weather (usually ice). In recent years, 3-5 washed out weekends were not uncommon, wreaking havoc on schedules. Teams were struggling to get all their matches in before the seeding deadlines. So what did we do? Start earlier.

This year the travel season starts this weekend on January 28th! Now, our travel teams self schedule, with all teams in a divison working out play dates with each other. Nobody says you HAVE to start January 28th, just that you can. You just have to make sure you’re done by the deadlines (mid April for 11v11 and mid May for 8v8). The problem is most teams are playing it safe and front loading their schedule in case we get a stretch of bad weather. How safe? My son’s U15 team will wrap up their season the last weekend of March. One of our U12 teams has their last regular season match scheduled before the start of Spring! Certainly some bad weather could push some matches into April. But you have to wonder… If we have dry weather, these teams could have 6-9 weeks of down time before the end of season tournaments!

I know, I know. Rescheduling matches is a royal pain. But is this the answer? Scheduling the bulk of your Spring regular season before Spring even starts? I guess we’ll setup a lot of friendlies if the weather behaves!

So on January 18th, along with many other major websites, visits to our website will redirect to information on how you can try to fight this legislation.

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Congress is considering two dangerous pieces of legislation called SOPA and PIPA, which would create the first American Internet censorship system. These bills can pass. If they do, the Internet and free speech will never be the same.

Join us to stop this bill.

• Why? – A few infringing links are enough to justify censoring an entire site, blocking good content along with the bad. Content that may have been uploaded by someone other than the site’s owners.
• How? – The US will be able to block a site’s web traffic, ad traffic and search traffic using the same website censorship methods used by China, Iran and Syria.
• Who’s At Risk? – Your favorite websites both inside and outside the US could be blocked based on a single infringement claim.
• Could this pass? – Yes. Despite recent statements from committee chairs that they may slow down SOPA, PIPA is still moving forward. The Stop Online Piracy Act and the PROTECT IP Act are being pushed very hard by the media conglomerates and have widespread support in Congress. They are expected to pass.
• I Heard SOPA Is Dead – The House has sent SOPA back to committee and shelved it temporarily, but PIPA (the Senate version) is still very much alive and kicking. SOPA will likely come back out of committee if the intensity of opposition dies down.

Learn More And Help:

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While researching something else in the USSF Advice To Referees and IFAB Memorandums, I came across this section in the USSF 2011-2012 Laws of the Game Memorandum:

5. Vanishing spray

The IFAB approved the use of vanishing spray by CONMEBOL in a trial basis.

USSF Advice to Referees: Except where specifically approved by USSF, the use of vanishing spray is not permitted.

Say what???? Vanishing Spray? You can imagine all the possible scenarios one could come up with for that. I thought it was a joke or a really bad typo. Maybe what we all called Magic Spray , the IAFB called ‘Vanishing Spray’ since it made injuries ‘vanish’.

A little research revealed that it’s real. Apparently in CONMEBOL, they’re experimenting with vanishing spray paint to ensure players stay 10 yds away during free kicks. Who knew???

Hector Rio/European Pressphoto Agency

Also – if you ever are looking for referee documentation, the GLASA soccer league has an amazing collection of referee information.

Kieran Clancy loved soccer. Like most club soccer players in Arizona, the 18-year-old had long hoped to land a college soccer scholarship. Clancy and his family had done all the right things. Since he was 10, he’d played with one of the most expensive clubs in Arizona, the Sereno Soccer Club, at a cost of about $10,000 a year.

This past June, Sereno’s top boys’ team gathered for the State Cup. Clancy scheduled college scouts to travel to Arizona to watch him play, according to one of his teammates.

But Clancy never got to play in the tournament. A signature on a form showed up – allegedly Clancy’s signature – stating the boy had agreed to drop out of the game, to make way for a college All-Star player. (Clancy’s mother did not return repeated phone messages left for her and Kieran.)

As he and his family apparently told soccer officials, after Sereno had won the state championship and then the regional championship in Hawaii, Clancy never signed the form. At a meeting of soccer officials, they said that his coach, Les Armstrong, 45, forged his name to get him off the team.

Such are the high stakes in Arizona club soccer.

Emphasis mine. The article then goes on to cover a number of known problems in youth soccer exemplified by this coach and his program. But when you read this article, you begin to think that ALL of youth soccer is broken. Youth soccer certainly has its problems, but issues like this tend to be an exception, not the rule. All states have youth soccer coaches and parents who lose perspective, but the good news is they are often dealt with – if the parents speak up. Just like this case. Sure, there are plenty of abuses that don’t get sanctioned, but that’s more often due to lack of evidence, or even a complaint. When you have millions of kids playing soccer, some things will certainly get missed. So the reporter may have used a fairly broad brush when dealing with youth soccer overall, but it’s good that a situation like this was brought to light.

Let’s look at what this coach did. Most youth soccer associations require a parent’s signature on a drop form before a player can be dropped from a team. In addition, many state soccer associations will require signatures on a waiver if a rostered player does not participate in their State Cup series, which feed the USYSA National Cup Series. This ensures that coaches can’t just drop weaker players from their team to add stronger players before state and national championships. So the coach had the signature forged and got caught. In my opinion, the five month suspension was too lenient. He should have been tossed for a minimum of a full year. Yes, he lost his $75,000 a year job, but he’ll likely get another one. Once news of his suspension got out, other parents came forward with tales of harsh behavior towards his players.

This is an older article, but I’m writing about it now because it’s become even more relevant. US Youth Soccer has introduced the concept of a ‘Club Pass’ which will allow clubs to move players around on teams that advance to the National Cup Series out of their State Cups (plus many state associations are considering allowing club passes for the State Cups too). The goal of the club pass is a good one – ensuring the best players a club has have the chance to participate at a higher level, even if their specific team does not advance. The trick is that you usually have to make room on a roster in order to add guest players. If you read into the new rules, players can now be involuntarily dropped from a team to make room for guest players. So what happened above would have been allowed under the new rules (for the regionals) with no need for a forged parent signature. Instead they could have just dropped the kid from the team to make room for the All-Star. Read the FAQ section a bit – there are going to be some *furious* parents when their kids get dropped to make room for someone else right before the NCS on teams they’ve played (and paid) for the entire season.

