My First Season Coaching Kids Soccer
This past Spring was my first season coaching soccer at WestU. Soccer Club in Houston, Texas. I have played soccer almost all my life but did not know much about coaching. In December I took a full weekend course for an "E License" which is the first step in getting started, at least in Texas. It proved to be an invaluable experience. The course was well taught and there were lots of great points discussed. But what's a course without the practical experiences of working with kids to find out which exercises work and which ones do not! (By the way, the word "Drill" is frowned upon because it implies brain-less activities whereas "exercise" does not. Just like the word "shooting the ball" is preferred over "kicking the ball". But hey, I am not a purist!)
Having had an "E License" I called around and found out that West U. had a good soccer club. After several unanswered emails and phone messages, I was finally able to find some people who sent me in the right direction. To make the long story short, I finally got to talk to the right people and after a couple of weeks, they asked me to coach one of U-10 boys recreational teams. They have a whole different division called Express Soccer which is more competitive and is on a try-out basis. Unfortunately they said that the coach in the competitive division does not do much besides showing up for the games. But what I was looking for was to gain first-hand experience directly coaching kids. I was not ready to have someone else train my team.
They also mentioned that Spring soccer at this club is a bit more relaxed so that parents can take a break from intensive Fall soccer.
After attending a Monday night trainer led session, I decided to ask the coordinator to allow me to have a Saturday morning session of my own so that I could directly train my team and also any other kid from other teams who likes to attend. Saturday morning at 8:00 a.m. was a hard sell to the parents but they got used to it quickly. Additionally after a few weeks the kids were looking forward to these practices mainly because they were fun and intense at the same time.
This is where I gained invaluable experiences in different exercises that I have decided to share and discuss with any coach who cares to read this weblog. So, off to exercises we go. By the way, we were able to beat all the teams this season! Some of the scores were so lop-sided (10-0, 11-1, etc.) that the coordinator emailed me with his concern about kids in other teams getting demoralized and asked me to ease up after a few goals.
Having had an "E License" I called around and found out that West U. had a good soccer club. After several unanswered emails and phone messages, I was finally able to find some people who sent me in the right direction. To make the long story short, I finally got to talk to the right people and after a couple of weeks, they asked me to coach one of U-10 boys recreational teams. They have a whole different division called Express Soccer which is more competitive and is on a try-out basis. Unfortunately they said that the coach in the competitive division does not do much besides showing up for the games. But what I was looking for was to gain first-hand experience directly coaching kids. I was not ready to have someone else train my team.
They also mentioned that Spring soccer at this club is a bit more relaxed so that parents can take a break from intensive Fall soccer.
After attending a Monday night trainer led session, I decided to ask the coordinator to allow me to have a Saturday morning session of my own so that I could directly train my team and also any other kid from other teams who likes to attend. Saturday morning at 8:00 a.m. was a hard sell to the parents but they got used to it quickly. Additionally after a few weeks the kids were looking forward to these practices mainly because they were fun and intense at the same time.
This is where I gained invaluable experiences in different exercises that I have decided to share and discuss with any coach who cares to read this weblog. So, off to exercises we go. By the way, we were able to beat all the teams this season! Some of the scores were so lop-sided (10-0, 11-1, etc.) that the coordinator emailed me with his concern about kids in other teams getting demoralized and asked me to ease up after a few goals.
posted by Softour at
9:43 PM
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