by Greg Bach
New Drills
Nothing sabotages fun and learning quicker than subjecting youngsters to the same boring practices week after week. Taking the time to introduce a new drill during every practice infuses your sessions with excitement and ensures that the kids never get in a mind-numbing rut. To give them something to look forward to at each practice, introduce the new drill at the same point in your sessions. You may find that unveiling the new drill at the start of practice, when youngsters are often the most focused and attentive, works best. Or you may discover that building the anticipation and saving the new drill for the last few minutes of the practice is a great way to conclude the session. After you establish a routine, you’ll find that the kids eagerly anticipate the chance to participate in a fun new drill every time they step on the field.
Contest Day
One of the most effective ways to promote team camaraderie is to devote a practice session to a series of special contests. But instead of having the players compete among themselves, which only gives your better-skilled youngsters the chance to further showcase their talents while alienating the less-skilled kids, pair up the players ahead of time. By putting a talented child with a youngster who isn’t quite as skilled, you force the kids to work together, which not only improves their skills, but also allows them the chance to get to know each other better.
As you know, the more familiar kids are with each other, the more they care about each other, and that translates into more inspired play on the field. The familiarity also leads to more supportive teammates who pull for one another to succeed and who step forward to offer encouraging words when things don’t work out as planned. You can plant the seeds for long-term friendships, which are among the special benefits that come from participating in organized soccer. If you played soccer, or any sport, growing up, you probably can easily recall some of the friendships you forged with teammates.
Some samples of mini-contests you can do include
Timing the pairs while they pass the ball back and forth a set number of times and run the length of the field
Attempting headers where the players toss the ball to their partners, who must head it back to them (forcing the players to work together because the better the toss, the easier it is to head the ball)
Encourage the kids to support their partners, and you can even let them know before the contests begin that you award bonus points to those twosomes who demonstrate the most support for each other.
Midseason Report Cards
Remember your days in school when you’d bring home those progress reports with the smiley faces that said what a great student you were and how well you were doing? The report card gave you a sense of accomplishment and served as a springboard for continuing to work hard the rest of the term. Issuing midseason cards to your squad can accomplish much of the same and give players a real boost of confidence. Handwritten notes extolling the players’ talents and recognizing what areas of the game they have really excelled in so far this season are nice touches that let players know that you appreciate the effort they put forth.
All players love to be recognized for their skills and hard work, and handwritten notes that players can look back at and read all season long often carry more weight than verbal accolades and serve as the motivation for them to continue giving you their best each time they step on the field. With older players, these handwritten notes can be just as effective. You can even go so far as to touch on an area of the game where you challenge them to make some improvements during the remainder of the season. Besides applauding those areas that they excel in, giving players goals to strive for gives them something extra to concentrate on during practice. This concentration helps maintain their focus through the second half of the season.
Bringing in New Faces
You’re doing a great job of coaching, but every once in a while kids may enjoy a break from you, particularly if they’re with you for several months. Bringing in a new face to talk to the kids about some aspect of soccer provides a new perspective that can be refreshing and reenergizing for them. You have plenty of possibilities within your community. A local high school soccer coach, a well-known high school soccer player, or coaches or players from a nearby college soccer team are all excellent resources.
Just giving the players on your team the chance to hear from someone who offers different tips on performing a specific skill, or some words of encouragement on what it takes to reach the next level, can be enormously beneficial in your youngsters’ growth and development.
Another option is bringing in a sports nutritionist, which is especially good for older kids, who are at an age where they’re exploring all sorts of ways to improve their skills. Hearing the importance of eating right and drinking the proper fluids is much more effective coming from an expert in the field than it is coming from you.
Team Votes
One of the basic facts of growing up is that kids have to endure being told what to do much of the time. Between school, home, and other assorted activities, they’re constantly being instructed, ordered around, and told how it’s going to be. Once in a while, it’s nice to let kids decide what they want to do. Giving them a chance to voice their opinions shows that you respect them as both soccer players and as people and that you value their thoughts and opinions.
If the league allows, let the players vote on the team nickname or the color of the uniforms. Even something as basic as letting them decide on the color of the team mouth guard builds camaraderie among the players and sends the message that what they think carries meaning with you. You can also let the youngsters work together to come up with a team cheer to do before they take the field for games. These types of exercises promote team unity and create a bond that isn’t likely to be broken during the course of the season.
