I'm pretty new to this coaching thing, if you haven't figured that out from my previous posts. Kids and especially teenagers have always scared me until I finally had a couple of my own, so it has taken me a while to finally take the dive in as an assistant. This season has already been incredible and the rewards of watching the kids grow and, dare I say it, listen to me and succeed from that have been beyond measure. Yeah, I'm hooked, heaven help me. How soon is too soon to consider looking into licenses? I've seen several organizations that offer a license, but I'm unclear as to which makes sense for someone coaching at the high school / U18 level. I originally came into this year intending to specialize on training goalkeepers but I've spent at least as much time working with the outfield players on positioning, awareness, responsibilities, and the like. So far I've found NSCAA, USSF, and UEFA that offer licenses. Given that I'm in the US, I'd assume UEFA is out of the running, but would the appropriate license come from NSCAA, USSF, or some other organization I haven't yet found? Or am I putting the cart before the horse and should just spend a few more years patrolling the sidelines first?
NSCAA teaches. USSF licenses. NSCAA has no motivation to fail anyone. USSF for whatever reason makes C, B and A licenses fairly exclusive and somewhat insular since they stopped accepting NSCAA diplomas as meeting prerequisites for license courses. It is easier if you are a former professional player or networked with your state organization. Recently USSF has even ignored USYSA coaching practices and gone in its own direction. So the answers to your questions depend on your long term goals. Do you eventually want a USSF C license or do you want coaching education? Either way a good first step for you would be to take a NSCAA keeper class or their new 11v11 class. I took the old NSCAA level 3 diploma in Virginia and was impressed with the course and the instructor, who also happened to be a local USSF instructor. NSCAA is a way to meet other coaches and coaching instructors too. I also took the USSF F license course since it was web based and didn't cost much in time or money. It is about what you expect, but at the time at least gave you access to some of their coaching materials. If USSF is really about improving coaching, why don't they give all coaches free access to the introductory materials over the web? The only answer I can think of is that they really want to be exclusive. Not the best attitude for player development or coach development either. This post is full of generalizations. There are over 50 state organizations and the experience will vary from one state to another depending on the people running it.
At the beginning levels, not much difference between USSF F or E license or the lower NSCAA courses. You will learn in each of them as a fairly inexperienced coach, and both are pretty low cost. As I don't aim to coach at higher levels such as college or 'premier' clubs, I find more than enough stuff from NSCAA. I highly recommend the GK courses. Also, they have a special diploma for HS team coaching which may be something you are interested after you get the basic classes done.
Most coaches even if they were former players don't really know how to train the keeper position. I know it might be different for you clean because you actually were a keeper. I recognized that fact a long time ago so I made sure we always had a keeper trainer preferably a current adult keeper to train our keepers. They were not at most of our games because they had their own games to play. On line the best keeper trainer I know is Jeff Benjamin From the Jbkeeoer site. He post on here and a lot of other places. I think I remember him on our live email coaching site out of Canada years ago. His explanations of keeper techniques are the best I have seen on line. I was telling some US soccer haters on here I thought are very best keeper we ever produced was kasey Keller because of his colaspe save which seemed faster then gravity and his second and third saves in a sequence. But I could not tell you how to teach it. But Benji can Here it is "colaspe save or the rotation save" goalkeepers are still subject to the law of gravity. A keeper's center of mass simply will not get to the ground any faster than gravity will allow. However, a goalkeeper can get their hands and upper body to the ground faster than gravity alone by rotating their body around the center of mass. Rather than push up or out, the legs are used to give rotational force to keeper's body Drop the shoulder nearest the ball, then take the leg nearest the ball and pull it up underneath the body and away from the ball. This starts the body downward and imparts some of the rotation. Reach downward for the ball with the near hand. The far hand will be late arriving with this technique; that's to be expected. As the fall continues, kick the far leg out and upwards. This continues the rotation and gets the upper body to the ground and behind the ball. Finish the dive in proper position, square to the ball.
Years ago if you wanted to coach in college USSF license was what they wanted. I have been approached to coach in college never actually looked to do it. When they asked me what license I had I said a B. Normally they wanted an A but you can get it with a B with a promise to get an A, Later if you wanted to coach kids in the Super league you could but later you need an A to coach there as well. But the whole license system has changed in the USSF now they have pro license now and other changes that I don't remember. Oh on short term memory loss and hearing loss I really believe that is the key to staying married over 50 years and never fighting. It has worked for me any way.
