The annual National Soccer Coaches Association of America convention is always a huge event. I usually leave with many new ideas and strategies for teaching soccer, new inspiration to bring back to my players, and a bag load of free stuff from the exhibit hall.
But this year I felt as though I came away with a slightly different mindset. For years I’ve been saying that soccer should be for everyone, that cutting kids and excluding kids from the world’s sport makes no sense. I’ve felt as though I was a voice in the wilderness.
Then I went to a few workshops at the coaches convention that made me feel as though there are kindred spirits out there — and these kindred spirits are some of the biggest names in soccer. Tony Diccico, who coached the U.S. Women’s team that won the World Cup in 1999, and his partner at SoccerPLus, Dave Newberry, gave a great presentation on the importance of revitalizing local, inexpensive, volunteer-run soccer clubs that will get low-income and medium-income kids out on the soccer field.
Diccico and Newberry are offering to help local clubs change by providing new curricula, evaluations, and procedures. But they did not push their professional services at the workshop. Instead they emphasized what volunteer soccer boards can do on their own, without hiring expensive consultants.
The focus has to be player development. “In my mind player development is develop the total child,” DiCicco said. “We are losing a lot more players than we think we are losing, and we are losing them a lot younger.”
Local clubs need to develop a strategic plan with five key points, they said. The points are 1) adopt a philosophy of player development; 2) implement a player development curriculum; 3) implement a program of coach and parent education; 4) create a year-round system of assessment and outcome based programming; 5) get feedback from players and parents.
Newberry described how when his child finished a swimming class, he received a simple sheet where the skills that he had accomplished were checked off. Just a simple checkoff sheet would be a great place for soccer organizations to start.
Two other presents, from wildly different perspectives, also left me feeling less lonely in my quest to make soccer available and inclusive of all players.
Bill Beswick, a British sports psychologist, talked about how desire is so much more important that talent in forming soccer players.
And Mike Barr, who is the director of coaching for Eastern Pennsylvania Youth Soccer Association, talked about how expensive soccer clubs are contributing to soccer players’ mental burnout, physical overuse injuries, and not necessarily helping them develop into the best soccer players.
Of course I went to the usual great field sessions and got lots of new ideas to teach my players, but these class room sessions showed that we need to change, not just to help kids, but to help American soccer.
