Soccer Coaching
Posted on April 14, 2017
Lots of non-writing things to celebrate these past few weeks. The biggest is being head coach to my son's soccer team. My Latino community is huge on soccer, and they have a lot of expectations from the coaches. I've been on the other side of this equation and I have heard loads of comments and criticism from parents about the ineffectiveness of volunteer coaches, time wasted in practices where kids are taught nothing, some kids playing more than others, how some kids suck and should be benched, favoritism, benching the girls, and so on.

Yes, it's a VOLUNTEER coaching organization, yet expectations don't change.

So, at the first practice, I explained this to each parent:




For me, it is vitally important for parents to fully understand the landscape of the organization and the league they have signed up to. This is recreation -- which literally means "for fun" -- and not travel or an academy. In professional circles, this is coined "Managing Expectations". I was a pro at this. My customers were always happy with me because I told them the whole damn truth about everything and kept their expectations grounded.

As a result of my talk with the parents, I lost one really strong player. Evidently, I wasn't competitive enough. A healthy dose of competitiveness is good for any sport, but that win-win-win attitude is not for recreation soccer. I was actually thankful he took his son out of the team. Who wants to deal with one of THOSE parents, right?

Now, I don't want you to think I am all fun and games. I take sports pretty seriously, especially when I'm coaching. My goal is to make sure these kids train in soccer so that by the end of the season they are better players than when they started. Period. It's not about winning the championship. It's not about being the best player. It's not about winning every game. It's about learning the technical aspects of the sport, discipline in practices, and team play. And after 4 practices where they have run and sweat and tried their hardest, which is all I ask them to do, we had our first game and won. They all played marvelously.



My team, with my assistant coach taking a team selfie. 
It's such a goofy team photo, but I love it!!


Happy Friday!!!


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This post is part of the
Celebrate The Small Things
Blog Hop hosted by Lexa Cain.



3 comments:

  1. I've never understood competitive parents. Their kid making it to the "big leagues" is a million to one shot. Why wouldn't they just let the kids learn the game and the important things, like practicing to get better, working on a team, and losing (and winning) with grace and good sportsmanship? You're right in your attitude. Keep it up!

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  2. You have a great goal and a sensible one. If the kids are better at the game at the end of the season you and they, should feel proud. Attitude makes a huge difference.

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  3. Your goals are right on the mark. :)

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