I’ll admit I’m torn over it. Sending the best kids to regionals and nationals is a good thing. Yet with the success of the USSF Development Academy and US Club Soccer’s ECNL, top tier players are getting a ton of high level play and exposure. You have to wonder if the club pass will make that much of a difference and if it may inadvertently reduce the pool of players that get seen at a national level. It’s going to leave some kids who busted their tails for their team all year, left home or on the spectator sideline.

H/T This Is American Soccer via Twitter

As the video’s creator notes:

Soccer Mom has some helpful advice for Coach after the game. NOTE: This is a compilation of actual conversations I’ve had with parents over the past six years.

Every soccer parent should watch this and listen to what the coach has to say in response. Yes, the text-to-speech movies can be annoying, but it’s worth five minutes of your time.

Hats off to a friend who sent me this who has gone through much of what’s in this video in a single season!

That said, soccer is pretty hard core compared to other sports where you have just fouls/penalties. Sure you have a technical in basketball (equivalent to a direct kick or MAYBE a penalty kick in soccer), and varying yardage in football (say difference between direct and indirect kicks in soccer and maybe a penalty kick when it’s a 15 yd penalty since you get a 1st down), but that’s it. You have to practically maul someone to get ejected. So in a sport where ‘cautions’ aren’t really the norm, how do you handle a situation like this?

How any sports official let that player continue to play after the clothesline takedown of an opponent is beyond me.

The wildest part is the reaction of commentators on various articles about this game and player. The Yahoo blog entry has over 21,000 comments on it. A number of people said the referee’s made the right call. I’m not a basketball expert, but he never played the ball and the clothesline HAD to be grounds for at least a technical, if not an ejection. Same for the elbow to the head. Soccer allows a yellow card for ‘persistent infringement of the Laws of the Game’. I know that basketball is known for bruiser players (most sports are, including soccer), but it boggles the mind that those officials had no recourse to deal with that.

Maybe more sports need a Blue Card! If you aren’t familiar with it, in indoor soccer you play in the equivalent of a hockey rink with artificial turf. The ball is played off the walls and since you have players running full speed towards solid surfaces – the risk of injury is higher. So the Blue Card is mainly to prevent boarding, but also is issued for ‘persistent fouling/tackling’. If a player receives a Blue Card, they sit out two minutes and the team plays down a player – just like in hockey. Yellow and Red cards come after Blue and result in longer sit outs. In one of my son’s recent matches, things were very physical, but when a player shoved another player in the head – out came the blue.

Think how cool that would be in other sports. Basketball would be a shot fest (rain down the 3 pointers!). Football as well – less pressure on the QB, so more time for them to pass (or more holes for the RB’s to run through).

I’m NOT advocating taking the physical nature out of sports – and, yes, this post is slightly tongue-in-cheek, but it’s fun to think about the possibilities. For those of you who have younger kids playing soccer, you won’t believe how the game changes when they get older. MUCH more physical (and exciting). I’m still stunned at how the game changed at U15 for my girls team. They love it, and as long as the officials keep a lid on things getting too far out of control, they get to play intense, physical soccer. Sports are meant to be intense and all carry some level of risk, but flagrant fouls have no place in any sport.

When players in ANY sport cross a line to where they are intentionally trying to foul and possibly hurt an opponent, the rules AND officials have to push back to avoid serious injury. Can you imagine if that basketball player that got clotheslined had rotated backward just a little more? And in sports where the rules clearly give officials the power to penalize flagrancy, they need to be enforced, even if the players are children.

Anyway – one of his shows earlier this year dealt with anonymous parent feedback and how it was apparently used to justify the firing of some long time high school coaches. Have a listen…

Is anonymous feedback in youth sports the evil it’s made out to be?

Regarding the specific situation – the school said the terminations were due, ‘in part’, to the surveys. Only the school administrators know how big of a role they played, and one would hope it wasn’t a big one. Tony and his callers rightly note that the survey was flawed in that anyone could fill out the online survey, not just current players and/or parents. That makes it way too easy for someone cut or with an ax to grind to submit feedback without basis to do so. But this is a common mistake, which I’ll explain in a bit.

I’m not really going to comment on the specific case because I’m not familiar with it beyond saying that while longevity and success on the field are important, that does not make a coach immune from feedback or review by their superiors. You work for the school and the AD and if they feel it’s time for a change – that’s life. Success on the court/field below the collegiate level is not always a good indicator of the coaching as it is also heavily dependent on who is in any given HS class (vs who you recruit). Just because a coach is winning should not give them carte blanche.

So back to the anonymous feedback… In my years as a coach and league administrator, I’ve found that anonymous feedback is an essential tool, if used properly. The one angle that was never mentioned during the show was that parents are petrified to submit attributable feedback about a coach. Why? Because they are 110% convinced it’ll impact their child’s playing time – and in some cases they are right. If your child’s coach is doing things that concern you as a parent, than there is a good chance this is the type of coach who would penalize your child if they found out you ‘snitched’. Not all coaches are saints – for all the great coaches out there who do what they do for the love of the kids and the game, there are others who have no business on a sideline, which is unfortunate.

I have always marveled at how HARD it is to get parents to say anything about their kid’s coach. They are so afraid that the coach will find out, they suffer in silence or as a group on the sideline. On the rare occasion a parent DOES say anything, it’s often after the player has left the team. Even then most parents will just not bother since it’s not their problem anymore. By the time you hear about a coach, things have usually gotten so bad that the team will often implode because the parents waited so long before saying anything. This is one of the biggest challenges as a youth sports administrator – figuring out how to solicit feedback so you find out about problems before things are so far gone they can’t be fixed.

Which brings up the next major point made on the show: that ADs/Administrators should be going to the fields to monitor things. While this is true to a point, it’s also unrealistic. Even a HS Athletic Director will have a handful of sports going on at any given time and they’re usually teaching too. Besides, you can be sure that if the AD is standing up on the hill, a coach will be on their best behavior. It’s human nature. In a youth sports league like soccer, you’ll have dozens to hundreds of coaches and assistants. Our small city league has almost 300 coaches, assistants, and team managers every season – you cannot possibly ensure that every coach gets monitored/reviewed in person. So if you can’t actively monitor all your coaches, how do you know when something is amiss? Parent feedback.