Team Captain for the Day
Rotating team captains every practice is a great way to give each child a little extra attention. At the start of each practice, let the team know who you designate as the team captain for the day. On the other hand, you may find that your kids are more receptive to being told at the end of practice who will be the captain at the following practice so they have something to look forward to.
Make the honor of team captain something that carries some weight. Besides the basics, like letting the designated captains lead the team warm-ups (see Chapter 6), allow the captains the authority to choose the first team exercise of the day or decide how they want practice to conclude. You can go so far as to have a specially colored jersey made that says “Team Captain” on the back that you give to the captain at the start of practice, or even something as basic as a colorful sweatband, armband, or headband that the kids will enjoy wearing. By listening to kids’ ideas and then following through with them, you truly give each child the sense that he’s an important and contributing member of the team. Unless you’re coaching an older group of kids, it’s best not to have a team captain on game days, with so much else going on.
Carnival Day
Kids love carnivals, games, and the chance to win prizes — and you can easily re-create that type of atmosphere by devising some off-the-wall activities at one of your practices during the season. For example, set up a soccer bowling station where a youngster has to kick a soccer ball and knock over a couple of plastic bowling pins or pylons. Or lay a Hula-Hoop on the ground and challenge kids to kick the ball from a specified distance and have the ball end up inside the hoop. At each of the stations, you can have a bucket of candy, gum, or little toys, and when the kids are successful, they earn a small prize.
Holiday or Birthday Themes
With young children, a practice centered on a holiday can be a fun way to mix up the routine. If your soccer season runs during the fall, Halloween is a natural for encouraging kids to come to practice in their costumes. Of course, you should adjust the exercises accordingly so you don’t have youngsters running all over the field risking injury or damaging their costumes in a scrimmage, for example. Simp
ly having the kids work on their shots on goal, for example, is a fun-filled activity for them. You can even show up in a costume yourself and play goalie, letting the kids take shots on you.
You don’t have to limit your creativity to Halloween. If a child has a birthday during the season, give the kids birthday hats to wear during practice or some other type of party favors. Other holidays provide opportunities for you to get creative, too. For example, around Easter, set up an exercise in which the youngster completes the skill successfully to get the chance to look for eggs that you’ve hidden around the field. Of course, before doing anything of this nature, always check with the parents out of respect for their religious beliefs.
Chapter 22
Ten Ways to End the Season on a High Note
In This Chapter
Passing out creative team awards
Providing clever mementos
As your youth soccer season winds to a close, you should start thinking about concluding the season in a memorable way. Although throwing pizza parties and handing out participation medals are some of the more common routes many coaches take, you can go a step further and use your creativity to wrap up the season on a high note that will have the kids craving to return to the soccer field again next season. This chapter provides ten clever (if we do say so ourselves) season-ending ideas that will send the kids home with smiles on their faces.
Team Awards
Creating innovative team awards is a great way to recognize the contributions of the youngsters on your squad. Recognizing each player in some way is important when giving out any type of award. Singling out only a select few players leaves the others feeling isolated and hurt, and sends the message that they aren’t valued and contributing parts of the team. Handing out special awards that you create on your own is a great opportunity to recognize the children for any special skills or attributes that meant the most to you during the course of the season.
We see no need to hand out the old standby Most Valuable Player award. First of all, everyone already knows who the best player on the team is, and second, presenting this type of award gives the impression that this individual is more important than any of the other team members. That’s the last message you want to send at the end of the season.
With a little imagination, you can easily come up with ways to highlight each child’s efforts during the season. For example, you can hand out a Most Likely to Block a Shot During a Game award. Giving this award is a great way to show your appreciation for the child who’s always willing to do all the little things during the game in order for the team to be successful. Plus, this type of award is an ideal way to recognize a youngster whose contributions otherwise may have been overlooked. Such recognition is often enough to give that child a boost of confidence and the encouragement to return to the sport the following season.
The following are just some ideas of different types of awards you can present to your team. Use your imagination to come up with plenty of others that your players will welcome:
Most Dedicated
Best Sportsmanship
Most Improved
Hardest Worker
Most Enthusiastic
Model Teammate
Best Defensive Player
Best Passer
Corner-Kick Specialist
Penalty-Kick Specialist
Best Dribbler
Best Tackler
You can design the certificates and print them on a computer at home, or you can recruit an interested parent who has some artistic ability to do it for you. You can even collect a few dollars from each parent and order miniature trophies, with the players’ names and the names of the awards engraved on them.
