Coaching Philosophy

I only played soccer up to 8th grade and was never a top player on my team past 3rd/4th grade. I got roped into coaching for the first time last spring and didn’t have much time to figure out what the heck I was supposed to do, but since then, I’ve done a TON of research.

I looked for guys who have been coaching kids for 20+ years to see what they had to say, and what I found surprised me, but it also makes a lot of sense. What they point out is that kids in America just don’t play much soccer – some play at recess a few times a week, but there’s just not any real street ball or pickup games these days. And because of this, the biggest advice across the board was all the same:

Just let the kids play!

Drills are boring, waiting in line is boring, rondos are boring, etc. And because they’re not regularly playing soccer every day, all the drills in the world aren’t going to make them any better.

Primarily because it’s not going to make them love playing soccer – the #1 thing a kid needs to get better is a love for the game. So my main goal is to make practice the most fun night of the week for them, primarily by just letting them play soccer.

Practice Structure

• Small sided scrimmage games that kids can just join as they show up for practice.
• Around 6:15-6:20 we’ll pause for a water break and a few minutes of ‘open share’.
• From 6:20ish 6:40ish, we’ll do variations of scrimmages designed to teach a skill without me really having to tell them much about what they are learning, i.e., the game will force them to figure it out as they play.
• We’ll have another ‘open share’ and then 6:40-7:00 will be a whole team scrimmage with as few interruptions for coaching as possible.

Treats & Prizes

I’ve built up a stash of candy and little ‘treasure box’ items and my plan is to have 2-3 kids per practice “win” the opportunity to pick something. I’ll make sure everybody gets a couple chances by the time games start (most resilient, most improved, best teammate, etc.). Let me know if your kid is allergic to anything or you don’t want them having candy or anything like that? (I’ll be sure to tell them they CANNOT open anything until they have your permission!)

Open Share

One issue I ran into last year was the kids just wouldn’t shut up (lol). We made friends pretty quick and I imagine after being cooped up at school all day not being allowed to socialize, they just constantly wanted to talk. My first solution was to run them to death early in practice so they were too tired to talk, which totally worked, but then they were so tired late in practice they couldn’t focus.

So next I tried just sitting them all down in the middle of the field and giving them each a couple minutes to share something about themselves with no interruption and not only did it cut down on the incessant chit chat, it was THE 👏 CUTEST 👏 THING I’ve seen in a long time! More than one kid told me it was their favorite part of practice.

So I plan to make that a regular part of practice from day one. Just so you know what’s happening, they are supposed to share about themselves (not others), no interrupting, no foul/dirty language, and (in theory), what you share with the team stays with the team (but I’ll of course let y’all know if I hear anything fishy that you should know about!).

Season Outlook

Looks like we’ll be one of the youngest teams in the league, possibly the youngest. It sounds like a few teams from the past year have mostly stayed together, while only a couple of our kids have played together (and some have never played), so I think competitively we’ll be at a pretty big disadvantage for most games. I know the kids are going to start noticing the final score more this year, so my plan is to talk up the idea of grit and resiliency early and often, since I get the feeling we’ll have lots of opportunities to practice being resilient this season!