Parent feedback IS important, because they are often there at team activities and their kids will often confide in them. Sure, Tony’s point that the majority of parent complaints relate to playing time is true, but that’s feedback you can usually ignore outside of Recreational level sports. But it’s the feedback about a coach’s behavior that is key.

The trick is ensuring you use anonymous feedback properly. It absolutely should NOT be the only thing relied upon. If the HS discussed on Tony’s show took action largely due to the feedback received without additional followup? That’s borderline criminal. We have a saying in our league – always take parent feedback with a HUGE grain of salt. Anonymous parent feedback should be the canary in the coal mine – an early warning to possible problems. If you get feedback that raises any type of flag, then you follow up. You contact all of the parents directly, explain that what they tell you will be held in confidence, and solicit additional feedback. Now, supporters of the coach will absolutely tell him or her that ‘the league’ or ‘the AD’ is checking up on them – but that’s OK. They work for you. But you will quickly find out if the anonymous feedback was sour grapes or the tip of the iceberg.

Anonymous feedback should not be vilified as a bunch of whiny parents hiding behind a cloak of anonymity. It’s a vital tool in managing any sports program. But how you use it will determine if it’s useful or unfair, so here are some suggestions at soliciting and handling parent feedback:

1. Limit who can submit it to active or past members of a team. The easiest way to do this is to hand them out on paper to the members of a team. But that can get expensive and someone has to enter all the results. Online surveys are EASY to administer, but you need to somehow limit who can submit one without scaring away submissions because they think they can be tracked. In the end you have to balance ease of access with concern over retribution. If you hand out a custom password to each player, they’ll think it can be used to track submissions. If you have a generic password, they can give it to anyone if they want. There is no perfect answer here. We usually use an unpublished link and send that to the team parents. Sure they can share it (just like they can copy a paper survey), but that’s OK if you use the feedback as a starting point – you’ll weed out the bogus submissions later.
2. Try to solicit feedback for ALL your coaches, not just the ones you believe are having trouble. If you wait until you’ve heard about issues before you solicit feedback, it’s often too late.
3. Don’t, don’t, DON’T, rely solely on feedback to judge the performance of a coach. It should be a starting point or small part of the overall review.
4. Added: People who are upset are much more likely to speak out than those that are happy. 3 negative submissions on a team of 15 kids could mean 12 others are quite happy. Which is why…
5. Always, always, ALWAYS followup with ALL the team parents when feedback raises a red flag to try and get the real story. Be sure to explain that anything said will be kept in strict confidence. Also be VERY careful about what you say as it is very easy to split team parents and make problems even worse. Parents talk – a LOT.
6. Unless a coach has done something that forces your hand to take action, always give them a chance to improve. Yes, this is the awkward step that many don’t want to take. But, you’re an Athletic Director or Director of Coaching for a reason. Get their side of the story, explain that there is some feedback that is concerning, and you want to help them improve. If they don’t – move on. If they do – all the better for the kids
7. Once a coach knows they are being watched, you HAVE to try and monitor things closer than you normally would. You or a surrogate should try to attend a few events if you can and be on the lookout for additional feedback that might indicate things have gotten worse, or better.

In the end, we do what we do for the kids. There are good coaches and bad coaches and many in between. Parents are in the best position to see first hand when there are problems, but they’re also almost always biased towards their child, so their feedback can’t be taken at face value. But it absolutely should be solicited and then used to inquire further if necessary.

How does your school or league try to handle coaching feedback?

Update: Coach Tony did a small followup on this article after his show covering the now infamous basketball flagrant foul video. It’s around 40 minutes 25 seconds in to the show. If you’ve got the time, listen to the whole show for some great debate about Connell HS Basketball and how they handled this video going viral and what the officials should have done.

Yet skill differences were the least of our problems. At other ages, few girls tried out and we often could not form teams. In talking to parents we quickly discovered few thought their daughters were ‘good enough’ to play travel, so they didn’t try out. Being coed, the girls were being compared to their ‘peers’, which included the boys, so only a few girls ‘stood out’ in their parent’s eyes. We often had to convince parents individually that their daughter was good enough to play on a travel team to counter that inherent, and often subconscious, bias. But that was only part of the problem. Our experienced girls travel team coaches were often watching Rec games in search of more players. As we watched our local players in more and more of our Rec matches, we started to notice a few disturbing things compared to players from other leagues. Aside from a handful of girls who would ‘go after’ the boys in a game and play toe to toe with them, most of the girls waited for the game to come to them. They touched the ball a LOT less than the boys did, and often had little confidence with the ball – when the ball came to them, they passed it immediately. The girls also seemed to play defense a lot more than the boys (often standing on the ’18′ like it was a boundary). So while the boys were up front learning how to move the ball around opponents, the girls were taught mainly to clear the ball when it came to them on defense at the top of the area.

It was alarming when we started to put the pieces together. At U8-U10, most of girls were hardly touching the ball and were learning the wrong things (wait for the ball to come to you and get rid of its ASAP!). At the youngest ages, even in 3v3 matches, many girls were essentially sidelined as the boys and a few aggressive girls dominated the play. Based on what we were observing, we realized that we were likely hurting the girl’s development at the younger age levels and had to seriously consider a change.

After a few more years of solid growth, we certainly had the numbers to split the younger age groups, but what would the reaction be? Most league officers were on board with the change, as most were heavily involved in the travel program and a few coached girls teams and had seen the issues first hand. Two of coed’s most vocal supporters in the past (myself included) were now it’s biggest detractors as coaches of girls travel teams. So the board approved splitting the age groups by gender for U5 through U8 for our 2010-2011 season and braced ourselves. Overall we got very little response and the little we did was at worst split 50/50, which was good. Usually only those upset with something make the effort to say anything.

So the Fall 2010 season began with 5-7 girls teams in each age group. I had coached my youngest son’s coed U5 team and had a great group, so I ‘doubled up’ and coached the boys and girls from that team in U6. This gave me some first hand experience with how the coed change would impact our league and it’s players, girls and boys. None of us really knew what to expect or how it would play out.

