As I’ve written about youth soccer over the years, I’ve always been surprised how few youth soccer parents there seem to be who are active online related to youth soccer. The coaches are and obviously some parents can be very vocal online. But overall, you get a sense of silence online from youth soccer parents. It’s hard to describe. I’ve wanted to try and do my small part to change that by encouraging commentary here at OTP and putting together other things that give soccer parents, especially those at the Rec and lower competitive levels, a place to interact and share.
I know ther are regional and local forums for youth soccer than can be very active, though even those tend to have a fairly homogenous demographic. So I put together a set of youth soccer forums in the hope that a segment of soccer parents from across the country could interact with each other, share stories, etc. It hasn’t caught on just yet, but I’m not one to give up on something I believe in (I’m stubborn that way). So over the next few months I’ll be trying different things to better integrate the forum with the blog and try to get some dialogs going.
My first attempt will be ‘Tales From The Pitch‘. Each weekend, I’ll startup a new thread where parents can share their funny stories, highlights, shout outs, touching moments, etc. from the previous weeks worth of matches. We’re parents – we love to talk about our kids, their teams, and what is happening with them. So I thought it might be neat to have a running commentary from a wide spectrum of soccer parents about what they experienced in youth soccer.
So if you have something to share from the previous week in youth soccer, hop over to Talk On The Pitch and post something in the ‘Tales From The Pitch’ thread. While you’re there, check out the wide range of forum topics and share your thoughts and opinions in any that interest you. Remember – if you’ve created an account at On The Pitch, it works over in the forums as well. Also – the forum software we use has RSS feeds for just about everything – latest posts, tags, topics, threads, users, etc. – so if you use an RSS reader, you can easily keep up with whatever specific things or topics interest you most.
April 30th, 2008 at 6:48 am
fantastic idea. I do the admin for a local U8 team (and I’m a mum)_ always lots of great banter on a Saturday morning.
I look forward to contributing soon!
May 1st, 2008 at 10:08 am
Well this upcoming weekend is a big tournament weekend for many southern states – so there should be some interesting tales to tell! I’m sure I’ll have some of my own!
May 10th, 2008 at 1:40 am
agreed. i will try it out with my boy’s team.