Team Videos
Videos are great for capturing the excitement of the season for the youngsters and their parents who will enjoy viewing them for years to come. Kids (excuse the pun) get a real kick out of watching footage of themselves and their teammates. If you have a parent who’s experienced in using a camcorder, recruit him or her to shoot a video of the kids at different practices and games and put together a montage of the season. If you have a parent, or even a couple of parents, who shows interest and is willing to undertake this project, just make sure that he or she takes adequate footage of each child on the team. The last thing you want to do is have a child’s feelings hurt because he doesn’t appear anywhere in the piece or has limited appearances compared with the rest of his teammates.
Don’t wait until your season hits the home stretch to organize a team video, because it may be too late. Gauge the parents’ interest at the start of the season, and if they’re enthusiastic, start making arrangements immediately.
You can also check with the parents to see if they’re interested in chipping in to hire a professional videographer. You can bring it up at your preseason parents meeting, which we discuss in Chapter 4. A professionally done piece makes a great keepsake that the kids and their parents will treasure for years to come. You can cut down on the cost by having the professional come out for just a game or two during the season, but make sure that he gets footage of each child.
Individual Videos
If you have the financial resources to hire a professional videographer, or if a parent on your team has plenty of extra time on his hands, you can put together an individual video for each child that highlight the child’s play throughout the season. Even a two- to three-minute video makes a great keepsake for the kids. If you decide to go this route, gather the team together before handing out the videos so they can watch them all as a team. It makes for a fun night, and everyone has a great time looking back at the team’s play.
Team Trading Cards
Kids love trading cards of their favorite sports heroes with their friends, so working with a local photographer to design soccer cards with the kids’ photos on the front and some interesting facts about them on the back goes over big with them. You can include basic information, such as date of birth, height, and weight, as well as fun information, such as the nickname you call the player during practice or a quote from you on what you admire most about his game. Give each kid a dozen or so that they can swap with their teammates, give to friends, or send to grandparents. You can discuss this idea with the parents prior to the season to see if they’re willing to contribute extra money for the cards.
1-on-1 Meeting
A season-ending 1-on-1 meeting with each player is a great way to send the players into the offseason on a high note, motivate them to work hard, and have them looking forward to returning next season. This meeting is especially beneficial for the older kids. Talk to them about the area of their game where they made the most improvement this season and how proud you are of their efforts. Kids respond in a positive manner to the compliments and recognition, and it may just be the spark that ignites their enthusiasm to return to the field next season.
Keep in mind that the recognition doesn’t even have to come in the form of praise for a specific soccer skill. For example, maybe the child wasn’t much of a team player at the start of the season, but as the season progressed, she came around and started shouting encouragement to her teammates or congratulating them more enthusiastically for a goal or other excellent play. Or maybe she emerged as a better sport and no longer displayed any unsportsmanlike tendencies. You can highlight a variety of areas that all go into the youth soccer experience. Soccer is so much more than passing, shooting, and scoring. Being fully aware of that when evaluating each player’s all-around game is important.
Be sure to talk with older children, particularly those who you know will be on your team next season or who are simply interested in improving their play. Discuss in a positive tone the areas of their game that they can concentrate on and improve during the offseason. Talk to them about how impressed you are with the strongest aspects of their game, and then follow it up by mentioning that if they devote a little extra attention to this other area of their game, they’ll really be tough to stop next season. Re
member, positive and encouraging words fuel their desire to want to improve and take their game to the next level.
When holding 1-on-1 meetings with your players, make sure that you’re in an area without distractions. You don’t want your complimentary words and feedback to go unheard or unrecognized by a youngster whose attention is diverted by kids playing nearby or by his teammates lingering around listening in to what you’re saying.
Team Newsletter
A newsletter captures the excitement of the season and is a wonderful keepsake for any child’s scrapbook and a fond remembrance of her time with your team. Some of the things that can be featured in the newsletter are
Different action photos from various practices and games during the season
Capsule summaries of each game (make sure that each child is mentioned at some point if you recap the season)
Brief bios of the players, listing favorite television shows, school subjects, or how many brothers and sisters the players have
A comment from you about each player, such as “Tommy is the team’s hardest worker,” “Susie displayed the best sportsmanship during the season,” or “Billy had the best attitude”