You need the USSF licensing for college. Not necessarily an 'a', especially for assistants, but as college, it is strongly recommended whatever you are, you are never 'satisfied' and desire to continue achieving higher levels. Ironically, you'd probably be better off seeking a masters in secondary education. You'd think most colleges could throw that in.
Back when I was a boy, it was 6 days a week and if you didn't show up to practice you didn't play the next day - we played 3 days a week, practiced 3 days a week. I can't think of too many kids in any sport that missed much time due to academics. That said, the world is a far different place now than it was back then. I mean heck we have electricity! As our school is very small we haven't had a stable group of coaches for very long. I chatted with one of the two soccer coaches who ran the program a few years ago and they practiced / played games 5 days a week without complaint; if there were kids with a major project they might get excused from a practice but the general expectation was that if you were on the team you were able to keep your academics up without skipping a lot of practices. I also talked briefly with one of the basketball coaches and they're planning to move to 5 day a week practices / games and he doesn't anticipate much for academic conflicts. Of course he's also the head of the Board of Trustees, so he has a little pull, but still... In College as a student I ran into a problem with a professor who intentionally scheduled a core class at the exact time all the sports would practice because he didn't think you could go through the program and be an athlete at the same time so he decided to make it impossible - he was also the Dean of the department so that wasn't going to change. I'd be surprised, however, if that were a common problem. Maybe I should look into coaching U-littles too, but man I've forgotten all the coaching tricks for the small stuff like that over the years. That's the beauty (for me, at least) of HS / U18 - most of the fundamentals are set (usually) and it's just tweaking and broadening and reinforcing. I love being able to tell them why they do something a certain way and see it processing in their minds and that little light bulb going off when they get it. I swear when they get the "why" the "how" seems to get locked in that much deeper.
Thanks for all the help here as I'm in the same boat as Peter, "newish" to coaching and completely hooked. I've inquired with our local league about next steps and will keep you posted on how things progress. One very cool thing is our league just instituted "Pro Sessions" one night/wk for the U-littles and their volunteer coaches. Players and coaches alike benefit from watching how others teach. Coaches like myself also get the chance to discuss strategy, drills, and much more with those who have far more experience than we do.
If one was interested in getting their coaching license in the US would they have to start all the way at the bottom with the F license? I'm asking this because I know in Germany if you have a certain number of years of playing experience at a high amateur level or above you can skip the bottom license. In the US you can go straight to A if you have played a certain number of years as a professional, but I can't seem to find anything about playing college, or semi-pro. It just seems like it might be a waste of time and money if you are an experienced player and would know how to set up cones and the basic laws of the game, to do the lowest level license. Any insight on this would be appreciated.
You might be able to skip F (like if you intended on taking the E), but you might as well do it. With the on the field session and on line, you are done in like 3 hours.
USSF is a political organization. Who you know is most important. When I took the F, there was no "field session" and I only see a 2-hour on line lesson in the course description. The website also says the F license is a requirement for the E license. If I recall correctly, the F license was optional originally. With the F license you also get 1 year of access to the "digital coaching center" materials. All in all, the F license is a pretty painless introduction into the USSF organization.
The problem with high level players becoming tough coaches is that they don't always know how to coach kids. They take what they learned and do the same thing with their teams. And as a high level player, they were likely involved in activities for high level players. When they come in and try to coach u10 players, they don't know how to do the proper things for that age and skill group.
When you hire a professional coach I think it is a good idea to hire a coach that has children of their own. Not on the team he is coaching. Because I am not sure some of these professional coaches treat players as people and people are not all the same. I think you need some life experience to know that you can not treat people in the same way to get the best results from them. It is also not just soccer, but in all sports. You have to be able to read people to get the best out of them.
it depends what you're intending to do. if you have an opportunity to coach older teens or adults and have some connection who could get you in, it might be worth seeing if you could be exempted through some of the lower level stuff. if you're starting from the bottom, getting some of the youth training ideas won't hurt you.
I am new to this forum and am looking for some advice on what licenses to pursue. I am currently a senior in high school and want to pursue a career in coaching. I have my USSF National F license and want to know what is the best path to take: NSCAA, USSF, UEFA or some of all three?
If I were you and starting out in high school wanting to coach, I would pursue the USSF licenses and work your way up the ladder. I would also pursue the NSCAA licenses too, and I actually prefer them more than the USSF one's, but in my experience the USSF one's look very good on your resume. Hope this helps!!
My experience (and I moved to USA too) is stick with US Soccer / USSF. Having a bachelors is pretty much mandatory to be a Head coach in College (which to me is BS because what good is a BS in Chemistry or Music for coaching??). Saying that, we are on the eve of a potential US Soccer evolution so I would hang on and see what changes..