Tweet The NSCAA Game of the Week on Fox Soccer Channel will feature the #3 UNC Tar Heel Women taking on #10 Duke in Durham at Koskinen Stadium. The match will be played Thursday, October 2nd, starting at 8PM Eastern. So if you coach a competitive girls team, this might be a good match to […]
Entries for September, 2008
Why Children Should Play Soccer
Tweet Over at Tootsiesshoes, they have a very eloquent post about the benefits of youth soccer.
Buddy Can You Spare A Gallon?
Tweet North Carolina and some other southern states have been experiencing gas shortages due to the refinery shutdowns related to Hurricane Ike. Apparently the pipelines can’t get enough fuel and they’re trying to truck it west from the coast. But it’s sporadic – some places seem to have plenty while others are seeing frequent shortages […]
Online Soccer Coaching Courses
Tweet The National Federation of State High School Associations is looking to take coaching education online in partnership with the National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA). The course is called Fundamentals of Coaching Soccer and will be offered in the Fall of 2009. More information can be found at the NFHS Learning Center. You […]
Keeping League Numbers Up
While youth soccer remains wildly popular in the US, many clubs are seeing minimal growth or even slight declines. Like any activity, you have to advertise your organization so people know about it. Youth soccer has a new crop of potential participants every year, so you need to let families know it’s an available option. What clubs do to advertise themselves and the methods they use can have a big impact on their registration numbers. Here are some ideas that may help.
Don’t Even TALK About Your Wins!
Tweet A few months ago we mentioned that the UK’s Football Association had banned leagues from keeping scores or standings for 7 and 8 year old players. This wasn’t a surprise and US Soccer recommends this as well, though many leagues continue to do so. But now it seems to have gotten a bit extreme. […]
Heel Pain in Youth Soccer Players
Soccer players in U10 through U14 often experience an odd heel pain that seems to be concentrated at the back and on the lower sides of the heel. Places a normal ankle twist or sprain wouldn’t hurt. Turns out there is a very common condition among young soccer players called Sever’s disease that can result in intense heel pain if not properly treated or prevented. As a soccer coach you should be on the lookout for this to catch it early.
A Whole New Ballgame
When girls age up to U12 in competitive soccer – the game changes and becomes more physical. This isn’t a bad thing, but it can also be a bit jarring to see girls who only a few years ago had ribbons in their hair and were playing swarm ball on a tiny field now drenched in sweat going in hard for a ball and coming up with grass in their teeth…
Soccer Parents From Hell
Tweet You might think that loud obnoxious parents are ‘Soccer Parents From Hell’ in a coach’s eyes, but they aren’t. Debra-Lynn explains about true soccer parents from hell over at Journey in Parenting: We are the parents who make the coach think really hard about retiring, the ones who always forget to pay our fees, […]
A Summer of Soccer In Pictures
Since I’m slack and haven’t been posting these as I’ve taken them, here’s a few funny soccer photos I took this summer…
Mixing Lunachicks and Water…
Our U12 Girls team is holding a fundraiser this weekend to help defray some tournament costs. After exploring various options we decided to go with a car wash held at a local bank. The trick is, when the coaching staff thought about our girls, their past exploits, and mixing them with water, well, it’s kind of scary. We have no idea what to expect, but the girls sure are excited.
A Youth Soccer Video Experiment
YouTube and other online video services have exploded in popularity in recent years and the number of available videos on any topic reaches into the tens of thousands if not millions. Yet search mechanisms are still fairly rudimentary. With all that content out there, video is becoming a vital tool for youth soccer coaches to show their players new moves and techniques. The trick is finding good videos. So we’re going to start an experiment here at On The Pitch to see if we can come up with a useful collection of youth soccer videos on YouTube
Picking An Assistant Coach
Tweet While many of you are already into your fall seasons, some of you still may be looking to recruit an assistant coach to help out. Our state soccer association recently started publishing a Recreational Soccer newsletter, called the Sideline Beacon and the first issue had some good tips. Bill Furjanic, the NCYSA Technical Director […]
Tackling From Behind
Tweet I love responding to comments from readers – it’s part of what makes writing a blog fun. But occasionally I find a comment and/or the response warrant a full blown post, so don’t be surprised if you ask an intriguing question and it ends up on Page 1 😀 Recently a parent posted a […]
