Sam’s Blog will be a weekly addition to the US Youth Soccer Blog. Sam Snow is the Director of Coaching Education for US Youth Soccer.
Over the past weekend video footage was shot for a new DVD that US Youth Soccer will release in February. The DVD is on basic ball skills for the Under-6 to the Under-14 age groups. The coaches featured in the DVD are Rick Meana, Director of Coaching for the New Jersey Youth Soccer Association, Brian Pitts, Director of Coaching for the South Dakota Youth Soccer Association, John Thomas, Assistant Director of Coaching Education for US Youth Soccer and Karla Thompson, Director of Soccer Operations for the Arizona Fury.
Mother Nature smiled on us as the rain stayed away and highs in only the 80s prevailed. A great group of kids worked really hard to get onto film visual examples of techniques that must be the base to playing soccer. Some of the skills filmed were deflections, chip pass, heading to score, dribbling, receiving, tackling and more. Basic movements for Under-6 and Under-8 were also filmed. These physical movements are the foundations to refined ball skills in latter years. Some of the movements that will be in the DVD are balance, hopping, jumping and agility and again many more are demonstrated.
The DVD will show each skill in regular speed, then in slow motion, then in regular speed again and all from three different camera angles. A game clip from teenaged players will show how the skill will develop over the years and be used in matches. Following the game clip will be an activity that a coach could conduct in a training session to bring out that particular skill in the players.
The US Youth Soccer Recreation Committee, the Coaching Committee and the coaches who worked on the DVD feel the product will be useful to many coaches across the United States. In fact they think the DVD can help not only the novice coach but also the coach who has grown up playing the game and can demonstrate the skills, but may not know how to break them down in order to teach them to someone else.
An extensive technical manual has also been written with all of the coaching points for each skill along with the diagrams and details on each training activity. The DVD will first go on public sale at the 2008 US Youth Soccer adidas Workshop in Pittsburg on February 8, 2008.
Sam’s Blog will be a weekly addition to the US Youth Soccer Blog. Sam Snow is the Director of Coaching Education for US Youth Soccer.Quite a body of information is presented in the National Youth License on age characteristics (for more insight into this coaching course click here).Those who attend the course improve their coaching skills and learn a good deal about the makeup of children. When the adults better understand the nature of these young players then they can adapt and interact smoothly with the children. This knowledge of the needs and spirit of kids also influences the decision making of the adults who shape the youngsters’ soccer experience. Most certainly those adults include coaches, but let’s not leave out the administrators, parents and even the referees. These four groups of adults are the pillars of youth soccer. They support, guide and influence the game. So they are obliged to know the distinctiveness and desires of the children whom they impact.
With this knowledge more decisions will be made in the best interest of the players. This outcome should be especially true of the policy-makers, the administrators. Team managers, club board of directors, state and national administrators who have gained a solid knowledge of the characteristics of players will make decisions on by-laws, rules and policies in the best interest of the players.
To be equipped to make such decisions soccer administrators are required to study child development and the basic components of soccer. Indeed as our club, state, regional and national offices become more professional there should be an expectation of professional qualification in order to hold these jobs. The soccer community in America expects the referees to be certified and the coaches to be licensed, so we should also expect administrators to be qualified. After all this is only good business!
The players are our customer base and all businesses have customer service as a core value. But the picture is not quite so clear in youth sports since the parents are the consumer, even though they are not the customer. In this instance the consumer buys the service (sign kids up for soccer), but the child is the customer who receives the service (the chance to play soccer). Both the customer and the consumer have a reasonable expectation here for the providers of the service to have some minimal qualifications. To this end the overwhelming majority of clubs and leagues offer, through the state association, education for coaches and referees. But what about the administrators? Yes, clinics and workshops are offered for the adults in the administrative role, but no formal pass or fail course is currently offered as is the case with the referees and coaches.
As an example at the state association level when a state Technical Director is hired the requirement is a playing and coaching background. Additionally there usually is a requirement of holding the “Y” License and perhaps the “A” License or Premiere Diploma too. In many cases the Technical Director also has a college degree in some field of the sports sciences. So should not the state administrator have a degree in Sports Administration, Sports Business, Sports Management or Sports Marketing? These expectations of professional qualification of fulltime soccer professionals must occur at the club level too. Indeed a growing number of the over 6,000 US Youth Soccer clubs across the nation have already met or exceeded these standards.
We continue to grow and evolve as a soccer nation. The four pillars of youth soccer – administrators, coaches, parents and referees – support and shape the sport. As these pillars of youth soccer come to better understand the players whom they serve then the climate surrounding those players will become healthy and vibrant. This enriching experience is our gift to our children.
Sam’s Blog will be a weekly addition to the US Youth Soccer Blog. Sam Snow is the Director of Coaching Education for US Youth Soccer
The only reason soccer clubs got into the routine of single year age group teams was for administrative convenience. In the 1970s and most of the 1980s all teams fell into the following age groups: U8, U10, U12, U14, U16 and U19. There were no U6 teams until beginning in the late 1980s and early 1990s. During the ‘80s and ‘90s the soccer boom was so rapid that the numbers of participants increased dramatically for local clubs annually. In order to manage the numbers from a logistic and administrative perspective many local soccer organizations began having single year and/or single gender teams. However, there was never a purely soccer reason for these groupings.
As is presented in the “Y” License course we can easily group the children into two year age groups and they handle it just fine. Clearly the children of the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s have handled those groupings in stride. Currently many local soccer organizations have two year age groupings because they do not have the enrollment numbers to have a management need to have single year groupings. We teach in the course two year age groups. We discuss the pick-up game of yesteryear when kids in the neighborhood played together and learned games from each other and those games were mixed age groups.
For player development, in fact, it is a benefit to have the children in the two year age groupings. The younger players learn from the older ones and they learn that they must play more skillfully and intelligently because they most likely will not outrun or outmuscle the older kids. The older kids learn leadership skills. This cycle continues up through the U19 age group. Some of the stagnation of the development of the American player is due to single gender and single year age groupings. If the circumstances in your club allow you to have two year age groupings I actually recommend it as it will have a positive impact on the growth of your players.
Please do not hesitate to let me know if the US Youth Soccer Coaching Education department can be of assistance to you.
