Gonna vent a little I have a gu11 daughter. She's a decent player, but not super aggressive. She loves soccer, so I'll make sure she plays for as long as she wants to. She also likes volleyball. Most of her friends are soccer players. On various teams. She plays on a mid-level competitive soccer team. I coach and make sure everyone gets nearly equal playing time. She has a friend that is on the top team in the top club. She's a phenomanal player. She's also very good at volleyball. Very athletic. The school they attend has a 5th/6th grade basketball team. It's a short season and played in the winter. I've really wanted my daughter to give it a try (this is the first year she is old enough). She's going to give it a shot. And I'm going to coach (nobody else stepped up.). The season starts in January and lasts 8 weeks. But her friend can't play because of her winter soccer commitment. With State Cup and now the impending age group changes, she is expected to be at soccer practice 3x per week (2 practices with her team. And 1 open practice with all kids born in the same birth year to evaluate teams for NEXT Fall). And their team does Futsal on Sunday's. And their coach offers an additional paid, semi-private session once a week. She's afraid to miss any of these for fear of: 1. Missing playing time at State Cup (games are in late Jan/early Feb) 2. Not making the 2004 "A" team next Fall. If frustrates me that youth coaches can't understand the value of a little break from soccer. They don't come out and say "don't play other sports", but their schedule and actions make it nearly impossible to try something different. My daughter will have a bit of soccer this winter, but i encourage all on the team to try another sport and make that your winter priority. Rant over. Thanks for listening.
Let's see in your state is the state cup a one game elimination? It should not even be considered a tournament. Unless you think you can win it. Coaches do not all think like you think. When I coached youth teams the league season was fall/spring it was 1 season. We played in the leagues best division. It was not for the casual player.
The latest sports science thinking is that playing multiple sports during preteen years is necessary to reach full development potential in the tactical aspect. They think specializing in one sport too early retards development. By tactics I am referring to understanding what, why and when to do something. Decision making rather than following instructions. Specialization is defined as specializing in 1 or 2 sports.
My kids do multiple sports, but I fear that there is too much overlap. Fall was soccer (main) and a school volleyball team. Winter she's continuing with a different volleyball program (practice 1 or 2x per week and 1 or 2 tournaments per month until June). The school basketball program starts in a few weeks and goes thru February. 3 days a week (2 practices and 1 game usually. All during the week). We'll have a December and January soccer tournament that we'll have a few practices for. I may back off on Spring soccer and just do a few friendlies instead of a committed season. Most of our team has dabbled a bit in other sports (swim, basketball and volleyball mostly).
I've never heard of organized volleyball at such a young age. I suppose it is very technical (proper bumping and standing overhead spikes) as the kids are nowhere near the net.
can't argue. Information starts coming together when they can relate situations from more than one sport.
Sometimes I think the parents are the ones clamoring for more soccer in the winter. It's as if they think that if their child/child's team can just out practice their competition over the winter, they will turn into a completely different team in Spring and clean up in the win column. Maybe it's true, I have no idea. My child's team offers basically once a week practices and an indoor league that plays once a week. So that's two days of soccer vs three or four during Spring or Fall. But the parents want more, more, more. They sign their kids up for SAQ courses, for 18 weeks of non-club run team or small group training, a second indoor league (usually futsal, since our indoor league plays with outdoor rules) and the list goes on. It's a little crazy, but it definitely seems fear/competition motivated. I imagine it gets worse the higher the competition.
I think (not seriously) about starting a youth club that has a sport for every season. Same 15 girls stay together and play 3 different sports. Soccer, basketball and volleyball. Maybe softball. And all 3 sports will have similar approaches to fitness, agility, competitiveness and learning the fundamentals.
yeah, my eldest is just getting into activities. Dance 30 minutes a week, soccer once a week for an hour. Seems like a lot already. But I agree with the OP, I'm all about a well-rounded athlete and human being. But being in the coaching game—I see that that's not possible. I mean I get annoyed when my players aren't year-rounders. I just don't see how they can develop the top level skills. BUT BUT . . . I know many more year-round soccer players that aren't really good. I THINK, it has more to do with how much they work outside practice than anything.
http://changingthegameproject.com/the-perils-of-single-sport-participation/ My son's primary sport is soccer, he plays at a fairly high level and he trains once a week and plays a couple of futsal games on the weekend in the winter, but he plays basketball at school for fun, and swims for a neighborhood swim team in the summer. Both of those are not cut-throat levels of play, but they give him other experiences than can apply to soccer and help to avoid burnout of doing the same thing over and over. It also depends on the kid. My son almost considers futsal a completely different sport than outdoor. He was fired up in anticipation for playing it this past weekend. I do think that soccer is a bit different than transitioning between other sports during the year because of the foot skill and touch that needs to be developed and maintained consistently. Catching/throwing/passing a baseball/football/basketball have similar basic coordination movements.
Closest we ever had to that was with a club I started Firebirds AC. AC stood for athletic club. I did the soccer part only which was fall and spring which was one season. In the winter my partner Rychard did indoor and he did track and the outside game with me. That suit me because I could concentrate on making money during my off time.
The more I think about it and observe and work with kids, I think the main ingredients for early success are athleticism (which is obvious) and personality type (significantly less obvious). The personality type that excels at the younger ages is the classic Type A personality. Type As are just more driven, focused and competitive. Combine that personality type with raw athleticism and you have what it takes to dominate through about U12. My eldest son is NOT a Type A personality, but he's sick athletic. He never cared about the scores of games and never seemed to give much of a damn during training or even games. But he learned how to play the game and developed all the skills to be a high level player. Then he grew and became strong and fast. He started to realize he could turn it on whenever he wanted and dominate any game. He still didn't always do it, but he could do it at any time. Now, at age 12, he's old enough to care a little more about the results and to see that he gets attention and respect for being a good player. So he chooses to dominate games. Still doesn't care enough to practice on his own, because he's not Type A, but he's super skilled and big, fast and strong, so he can do whatever he wants on the field, whenever he wants to do it. Other kids were far more focused and agressive than he was from age 3-11, and they were much better players than he was. Now, he mops the field with those same kids and makes them look like rag dolls playing against a bull.