by Greg Bach
Taking a look at particular behaviors
While the kids you coach are vastly different, the types of problems you encounter are fairly commonplace. Some kids chat too much; others tune you out; and you probably have to deal with a child who always manages to show up halfway through practice. Take a peek at how to get through to these youngsters who test your patience.
The nonlistener
Some kids arrive at the field with a know-it-all attitude and they don’t believe that they have to listen to your instructions. They tune you out and do their own thing. This inattentiveness can be especially troublesome if they employ techniques that, despite your continued instruction on how to perform them the right way, pose injury risks for other players. For example, they may continually take other players’ feet out from under them when tackling. What can you do?
If you see that a child isn’t listening to your instructions, sit him down in practice, and have him watch how the rest of the team follows instructions. After a few minutes, ask him whether he’s ready to return to play and listen to what you have to say. Your nonlistener is likely to be much more receptive to your instruction after spending any length of time by your side while his teammates are on the field.
If the child isn’t performing a skill correctly, and you suspect that she wasn’t paying attention, ask the child why she isn’t performing the skill like you demonstrated. Maybe she didn’t understand your instructions and, out of frustration, tried doing it the way she thought it should be done.
When dealing with problems with your players, you always hold the trump card: playing time. It can be a great equalizer, attitude-adjuster, personality-changer, and attention-getter all rolled up into one. No one enjoys having his fanny stuck on the bench while his friends and teammates are out on the field during game day. Taking away playing time from a child who misbehaves is no different from a parent taking away TV, computer games, or treats from a child at home who misbehaves.
The nonstop talker
You may encounter some kids on your team who are more talkative than a used-car salesman and throw out one-liners like a stand-up comedian. That can create a lot of problems at times. Kids who are more interested in talking than listening to what you have to say can cause unwanted distractions. If the team is hearing only bits and pieces of your instructions because of a nonstop talker, your effectiveness as a coach may be compromised, along with the development of the rest of your squad. How do you curb the vocal cords of those kids whose mouths seem to be on the perpetual move?
At the first indication of a problem, remind the team that when you’re speaking, all the team members need to remain quiet and listen to your instructions.
If that fails, you may have to call the player out. For example, say something like “Jimmy, please don’t talk while I’m addressing the team. It’s important that everyone hears what I’m going over. If you have a comment or question, please hold it until I’m done.”
If the player’s talking continues to cause problems, pull the player aside, and be firm in your stance that the child must abide by your rules or face the consequences — and then spell those rules out clearly for the child so she knows the penalties for her future actions. If you have to reprimand her again to be quiet, let her know that she’s going to lose significant amounts of playing time. Usually, this threat is enough to get her attention — and close her mouth. This warning is basically the three-strikes technique (see “Using the three-strikes approach” section, earlier in the chapter).
The perpetually late player
Coaching youth soccer has negative aspects along with the positive, and one of the most annoying is the child who’s consistently late for practice. He misses the warm-up and your pre-practice instructions, and shows up at your side halfway through a drill. Or, equally bad, he makes an appearance midway through the first half of your game, throwing your line-up out of whack and creating chaos with your substitution patterns. These late-arriving players are a nuisance, an inconvenience, and totally disruptive to the flow of your practice, distracting other team members in the process.
If the problem isn’t rectified immediately and is allowed to drag on for weeks, the consequences can be even more severe than just a big headache for you. At some point, the child’s late arrival at a game may force you to forfeit the game because you don’t have enough players available. You never want one child’s lateness to affect the playing experience of the entire team. The following are a few tips that you can incorporate to help get the kids to your practices and games on time:
Team talk: As soon as you get a sense that late arrivals are beginning to create problems, talk to the entire team to reinforce your expectations on attendance. Stress that being part of a team is a commitment — one that needs to be kept at midweek practices and championship games alike. Make it clear that you’re at the field — on time — for all practices and games and that you expect and deserve the same consideration from every one of your players. If the problem isn’t addressed at the first hint of trouble, you slowly lose control of the season and the respect of your players who do show up on time. These kids are committed to you but frustrated by the lack of care and concern of other players who cut into the quality of the practice with their late-arriving habits.
Roll call: Make a really big production out of attendance by taking roll call during warm-ups. Turn it into an entertaining exercise by calling out a funny nickname for a player or using an amusing voice that gets a chuckle from the kids. Even if you have only seven kids on your team, and a roll call isn’t necessary from the standpoint of knowing who’s there and who hasn’t arrived yet, it can still be a fun moment that the kids enjoy being part of and won’t want to miss in the future.
