I hate to be so honest on BS, but hopefully I can get some honest and earnest responses. I have coached both my boys for the past 8 years. Prior to 1995, I knew very little about the game outside of my middle school gym teacher who had us play soccer 2x a week. I hadn't seen a soccer ball since then. Well, once my oldest started, much to my wife's early chagrin, I fell in love with the game. I signed up to coach, rented tapes, bought tapes, went to conventions, clinics and became a board member to boot. Unfortunately, I took some advice from a friend regarding local politics. In other words, I left the board, thinking that while the other members may not love me, but they probably respected me. WRONG. Within 8 months I was no longer coaching my son's team. We even had a meeting where the parents told the Board that they liked me and wanted me to coach, but the Board said no. Since then, my U-11 son had tried out for some teams and ran into political sh!te everywhere. One club had a $15 fee for their tryout as they had professional trainers run the tryout. As an outsider that made me feel that he would get a fair shot. Having had extensive dealings with this training group over the years, I felt that my son would do well because he learned their brand of soccer. I told him before the first skills session to keep doing "Maradonas" until you were sure that you caught the trainers' eye. By the 3rd Maradona, the trainer was scribbling furiously on his note pad, by the 8th Maradona I was hoping that my son wouldn't get dizzy. From my experience and what I could see of the group my son would probably have ranked anywhere from #4 to about #7 in the group. Since they were taking at least 24 kids to form 2 teams, I figured he was a lock. Uh, uh. He didn't make it. When I called the club, they told me he didn't make it and they would have someone get back to me with the trainers' ratings. Noone did. I called the trainers and they said that they turn the ratings over to the club and don't have copies. I won't go on and on as I just assume that since he was only 10 years old, most towns just want to let their own townfolk play as long as they can. At his current club they have an A,B & C team in his age group. He was picked for the C team at last June's tryout. The other day, I went to an indoor clinic at a local indoor bubble just to check out what the trainers work on and if it was a good clinic. Well, what do you know? I bump into the "B" team coachand get this.... with no provocation on my part, he apologizes to me for not taking my son onto his team. He said he had to run the whole tryout and only had 10 minutes to watch him. At least the conversation made me feel that I wasn't crazy and that my son does have some talent. But my big 2 questions are these. 1) I'm confident that I know what's going on, on a soccer field. I'm frustrated because I have no political connections and the 2 coaches my son has had in the past year have not taught him anything and basically didn't know how to teach, relate and/or communicate. What do you think other parents of talented athletes are doing once they reach these roadblocks? My guess is they move to the sport of least resistance. 2) Basically, I want to get my son onto a talented team that has trainers that know more than I do. I know they are out there because I had hired one back when I was coaching. My son's growing frustrated with horrid coaching and clueless teammates. Is it better to start from scratch and find a club that needs a coach or is better to keep trying to find the right coach?
The most important thing is to concentrate on your kid's development. At his age, skills are the most important thing, not playing for the best team possible, or having a great coach. If he works hard on his own, eventually he will make a good team. It seems like the club made an honest mistake... if the B-team coach recognized your kid's talent later and felt the need to apologize to you, that is probably a good sign. The most important thing is not to alienate anyone. I know that it is hard to put up with this kind of crap, but if you don't it will hurt your kid in the long run. You don't want the reputation of a know-it-all parent, especially if you have coached some. Professional-type coaches don't like competition. You mentioned that you were at a clinic... does your son play in these clinics? Face time means a lot, especially if it is with other coaches in the club. If they can see that he has talent and is a coachable kid, they will move him up. The most important thing to remember is that even if your kid has a bad year on the field as a result of being with a crappy team, he can still have a good year in terms of development. If you can afford it, hire a private coach for a few hours a week to work on your kid's skills. This is BY FAR the most effective way to learn, especially if the team's coaches are no good. If the club that you are in now is a good club... stick with it. The A team coaches are undoubtably better than the C team ones. Also, as kids get older, politics matter less, and coaching gets better. You don't want to do too much to ingratiate yourself, but you don't want to stand idly by either. This might sound stupid, but try to hang out at the facilities where your son is playing, and socialize with the other parents... most notably the ones on the A-team. They will see that your kid is good and wonder why he is on the C team, and some of them may help, especially if your kid would really benefit the team. Also, do as many clinics as possible, and talk to the head coaches about what your kid can do to improve. Clinics are better than tryouts for your son. You don't want to make the decision for them, but you want to make it impossible for them to ignore your kid. You want to make it look like your kid wants to one day in the distant future play for the A-team, (even if he is ready right now) and that he is willing to work hard to get there. Esentially, you want it to look like, because the coach gave you some training advice, your kid suddenly became great all because of him and is very coachable. Don't EVER play up your kid's talent to another coach, only insist that he is working hard hoping to play for the A-team in the future. It seems like he has an excellent chance of moving up next year, at least to the B team, and if he continues to play hard and practice on his own every day, there is no reason that he should be overlooked again. Also, it never looks bad that you are willing to drop some dough on your kid, and therefore the club. Truth be told, your coaching days should be over, for the sake of your son. I assume that he could probably beat you 1v1 even though he is only ten. At some point you have to realize that your involvement could be more negative than positive. It is frustrating to have no control, but that is just the way it is. If you seem like a pushy parent, your kid will be seen in a bad light. The best thing you can do is try to make some friends, and let your kid's playing speak for itself. Don't give up... your son's soccer career hasn't even really begun. I know a guy who didn't even start playing until he was 12 and went to Indiana and plays professionally now. There is plenty of time left for him, as long as he works hard.