In a word? Wow. Not only did it have a positive impact on the girls, there was a noticeable impact on the boys. But first the girls. My U6 girls team, as an example, had two very strong players (aggressive, fast, decent dribblers), two girls who were very new to soccer and wide eyed at their first practice, and a third who was in between. At our first practice I had no idea what to expect. But watching the two tentative girls develop compared to previous years was illuminating. They were VERY hesitant at first, but in early games when the ball came to them, they didn’t panic like I had seen others do when boys were involved. They just kept moving the ball. The mid player latched onto some of the ball rolling we did in practice and would roll the ball with the bottom of her foot out of the scrum instead of just kicking at it. They did things I had never seen girls on previous U6 teams do because the boys were always after or possessing the ball. From top to bottom the girls had a LOT more ball touches and by the end of the season my two tentative players were playing VERY well. It’s hard to describe, but watching them possess the ball in the scrum of U6 and doggedly moving the ball forward was a huge confidence boost for them. I don’t think they would have made the strides they did if boys had been in the games.

Now on the flip side, I practiced the boys and girls together. During activities, it was coed. But during the scrimmages, we usually split them up. It worked fairly well. From my team’s perspective the change was very positive. Other coaches echoed that sentiment for the most part. Most of what we observed with the girls was what we had theorized would take place, but the surprising thing was the boys. In my first U6 game, the boys were MUCH more aggressive. I’ve coached U5/U6 teams for some time and the difference, right from the start, was noticeable. I don’t necessarily mean aggressive in a bad way, but they were using their arms more and were really going after the ball in a way I had not seen at this age. There were times we had to tamp down on how hard they were playing. I’m not one of those coaches who want his players to be thugs – I just want players who go after the ball. I started watching other U6-U8 boys matches and saw similar things. When I asked some of our experienced coaches if they had noticed a difference, all said it was significant. The boys were playing with more intensity than they had in coed. It was surprising.

With three seasons under our belts, the decision was a resounding success. We split U10 this past Fall and it went quite well. However, judging the long term benefits will take years, to see how the ’05s are playing once they reach travel age. We’re confident it will benefit our program and players, but also realize it’s not the only thing that needed to change. Continued coaching education, improvement of facilities, developing a consistent training curriculum, and parent education are all things we need to focus on. But this one change is likely to have a profound effect on the development of our players, regardless of gender.

When numbers dictate, coed is certainly a better option than not playing at all. But once you reach a point where you can sustain gender split teams, it’s an option you should strongly consider. The feedback we received from parents has been overwhelmingly positive and we can see our younger players doing things that their predecessors never did. The only difficulty we have had is getting enough coaches for our girls teams, but that seems to be easing as our parents get more comfortable with the new arrangement. But overall, and especially from a development standpoint, this change had a major impact. I’d recommend any league with a growing coed Rec program to consider it.

Update: Here’s an opposing view from The Women’s Sports Foundation (via Inside Youth Sports):

The Women’s Sports Foundation supports a position that girls and boys should be encouraged to compete with and against each other in sports whenever possible:

“Prior to puberty, there is no gender-based physiological reason to separate females and males in sports competition. In fact, research demonstrates that girls who participate with boys in youth sports are more resilient. … After puberty, coeducational competition should be encouraged at all levels where there are rules that require equal numbers of females and males on both teams and also rules that maximize fair competition between the sexes.”

The key phrase there is physiological – and they are right. The girls CAN physically play with the boys prior to puberty. No question. But our experience shows that the problems arise from a) the boys taking control of the match/ball or not passing the ball to the girls and b) many of the girls who mentally cannot or do not want to ‘engage’ the boys in a physical manner (soccer IS a contact sport). Above I noted that a few girls absolutely would hang tough with the boys and play toe to toe with them, but the vast majority, at least in youth soccer, did not want to and would find themselves sidelined from much of the action (ie the ball).  Thus they rarely touch the ball and do not develop the necessary skills. This is absolutely not an equality issue – it’s a practicality issue. And what we observed in a moderate sized (1000+ player) sports league was eye opening.

H/T to @NetWorks_Sports for the link to Inside Youth Sports

Recently we encountered what had to be the loudest and most obnoxious group of team parents we’ve ever heard. I’ve coached youth soccer for 10 years and my older girls team plays 30-40 matches a year across North Carolina, so we have certainly had our share of rowdy sidelines. However, we’ve never experienced a group of parents that as a unit made so much noise that it was like being at a professional sporting event.

It was just a constant roar, but often in angry and very shrill tones. We were playing at a fantastic complex with huge artificial turf fields and rather large sets of bleachers (which meant all the parents were sitting up very high for a better view of the field – making it even louder) From the opening whistle the roar started and was constant. My players were completely distracted by it and it showed in their play. At some point in the 1st half I shouted to my team “If you want that noise to stop, you need to get the ball into the net!”, which only served to increase the noise level. At halftime, with the score tied 0-0, the girls walked off the field, to the farthest corner I could find, almost in shock. Half of them just lay down on their backs or sides staring into space. I’d never seen them like this. The other half voiced everyone’s frustration: “OMG! Can’t they give it a rest?!?!” “This is horrible!!” “Why are our parents so QUIET??” (Our parents had made a pact NOT to engage the other parents and watched the match in relative silence to avoid any confrontations, which was good, but helped unnerve the girls) I spent the entire halftime break talking about tuning out the noise, focusing on the play, and getting the ball into the net. Scoring was the only way to turn the noise down a notch.

Now I know many of you are rolling your eyes thinking we were somehow overly sensitive to a rowdy group of parents. That’s not it. We’ve been there. Done that. This was a whole new level for more than just me. As the 2nd half started, I walked towards midfield and noticed an adult standing there who I didn’t recognize as a coach. He asked me what the score was and then explained he was from the tournament committee. They had placed committee members all around the field (think the people in yellow/orange vests watching the crowd at sporting events) where any parents were to make sure things didn’t get out of hand. He was there to keep the coaches apart. I was stunned, but also not surprised. It was THAT loud and shrill, which clearly had unnerved the folks running the tournament.

The girls finally settled down, though not before one of my midfielders, finding herself near the bleachers during a lull in the play, turned to the parents and screamed “Will you people SHUT UP!!!”. You can guess how well THAT worked! After scoring two quick goals, things quieted down a little, but every offside call, hard challenge, or tackle was met with increasingly shrill reactions.

