We talk a lot about player development (often how broken it is), but we never seem to move beyond that to building the foundation to improve it: coaching development. There’s this almost universal assumption that elite coaches are always elite players who move into coaching and are ‘good’ because they know the game and have been coached for years. But they aren’t usually coaching U5-U8 soccer, when kids are learning the critical basic techniques and developing a love for the game. Why don’t we talk about the development of those coaches more beyond ‘Hey, here are some cones a whistle and try to take this Youth I Coaching Class’?
We need to do a much better job of reaffirming when coaches are doing well with criteria that focus on player development, NOT the score. The coaches who leave U5/U6 with confidence in their ability are often the ones who happened to have big fast kids that score over and over. Some of those will develop a coaching sense of ‘pass it to the big fast kid so we can score’ as they move up in age. We need to do a better job ensuring the coaches who ‘get it’ are recognized for their efforts and ensure they’re the ones who stick with it, while also trying to get the ones measuring themselves by the score to see the error of their ways and to focus more on player development.
Case in point. I was coaching one of my teams and I hear these peals of laughter and squealing from a bunch of kids. Field space is tight, so there are 5 or 6 teams on this one baseball outfield. I’ve already had a coach upset because he doesn’t have enough room for his U7s to ‘work on passing’ and dribble between cones. Guess how excited those kids were. Yet I look over and see this other coach, with U5 or U6 boys, practicing in a 20x20yd box. He pretty much took whatever scrap of field he could find for his practice. These kids are laughing and squealing and running all over their little square. The coach is full of energy and giving high fives and the kids are having a BLAST. They all have soccer balls at their feet, running here and there and everywhere. This is one of our newer coaches. I thought that was pretty cool, but turned my attention back to my practice and kept working with my group.
Later that week, one of my parents asked me if I had noticed the very same practice and how much energy that coach had and how much fun those kids were having. I said that I had, and then it hit me that I’m sure nobody went to *him* and said that. So the next week, after another of his team’s high energy practices, I made a point to go over to him and tell him what a fantastic job I thought he was doing. He was shocked. He reacted like many newer coaches who think they can’t possibly be doing things ‘right’. I explained that at this age you can’t *teach* the kids stuff – your goal is to create a fun and high energy atmosphere where the kids are always moving around with the ball at their feet and are having FUN. I told him he’s more than accomplished that and to keep it up. He was beaming and as I left the park, I wondered why our league didn’t make it more of a point to do that. We try to mentor and offer tips when coaches need help, but we don’t really make it a point to approach those coaches who CLEARLY are good with kids and were running good sessions and say ‘Great Job! Keep it Up!’ If we did, I wonder how many more coaches we’d develop long term who ended up loving the beautiful game as much as many of the kids and experienced coaches? We work so hard trying to convince the parents that the score doesn’t matter at the younger ages, but I’m not sure we do a good enough job convincing the coaches the same thing when it comes to measuring your success as a coach. A U6 score is NOT an indication of how well your doing. Instead, how many of your kids are having fun, keep coming back each season, and are touching the ball a lot?
In short – we certainly need to keep working to educate our inexperienced coaches, but we probably can do a better job of telling them when they’re doing things right. Otherwise their only metric is…. the score nobody keeps.
March 16th, 2012 at 10:51 am
It’s hard in the first years of coaching (which I consider myself still to be after starting U5 in the fall of 2010 and U7 Spring 2011).
Seems like you usually hear from people who are unhappy but not from the people who are happy. Then you spend your time trying to please those who speak out rather than going with your gut.
I’ve spent a lot of time playing against U5, U6, U7 and U8 kids since my first practice in everything from 1v1 to 4v4 settings. It’s the best part of coaching – and the kids seem to enjoy having a “grown up” out on the field alongside of them.
March 20th, 2012 at 1:20 pm
“We work so hard trying to convince the parents that the score doesn’t matter at the younger ages, but I’m not sure we do a good enough job convincing the coaches the same thing when it comes to measuring your success as a coach.”
Great point! The game is just different when dealing with younger kids, regardless of sport. Scoring shouldn’t mean as much as having a good time, getting kids excited to play and teaching someone the fundamentals. That’s what really matters.