Coaching your own child puts you in the situation of trying to view him objectively as a soccer player, and to be honest, I don't know if it can be done, without affecting the relationship. In Anson Dorrance's book, "The Vison of a Champion", he relates a story of a parent who gives her daughter a coaching critique after every game. He gets the players permission to speak with themom and says, "Listen, I'm the coach - you're the mom. After each game, I critique your daughter for soccer. All you have to do is hug her and tell her she's a wonderful kid." Enjoy your time with your son, listen to him and find out what he wants to do. If he wants to play, not making a team is part of the process. This relieves you from having to play two roles - just focus on being his dad - there is nothing more important than that. On the soccer side, the question is where do you go from here? Does he quit and prove them evaluators correct? Blame the whole thing on "politics", or something else outside his control? Or does he go out and play his heart out, because he loves the game, and forces them to take another look at him? What's the lesson you want to teach? U11 is the beginning of a life in soccer, not the end.
I want to thank you guys for your advice. I have tried in the past to get trainers for my son. The problem with that had been that the really good ones are ridiculously expensive ($50-$80 per hour) and pretty much not available. He had a very high level 16 year old from the neighborhood working with him for a very reasonable rate ($20 per hour). Unfortunately, after a few weeks the 16 y/o didn't want to do it anymore. I guess I'll just try harder to get him a good trainer. Thanks again.
NY FOOTBALL FAN!!!!! DoN'T never be afraid to be honest and said what ever the F#$%@# YOU WANT, THIS IS AMERICA!! About politics, egos, incompetence, a#$%holes, Go after them, expose them, get your local newspaper, DO NOT GIVE UP because this tipe of people are the one that are DRAGGING SOCCER DOWN......Become a voice on the federation and in your local club, form you OWN SOCCER CLUB, prove them that you are competent rub onto them.....and one more time DO NEVER GIVE UP BECAUSE THIS IS WHAT AMERICA IS ALL ABOUT....
This is incredible but TRUE Been myself an inmigrant I can tell you this: there are many professional trainers here in USA that for economic reasons are working ODD JOBS in restaurants and others, you could find them on parks on weekends killing time, unfortunately language barriers keep them out of soccer work and sometime they are training kids just for fun try your local argentinian, honduran community for this tipe of support.....
Whip is 100% right NYFutbolFan, Whip is 100% right. Take a drive around local fields at night or early on the weekends, you'd be surprised at the talent that's around you. I play in a Guatemalan League here in NJ and the guys I play against amaze me. What surprises me is time and again I hear how they'd love to train a team or help out kids, but they don't know how to get involved or they're afraid that the language barrier will be too much. Stop out and ask them if they're interested, you never know what you'll find. Perfect Example - When I was 11 year's old I met a guy from Colo-Colo (Chilean Soccer Team) while on a camping trip with my grandparents. When I told them I liked soccer they invited me to play with them. We played for hours - t-shirts for goals, pine needles and patchy grass for a field. I learned more about soccer from them then any camp or trainer I ever had. I never would have known who he was unless I asked to play.
we had a guy from cameroon who used to train two of us for 2-3 hours for $25 and later would train our club team for only about $100 per session, he was about 10x better than anyone else around at teaching players technically and tactically and he really helped to develop me as a player (i was hitting a wall as i didn't get the proper coaching at the club level and the only time before that that i could get any real improvement was camps over the summer, and i dont consider myself a good athlete) people like this are around, you just have to discover them