My point in sharing this is to remind parents that your behavior on the sidelines can have a HUGE effect on soccer players. While this is an extreme example, it’s not isolated. It was a miserable match for my players, even though they won. Absolutely get into a match and cheer on your child and their team, but anger and sarcasm have no place on the sideline. Lest I be accused of writing this from a glass house, we’re not angels in this department either. While my parents are a great group, they certainly have had their moments where they got a little too agitated on the sideline and I’ve had players request an opposite side of the field during position assignments. But the trick is, I’ve also talked to my parents about it and reminded them when maybe a few of them might be crossing a line. Is it awkward? Sure. But too many coaches believe their only responsibility is the team on the field and too many forget (or ignore) their responsibility with their parents. The next time you stumble across a match where one group of parents is out of control – check the coach. You’ll more often than not find similar behavior or a coach who doesn’t interact with his/her parents.

So as we start the new year and most soccer teams are enjoying a winter break, remember that our kids play soccer because they love the sport, and our actions on both sidelines can directly impact that.

Case in point – after we won the match, the tournament committee kept the teams separated and the awards were handed out to the teams far away from each other instead of at a joint awards ceremony, which is the norm. That’s unfortunate, because it’s good sportsmanship for both teams to congratulate each other after a hard-fought match. So I share this not to complain, but to simply remind all of us that our behavior IS noticed by our kids and the other players. What we do can turn an exciting event into one that’ll be remembered not for the intense play, but for the less than ideal playing conditions.

While it certainly has helped us occasionally, it’s not a crutch by any means. It has, however, provided a lot of funny moments for us:

1. Whenever we play teams we haven’t faced before, it’s always fun to see the reaction of the parents and/or players when our defender does her first flip. During a recent tournament, she didn’t flip until maybe 5-10 minutes into a match we already led by 1 or 2. When she did it, our opponent’s center striker, almost involuntarily, shouts out “Oh my god, that was SO AWESOME!!!!!!!! Did you SEE that?!?!” Even funnier was the reaction of her coach, who was pretty intense, and clearly did not appreciate his player’s outburst. Made me chuckle.
2. Our team has a specific formation for corner kicks. We line up most of our players in a line at an angle about 18 yds out from the far goal post. The girls ‘take off’ at preset intervals in the few seconds before the corner kick. So when the ball goes out-of-bounds on her side within 10-15 yds of the corner flag, I’ll often shout out to the team ‘setup a corner!’ and we treat the throw like a corner kick. Once a coach sarcastically reminded me that it was CLEARLY a throw in. So I say ‘Oh, thanks! Sorry I sometimes get confused’. Then I shout again, ‘Ladies – set it up!’ He looks at me like I’m a complete idiot. The girls scatter from formation, she flips, drops the ball over the hash mark, and we score. The look on his face when he glanced back over to me was PRICELESS.
3. One team we played had a parent with a foreign accent. Every time the ball went out-of-bounds for us, he’d shout out ‘De Flip! De Flip!’. It cracked my team up because he sounded like Hervé Villechaize on Fantasy Island shouting ‘De Plane! De Plane!’
4. During a tournament this past Spring, we lost possession off of one of our flip throws. Out of the blue, a player on the other team grabs the ball and does a flip throw right in front of her bench, which got her team (and parents) very fired up.
5. Against another team we were setting up our corner kick formation on a throw in and the opposing team seemed to get what we were going to do as she had flipped once before, but always from farther downfield. So the girls were marking up our girls in formation, far from the throw. The opposing coaching was screaming at his players “Why are you moving so far away! It’s a throw in! She can’t throw that far! Move Closer! WHY ARE YOU SO FAR AWAY!?!?” She flips, we score, and one of his players turns to him, grins, and shouts “THAT’S WHY!”

The interesting thing is that even without doing a flip, she can throw the ball quite far, so she doesn’t do it all the time. She uses hand signals to try to alert her teammates when she plans to do one, though I’m not sure they always realize it.

I know many people view the flip throw as an abnormality in a soccer match, but it sure has been a lot of fun to watch and see the reactions of other teams.

Flip Throw in Slow Mo

While commentators will likely stop talking about the resurgence of women’s soccer, there’s no denying that World Cup had an impact. As coaches, we need to ensure we take advantage of that. So while it may have been easier to utilize the final as a coaching tool if the US had won, it still will serve as a valuable tool.

After the Brazil match, the coaching point was easy. Never, ever, give up. Too many youth players, down a goal or two, will ease up in the 2nd half. All it takes is one goal to get fired up and potentially snatch a win from certain defeat. With the final, it may be easy to try and pick apart the USWNT’s performance – try to highlight specific technical and tactical mistakes. But honestly? I thought it was one of the better matches the US played in the World Cup.  They controlled the ball better than they had the entire tournament. Despite Japan having possession 53%, it didn’t feel like it. The US outshot Japan 27-14 and early in the match the difference was much higher. Many of the attacks on goal were fantastic. I hope my players watched how the US kept the pressure up and clearly had Japan rattled in the 1st half. If I were to highlight one tactical mistake, it was too many gorgeous runs to the goal line only to shoot the impossible angle shot instead of slotting to a teammate in the box. I saw many on Twitter upset with the US defense, but I thought they did an amazing job 1v1 and stripping the ball from the quick Japanese strikers. Yes, the 1st goal was frustrating, but we’ve ALL seen those in matches. One frantic clearance attempt startles another defender who gets a bad touch and the ball drops in front of an opponent. It happens. But what about the dozens of other times the defense maintained possession and built attacks in the midst of a swarm of opponents instead of resorting to kick and run? When it comes to goalkeeping, not sure you can use Hope Solo this time for coaching moments. Not because she had a bad game, but because she hardly touched the ball until the very end when she unfortunately guessed wrong on a few PKs. But how about Ayumi Kaihori? While her stat sheet may only show 3 saves, she was the impact player of the match well before her multiple saves in the shootout. She was kept busy by the US attack all game and made some spectacular acrobatic saves. She’s 5′ 6″ tall! And her performance in the shootout was solid. I hope my keepers paid attention to Ayumi’s presence in the area and how she pursued the ball among a swarm of larger bodies.

