On The Pitch

Thoughts on Youth Soccer from a Soccer Dad, Fan, Coach and Administrator

Entries for November, 2007

Youth Soccer Forums – Talk On The Pitch

Tweet When I started On The Pitch a few years ago, it was one of only a handful of blogs that dealt with youth soccer, and one of the only ones entirely dedicated to it. Amazingly enough, for a sport that has approximately 17 million children participating in it, there are still few sites dedicated […]

Happy Thanksgiving 2007!

Tweet Happy Thanksgiving everyone! As anyone involved in youth soccer will tell you, while we have PLENTY to be thankful for, the #1 thing most soccer parents with kids on travel teams are thankful for on Thanksgiving is the Fall season just ended the weekend before! Our first free weekend in a LONG time is […]

JoNo!

Tweet ­ This summer, I talked about the kits our competitive travel teams would be wearing this year: We initially were looking at a striped kit to really stand out. However, a couple people were worried that if we went with, say, Black/Royal and White/Royal (the Yellow/Black didn’t appeal to most as an away jersey), […]

The Costs of Youth Soccer

Tweet Talk to most parents with a child in competitive soccer, and you’re sure to hear about how much it costs. Just about every article written about the problems with youth development in the US will take about the barriers for many due to the high costs. When you participate in an activity that involves […]

About That No Offside Thing…

Tweet Long time readers know that we’ve covered the elimination of offside for U10 Soccer in North Carolina in depth: No U10 Offside Vaporizes Within Hours Bye Bye U10 Offside U10: Teach The Kids Right – Keep Offside Should Offside Be Called For U10 Small Side? U10: To Call Offside Or Not So now that […]

How To Avoid Becoming A Soccer Mom

Tweet From the Christian Science Monitor (H/T ncguy3), we find five ways to avoid becoming a Soccer Mom. My favorites: Rule 3: Don’t do sports. After dumping your van, this is the most important rule. Don’t, under any circumstances, let your child join a sports team – especially a travel team. No matter how talented […]

What Is This Off-Season You Speak Of?

Tweet As the season winds down, the volunteers who spend much of their time administering soccer leagues can get a little snarky because it can be so hard to recruit other volunteers to help with things like concessions, field upkeep, goal repair, and more. So you have to forgive them if they get a little […]

Soccer and the Wussification of America…

Tweet You know, bloggers get a rarely deserved rap for being a bunch of blowhards who don’t know what they are talking about. Yet people with their own talk shows and columns will blurt out ridiculous statements that get accepted as fact from ‘experts’, until the bloggers call them on it. How ironic. Neal Boortz […]

Wonder If This Thing Still Works…

Tweet Remember when I wrote about being certifiable? Well, coaching two teams, plus having three kids playing soccer who aren’t on either of my teams made for a really busy soccer season. I barely had time to breathe, let alone write. I guess I could have written some, but I was pretty wiped out. So […]