Yes, I know. There are SO many more important things to blog about like the start of the Premiership Season, fall youth leagues getting underway, etc. But I’ve had a horrific month at work, the kids woke me up at 2AM, and I can’t get back to sleep, so its time for some randomness.

I get a kick out of seeing what search terms bring people to my sites. You see some interesting stuff. A site I help run that is nothing but a collection of ‘top ten lists’ once saw hits from a Google search for Elf Porn. No lie. But come on … Elf Porn??? Alas, I digress.

» Read the rest of this post…

When I first got started coaching youth soccer, I was lucky to have Google at my side.  I found a lot of resources online related to coaching soccer and drills that are often used to teach the game.  I also tried some DVDs, books, and watching other coaches.  But eventually I hit information overload.  Even with all those drills, like any teacher, you have to put some type of lesson plan together.  So I found it hard to try and come up with what drills I should be using and when.  Plus some drills work, some don’t depending on your kids, or some just don’t seem to make sense.

I’ve been toying with the idea of tracking my practices online with an eye towards what drills got used, and how the kids reacted to them.  Did they help?  Were they too hard to run?  Did the kids enjoy them? I figure if I do it in the blog with a decent category setup - I might begin to build up a decent collection.  So I’m going to give that a try.

As I use various drills in practice I’ll try to post a synopsis of the drill, where I happened to find out about it, and how it went with my team.  I’ll even throw in my own ratings.  But what will make it really useful is if other coaches post their comments and insights about the drills in the comments and possibly even suggestions for improvement or variations.  That would build a pretty cool resource.

So we’ll see how it goes… It may not be worth the time, but I hope that it is.  Even just for me, being able to look back to a previous season or year of practices will better help me craft practice program for my new teams.

Here goes nothing…

Well, we started our practices for Fall 2005 today.  After coaching U6 for 3 years (and assisting for a U8 team), I decided to jump up to U10 with my son and see how it goes.  I’m nervous, but I’ve got a great group of kids so hopefully I can teach them a thing or two.

I’m a firm believer in no lines - the more kids stand in line the less time they have with the ball to learn.  But keeping the kids moving at all times during practice definitely takes some doing and its got my parents scratching their heads.  They’re so used to the kids lining up for drills I think my use of more chaotic activities threw some of them for a loop.

After working on throw-in technique for a few minutes towards the end of practice, we played a game of ’soccer football’ - at least thats what its called around here.  Basically the kids run around the field trying to score goals except if you have the ball you can’t move - you have to pass it to a teammate - then you can move.  And they aren’t kicking the ball - they’re throwing it over their heads like a throw in.  Its unorthodox - because they’re "using their hands" - but it teaches them the concept of passing the ball around instead of running all over the place, of getting open to receive a pass from a teammate when they don’t have the ball, and working on extending the distance of their throws.  But a few parents we’re surprised that a coach was telling the kids to throw a soccer ball around! But hey, if it helps my kids add an extra 5-10′ to their throw ins, thats a serious advantage.

The kids had a blast and were quite exhausted.  We’ll see how it goes next practice!