In the end, the overall coachable moment I’ll use with my players is sometimes you can play a very good match and still lose. I felt the US had the better performance. How many times could we hit the crossbar or the post? Shots on frame that always seem to hit the frame can be frustrating, but it showed we were shooting – a lot. All it took was one to edge in and the US takes home the trophy (or one defensive clear to not hammer into a teammate in the goal area). But they didn’t, and a very valuable lesson for kids can be that the score is NOT the only thing to focus on. If you come off the field, having played your heart out, attacked the goal often, played solid defense, and yet still find yourself a goal short, that’s OK. Hold your heads high knowing you left it all on the field. The US Women’s Team certainly did.

And you certainly have to give Japan credit for an amazing run in the tournament. As David Hirshey highlights on ESPN.com:

Sunday’s final was a fitting capstone to the best, most competitive Women’s World Cup ever played. As heartwarming a backstory as Japan brought into the tournament — team of destiny, looking to provide some joy to a country ravaged by the devastating tsunami and earthquake this past March — it wasn’t the global response to the tragedy that won the World Cup for the Japanese. No, it was a magnificent display of resilience and fortitude, long considered indigenous American traits, that helped them overcome two seemingly insurmountable leads during the taut, pulsating 120 minutes of open play. And then, when the Nadeshiko were faced with the daunting task of scoring from the spot against the world’s best goalkeeper, Hope Solo, they fell back on their greatest strength — technique.

In the end, as a coach, this was a great World Cup for my players to watch because it was exciting, instructive, and disappointing. I think much can be learned from it.

What coaching points do you plan to make with your players/teams?

I came across a fantastic column from Brad Hallier, a sports reporter for the Hutchinson News in Kansas, that highlights the frustration of coaches who do ’get it’…

For the past 10 months, I’ve had the privilege of helping coach a local under-8 girls soccer team, the Club Azzurri Attack. It’s the first time in 12 years I’ve coached something beyond YMCA sports. And it was one of the most rewarding, yet frustrating, experiences ever.

Rewarding because there’s nothing like seeing kids do the things you teach them in practice. Frustrating because to some people, the games were like an Under-8 World Cup.

“Winning isn’t everything. It’s the only thing.”

I’ve seen coaches and fans berate young referees who aren’t old enough to drive. They scream and yell as if a 15-year-old referee should never make a mistake.

Last weekend, I saw a coach hammer away at a referee during an under-8 boys soccer game. The young referee soon kicked out the coach, drawing applause from several bystanders.

You get kicked out of any sporting event involving 8-year olds, you should be barred for life from coaching youth sports.

Amen! But the problem extends way past the coaches and to the parents. As a society we are constantly bombarded with professional and collegiate sports where the only success is winning. Even the concept of ‘a rebuilding year’ seems quaint now with coaches sometimes shown the door after less than a year. But for athletes at that level, their ‘technical development’ if pretty much done. Yet for kids, their development is always taking place. Most of us as parents don’t grasp that.

Youth soccer is about developing soccer skills and having fun. That’s it. We play matches so players can refine those skills and learn to use them under pressure. Winning and losing is a natural part of any competitive sport and I will never advocate doing away with ‘results’ at all ages in youth soccer. It takes away more than it adds. But the thing we all have to remember as soccer parents is IT IS OK TO LOSE! Your child is NOT a failure because their team went 0-8. Your coach is not a failure because you went 0-8. The fact that you went 0-8 means nothing.

Instead, you need to focus on the one thing that DOES matter – did your child develop as a player? If not – then you likely do have a coaching issue or a child who really doesn’t want to play soccer. But if they did, the wins will come. They may not come until U15-U18/High School. But they will come. The problem is many parents do not have the familiarity with soccer to really see that development taking place. So looking back at ANY season, you should ask yourself these questions when trying to judge if a season was a success:

• Did your child have fun? Stop right there – I know you want to say ‘losing is never fun!’ Who had more trouble with the losses? You or your child? Kids are VERY perceptive and if they see you upset over a loss, then they get upset and feel like they failed you. But in the right environment, they may be disappointed at losing, but within an hour or two – will they even remember the score vs remembering the cool things that happened during the match?
• Is your child more comfortable with the ball at their feet than they were initially? Do they seem more confident with the ball?
• When faced with an opponent, do they always pass the ball away (the safe thing), or do they sometimes go in 1v1 and try to beat that defender (the better thing for development). Did their coach encourage this?
• Are they trying to use the skills and tricks they learn in practice during a match, or do those skills seem to disappear? Is their coach encouraging they take risks or chastising them for not ‘passing the ball’, thus preventing them from building confidence in their skills.
• After each game, did your coach highlight both the encouraging aspects as well as things the team needed to work on, or was it just about the loss?

Every coach loses perspective from time to time. I certainly have. But overall as coaches, we have to do a better job of educating our parents about WHY a loss may be better than a win. Youth soccer is a long term thing – development pays off in years, not months. I know. My 96 girls team went 1-31 one year when they played at a higher level, where they belonged, but lacked the confidence in themselves to win. It was NOT easy, but those girls developed a lot. And when they dropped back down a level it became clear, even to them, that they had progressed beyond the other teams. Would some more wins have felt better had they not moved up? Sure. But I had a great group of parents who ‘got it’, stuck with the team, and we enjoyed much success at U13 and U14 despite the losses earlier because the stronger competition helped the girls develop.

Everyone wants to be on a winning team. The sad part is how many parents will ‘team shop’ their child – even in Rec – and end up hurting their development. I’ve seen insanely talented kids beat the daylights out of everyone else by 5-10 goals, who end up being mediocre when they get older because that ‘uber team’ won due to speed and agility and running straight at the goal or passing 1-2 times to shoot. Individual foot skill was sacrificed for the wins. The focus on the winning hurt their development and severely limited their advancement in soccer. Were those wins at U8 or U10 worth it? I’ve seen players yanked out of academy programs because their teams lost too much and returned to Rec because ‘they’ll win more’. How well do you think that will work out?

It’s OK to lose if your child is developing as a player, and if more of our parents and coaches don’t figure that out, they’re going to lose a lot more than they realize. It’s our job as coaches to help them understand that.

But beyond that, summer is a chance to improve things and try to make things better for the Fall. For me personally, I’m headed to get my USSF ‘C’ License this August and I hope to finally lay out more of my training sessions on paper as part of an overall plan.