Fun games: While you can’t force players to arrive on time for practice, you can do a few things to help entice them to begin showing up on time. Throw in a fun little game before practice begins. You may be pleasantly surprised by the number of kids who suddenly show up at practice well ahead of time. Hopefully, they’re pestering their parents to get them to practice so they don’t miss out on the fun game with their friends.
Individual exercises: When a player arrives late, don’t immediately send her into the drill that you’re running. This rule is especially important for an older player who hasn’t gone through the proper stretching and warm-ups that the rest of the team completed. Instead, have her work on some individual drills, such as dribbling, on the sidelines before integrating her into the practice. If you’re coaching a team of older players who are more susceptible to muscle strains and pulls, make sure the late player goes through proper stretching before you allow her on the field. Just because a player is late doesn’t mean that she can overlook this important aspect of the game. You don’t want to put her at unnecessary risk of suffering an injury that’s easily avoidable.
Reduced playing time: A youngster who’s constantly late for practice should have his playing time in games reduced. Getting to play when you don’t show up on time simply isn’t fair to the rest of the team who shows up on time week after week.
Punishing a youngster who doesn’t drive for the irresponsible behavior of her parents is difficult. As we discuss in Chapter 4, hopefully, you address the importance of everyone showing up on time for practices and games at your preseason parents meeting. Explain how crucial that is both for the season to run smoothly and for you to keep your sanity.
Any time you address being late for practice with the child, follow up with the parent. Many parents simply may not realize what a big disruption their being late to practice causes for the rest of the team. Hopefully, a brief conversation reminding them of the importance of having everyone at the field on time is all you need to prevent the problem from occurring during the remainder of the season. The following are a few things you may want to mention to the parents to ensure that the discussion goes smoothly and all parties are happy at the conclusion. Remind them about the
Team inconvenience:
Let the parents know that the late arrival is a disruption that inconveniences you and detracts from the time you have to teach the entire team. Stress that you really need the child on time at every practice for both his and his team’s development. The more practice time he misses, the fewer number of touches he gets, which, during the course of the season, impacts his development.
Possible solutions: You can perhaps help the parent find a solution that works for everyone. It could be as simple as having a teammate’s parent who lives nearby pick up the youngster and bring her to practice.
Playing-time ramifications: Remind the parents that playing time in games is distributed based on practice attendance and you’d hate to see their child penalized, but you have to be fair to the kids who are on time.
Child’s compromised skills: You’re trying to build skills in players, so being late puts you and the child in a tough spot. Many of the skills you’re teaching gradually build on those skills learned earlier. When a child is late and misses valuable instruction time, his development is compromised, and his practice of that particular skill is limited.
Chapter 20
Taking Your Show on the Road
In This Chapter
Going over travel-team basics
Tackling tryouts and picking players
Providing a good experience for your players and their families
Coaching off the field
As youngsters develop skills, some become passionate about soccer and look to take their games to higher levels and compete against stronger competition. And some coaches, after being around the sport for a few seasons, seek a more competitive setting. Enter select or travel teams.
These teams provide new coaching challenges: The players are more skilled, the teams are more talented, and the competition is more intense. Practices are highly structured, games are more frequent, and weekend tournaments are commonplace. The coach organizes tryouts, evaluates players, and puts together rosters. If you think you’re ready, this chapter provides some useful information to help smooth your transition to the travel-team sidelines.
Hitting the Road
The travel-team environment is vastly different from your local recreation program. Games are highly competitive, and your team faces opponents from different communities, cities, and (in some cases) states. As long as you focus on providing for the best interests of all the kids, the travel-team experience can be richly rewarding for everyone involved.
What’s a travel team?
Travel teams present opportunities for youngsters who are interested in focusing on soccer as their main sport and want to play against top-level competition on a regular basis. These teams play in highly competitive tournaments against other talented teams in out-of-town locations. They require a much greater commitment of time and money on the part of the children, parents, and coaches than local, recreational soccer programs. A typical travel-team week involves a couple of practices, and weekends are often swallowed up by traveling and competing in tournaments. Seasons typically run longer than those of recreational programs.
What age groups are travel teams appropriate for?
Generally speaking, travel teams are better suited for kids ages 12 and older who have a deep interest in and passion for the sport and who want to test their skills against other talented players. Because of the increased level of play, the added pressure that typically accompanies these teams, and a fuller schedule of practices and games, most experts say that kids under 12 shouldn’t be involved with travel teams. That’s a general guideline, because kids mature at different rates both emotionally and physically, and some 11-year-olds may be better equipped to handle the travel-team experience than some 13-year-olds, for example.