From a league perspective, there are a number of things we’re looking to accomplish this summer:

• Field Renovation – We’re doing some major work on our fields which got absolutely destroyed last year. Beyond wear from heavy use, we experienced some sizable ‘die off’ of our dormant turf, even in lightly trafficked areas. They are in horrible shape and we’re spending close to $15,000 to top dress, aerate, and ‘sprig’ them.
• Better engagement of Rec coaches – A common issue we see is that kids are not being taught some basic things. Everyone may run a passing activity in practice, but many of the kids don’t know how to pass. Or shoot. The mechanics are all wrong. Our goal is to further engage the coaches of younger age teams and try to really help them understand the important things to focus on for a given age.
• Launch a skills training program for U7 and U8 age players. Once a week for an hour on Sunday afternoon, any players interested can come out to a skills session run by our experienced coaches. The goal is two fold. First, we want to help them be better players. Second, we want them to get comfortable with soccer outside their cocoon. So many Rec players get very comfortable with one coach when they are young, they’re scared to death to play for someone else, either in Rec or Travel.
• Improve our payment collection system – yes I know everyone says youth soccer is all about the money and I’m just reinforcing that. But remember, our league has no paid staff, no paid team coaches. We pay skill trainers for our travel teams (10 sessions a season). So the bulk of the collected money is put right back into the program. With 1300 kids playing every year now, collecting payments is a major endeavor.  So is tracking all those payments. So we’re working on a new system that’ll help both parents and managers know who still owes what.
• Finally starting to draft a real ‘Coaching Manual’ for the league that spells out our vision and includes insights from national as well as local resources.

What do you all have planned for the summer?

Don’t get me wrong. I love travel soccer – I think for many players it provides a great environment not just for developing soccer skills, but also for building friendships, seeing new places, and experienced new styles of play. But I hate the tryouts that make it possible. Adults act like children and make the children even more stressed than they should be.

In a recent survey of American high-school athletes, 32 percent reported drinking energy beverages. In another survey, 27 percent of a group of 16,000 adolescent athletes, some as young as 11, said that they used caffeine, usually in the form of energy drinks, to improve their sports performance; 13 percent said they did so at the urging of their coaches.

That last part just blows me away, though I’ll admit I expected the percentage to be a little higher. Yes, I can be called a hypocrite given that my morning would not be complete without a HUGE cup of coffee or Diet Pepsi. But I’m a 40 year old adult! Yet when you see kids downing these energy drinks like some sort of kick off ritual, it’s a problem. Some leagues have even gone so far as to ban energy drinks from their complexes. Why? Because of both potential health risks (even if just high caloric intake) and the message it sends (take this to play better). We all know parents who take their child to Starbucks for a double shot before matches, only to have their child crash after halftime. Even more telling was the recent researching showing caffeine improved response time, but that overall speed and accuracy were better in the group that did NOT use caffeine.

When it comes to my players, I tend to be very strict about stuff like this.  When I caught my then U11 girls passing around a tube of some glucose gel at a game I flipped out. I’m sure they couldn’t understand why I was so upset at first, but I made very clear the whole idea of needing a stimulant or supplement to play well was ludicrous and they were in fantastic shape – any lack of energy (or low blood sugar which those gels are indicated for) meant their diet and sleep habits needed to improve. Plus the concept of needing artificial ‘help’ to perform could lead to very bad choices as they got older.

Why yes, I am a nanny coach! And proud of it. How would you handle players who drank Red Bull and friends, or as a parent if their coach encouraged their use?

How are your Fall seasons going?

What else would you like to see added? Existing posts or ones you’d like to see covered? What other solid resources exist online that you think would benefit from greater exposure? Use the comments to share.

Mine was moving from direct instruction to asking the players for solutions. The whole ‘Coaching By Question’ where you ask leading questions to get the players to really THINK about what they’re doing. I think above all else, that change in my coaching style has helped my players learn, discover, and better understand the game. I used to think it would only work with older players, but found if you adjust your questions, even 4 year olds can start to think about the basics.

How about you all?

Coaching U12 Girls Soccer

HAHAHAHA You’ve got no idea what you are in for! Don’t get me wrong – I’ve enjoyed coaching my girls travel team EVERY year, but if you’re searching for that, you likely haven’t coached that age before and probably aren’t prepared for it. Good luck!

With the economy in trouble for multiple years now, tax revenues have been falling sharply. Coupled with citizens and governments that refuse to accept tax increases as a solution, local governments are often facing severe budget shortfalls. Many cities are enacting severe cuts in what are viewed as ‘non-essential’ services to make ends meet. Parks and Recreation Departments are often the first to get hit and the results can have huge impacts for soccer leagues that rely on the use of municipal parks. Take the case of Colorado Springs:

The steep parks and recreation cuts mean a radical reshifting of resources from more than 100 neighborhood parks to a few popular regional parks. The city cut watering drastically in 2009 but “got lucky” with weekly summer rains, said parks maintenance manager Kurt Schroeder. With even more watering cuts, “if we repeat the weather of 2008, we’re at risk of losing every bit of turf we have in our neighborhood parks,” Schroeder said. Six city greenhouses are shut down. The city spent $19.6 million on parks in 2007; this year it will spend $3.1 million.

We’re not just talking reduced hours or maintenance and upgrades. These are cuts so severe that the turf may die out due to lack of watering. Once that happens, you’re talking about a significant expense to repair – something that is unlikely for some time.

So as the economy continues to struggle, what can leagues do to help local governments in times of severe stress?

The first thing to do is get your head out of the sand. Some municipalities still have solid balance sheets, but many are struggling. Talk to your parks director to try and get a feel for what they are facing and what impacts it may have on field availability and condition. Be prepared that someone in that position may try to make things sound better than they are (it’s a natural reaction when faced with what could be drastic reductions in one’s own program/department). Go to city budget planning sessions and see what is being discussed. These sessions can often be tricky to find out about, but they should be open (except when salaries are discussed). Talk to members of the city council and see what they have to say. Be prepared for people to treat your inquiries as if they are minor all things considered. That may be true, but to your organization it can have a huge impact. Get informed.

If you are told or suspect that cuts are on the way, don’t wait for the ax to fall. Start preparing now to try and mitigate the effects.

Be prepared to stand up for yourself. Sometimes cuts come across the board, but other times people can try to save the bulk of their program through drastic cuts in one area where the perceived impacts are low OR where some believe the burden can be borne by others. Soccer is seen as a rich kids sport. It’s not out of the realm of possibility to see severe cuts made in upkeep of soccer fields or the elimination of any city financial support to a soccer program because they can ‘afford it’. Advocate that cuts be broadly distributed and be prepared with data showing that your program serves a broad spectrum of the population.

Offer To Help. Many soccer programs get free or very low cost of fields that are maintained by the city. Offer to help with field maintenance, whatever that may be or that they may be willing to allow. Turf maintenance, mowing, equipment/net upkeep, etc. If it allows them to reduce or reallocate their staff, that can help them meet budget. Yes, you’re talking about possibly helping someone lose their job, but know that may happen regardless. Helping is easier said than done. Issues like equipment training, liability, etc. will come into play. Talk with your state office about the extent of coverage your league employees/volunteers have in situations like this. Most likely you’ll be covered and can provide your Rec Dept with certification of that.

Offer To Contribute. Offer to contribute some amount of $$$ to the city. Obviously you can’t cover any sizable portion of a municipal budget shortfall from your soccer budget, but it’s more of a gesture. You’re offering to ‘do your part’ and that can go a long way. It can be a direct payment, buying equipment like goals, nets, paint, etc. If your budget can’t handle an added expense like that, you may need to raise your fees a bit. People pay for soccer programs because they ‘get something’. While they may not tolerate a tax increase that adds up to $25/year, they might accept an increase in soccer fees if it means the program survives. Why? Because they are getting something. That’s the way it is. We help our fees at the same level for a number of years, and especially last year because people were struggling. But we raised our Rec fees 20% this year with no uproar or complaint. We might see a few more financial aid requests, but overall it’s helping us pay for field use.

Explore Alternative Locations. The worst thing that could happen is to lose a field you rely on right before the season with no backup plan. Start to investigate alternative locations for practices and/or games. This isn’t a time to be picky. If it’s a relatively flat field with fescue and dirt patches on it, that’s better than no field at all. Try to work out a reasonably long term agreement with the owners and see if you can include accommodation for you to do field upkeep and improvement. That way you can put some sweat equity into improving a field and reap some of the benefits. You may also be able to lower the financial outlay by including the upkeep as part of the ‘payment’ for use.

You may need to get creative. Many land owners are facing years before they can sell their land. I’m not talking about the lot right next to the commercial district, but lots a mile or more away that are already zoned commercial. The owners may welcome ANY monthly income, even just a few hundred dollars, to help offset their loan costs. Ask that they allow you to grade the land and seed it, but ensure them it will be temporary. See if you can get the grading donated or done at cost. A metal shed, portable bathrooms, some gravel for parking, and you have a soccer field. Ask for a minimum notification period, even of just a couple months if possible. Don’t get attached to it – it could be gone in a year or a decade. But it can be an inexpensive way to find additional playing space. You may even be able to do something similar for some indoor space. There are a TON of vacant warehouses right now. Many have no columns and flat cement floors. Owners may welcome temporary tenants, even if those tenants bring in netting, padding, and temporary artificial turf (yes it exists). Again, it won’t be perfect and you may have to vacate on short notice, but it can represent an opportunity.

Other options can include working with municipalities or school districts who are holding onto land. They will often buy land for new buildings far in advance to lock in a good deal knowing they cannot start construction for years. You may be able to used that land until then.

Prepare your members for cuts. If you can’t avoid cuts, then be prepared to handle them. If it means cutting a practice slot each week for teams, let them know EARLY. They may be able to arrange alternative practice space if they have decent notice. Don’t blame the city – you need them as partners now and in the future. Explain that cuts are being made city wide and your soccer program certainly can’t expect to be exempt. Times are tough – people will get it. Blaming the city will only build resentment towards you league. Discourage members from directly contacting city hall and instead ask that the league be allowed to work with the city on make the cuts as palatable as possible. This can payoff for you once things improve.

Actively Explore Grants. You should be doing this anyway – but there are grants available to help with field construction or upgrades as part of urban renewal projects. apply for every one you can find. Who knows – you might get one and that will have a huge benefit down the road. Don’t just blindly hand it over to the city though. If you can use it to build renew fields you control – that’s a no brainer. But if you want to apply it to a municipal field, use the timing of the grant to get better terms in your field use agreement with the city. Fair is fair and asking for SOME type of consideration after identifying $$$ to help in their time of need is not uncalled for. It can help reduce the impacts the next time things get rough.

Offer to help even if you get no benefit. This is not some bleeding heart sentiment. But if you happen to be lucky enough to have your own soccer complex and don’t rely on the local municipality, make an investment in the future. Offer to contribute, even a token amount in whatever form you can (financial, sweat equity, etc), to help the city Rec Dept. in these rough times. You never know when you’ll outgrow your space and need more. If the city has or builds a sports complex down the road, the good will generated by your help in tough times can go a long way towards building a better relationship with your municipality. Have a long term vision.

Now there are some risks to many of the suggestions above relating to offers of help. They will tend to become permanent, even when things improve. If your league is saving the Rec Dept ‘X’ thousand dollars a year by helping with field maintenance, when their budget starts to grow again, that’s ‘X’ thousand they can spend elsewhere. Be prepared for this or make clear it’s a temporary agreement. You can even consider a written agreement calling for the support to end once the Rec budget returns to a certain level.

These are extraordinary times. But by being proactive and creative, you can help avoid drastic impacts to your program and probably improve your working relationship with your local municipality.

What type of impact is your league seeing from cuts in municipal budgets. What things have you tried to do to mitigate the impacts and help out? Did they work?

I can only speak for central North Carolina, but for us, we’re turning certified people away and can’t get our current referees enough matches. Our referee assignor notes that in talking with other referee assignors, they have deep ref pools as well. Even on busy tournament weekends, the number of referees being brought in from farther reaches (since most ref pools can’t handle a large local tournament) is low. Some of our referees will note that they offer themselves to the larger tournaments 1-2 hours away and rarely get offers or get offered 1-2 matches, which isn’t worth the drive time. By far the biggest complaint I heard as a leageu president from referees was lack of games, not unwieldy parents and coaches.

I’m sure more rural areas struggle in this regard. But is it a problem in larger suburban or metro areas? Do you struggle to maintain a viable referee pool? Has the economy caused more people to take up officiating to earn a little extra money? What’s happening in your neck of the woods?