Because of the enormous time commitment associated with most travel teams, experts suggest that kids under 12 should be introduced to a variety of sports and activities that allow them to develop a wide range of skills — including balance, coordination, and agility — before specializing in one sport.
Each decision must be made on an individual basis. The best sports experiences are suited to the motivation and skill level of the individual athlete. The parents’ desire to have their child play on a travel team isn’t enough; the child must want it, too. The youngster must have the true desire and motivation to play more frequently. If his interest and motivation are suspect, he’s better off sticking with a recreational soccer program. Parents can revisit the situation next season to see whether he’s emotionally and physically ready. Families must also analyze whether the move is right for their child and for them, because the entire family must be ready if the travel-team experience is going to be a successful endeavor.
The Selection Process
Choosing players to field a travel team is challenging. Besides analyzing the skills and abilities of the players, you have the unpleasant task of breaking the bad news to the players who didn’t make the team.
Holding a tryout
Orchestrating a well-run tryout speaks volumes about your coaching ability and makes choosing the players who are best suited to play on the team that much easier.
Starting off the tryout on the right foot
Spend a couple minutes at the start of the tryout introducing yourself and outlining how you’re structuring the session. Giving kids an outline helps ease stress, allows them to focus on performing to the best of their ability, and eliminates any unnecessary surprises.
Kids are naturally nervous and probably a little uptight before tryouts begin. Be friendly when they arrive at the field; greet them with a warm smile; and exude a positive attitude at all times. Soccer is fun, and even though coveted spots on the team are at stake, don’t turn the tryout into a negative experience that’s more stressful than necessary.
Even though you may never see some of these kids again, keep their best interests in mind. That means approaching this session the same way you do an ordinary practice, which you start by having the kids stretch (check out Chapter 18 for some suggested routines). If you count on the kids to stretch on their own, some probably won’t do an adequate job. Run them through a series of stretches so you know that their bodies are prepared for the tryout.
Avoid choosing players to lead the stretches. Even if you’re familiar with some of the kids and know that they’d do a great job leading the stretches, that tactic sends the wrong message. The other kids may think that you’re already playing favorites and that these kids are tabbed for positions on the team before they even try out.
Designing a well-structured tryout
Limit the tryout sessions to one hour for kids ages 12 and under. For older kids, you can bump it up to 11/2 to 2 hours. If you need to hold multiple sessions to effectively evaluate all the kids, that’s fine. You’re better off holding a pair of one-hour sessions than one lengthy two-hour session. To make the best use of your time and adequately evaluate all the players, keep the following points in mind as you set up and conduct your tryout:
Use game situations. Timed sprints down the field and dribbling the ball through a series of cones aren’t good evaluation tools. For example, if one player dribbles the ball through the cones in 18 seconds, and another youngster takes 19 or 20 seconds to maneuver through them, what have you really learned about the talent level of these two individuals? Not a whole lot. A player can be fast and keep his head down the entire time he dribbles, which doesn’t bode well when he’s in a game setting and needs to be aware of where his teammates are and whether any defenders are converging on him.
The best approach to assessing talent is to put the players in situations that closely mirror game conditions and see how they respond to pressure and what types of decisions they make while playing both offense and defense.
Ensure plenty of touches. Observing players in small-sided games of 2-on-2 or 3-on-3 provides a wealth of information on their abilities. Situations that allow them plenty of touches of the ball help you determine how they transition from offense to defense, how t
hey recognize various situations, and how their thought processes operate in determining when attacking is appropriate and when regrouping with the ball is best. For example:
• Does the player cover a lot of territory, or is she content to stick to one area of the field?
• Does she look to pass the ball upfield, or is she more comfortable dribbling down the field herself?
• Is she good at spotting open teammates and delivering the ball to them, or is she more passive and fearful of turning the ball over?
• Is she good at reading and anticipating plays?
Taking in all this information and noticing these tendencies are vital for getting a true evaluation of a youngster’s ability. Also, this information is valuable for the players you do end up choosing, because you can use it to help determine which positions they’re best suited for.
Don’t get station crazy. If you use some stations, such as a shooting station to evaluate a goalie and the other players’ shooting skills, limit how many stations you have going at one time. Having too many stations running simultaneously doesn’t allow you to effectively monitor all the players. Plus, if the kids see that you’re not at their station watching them, they may not be quite as focused on giving their best effort, which detracts from the effectiveness of the entire tryout process.
