Hope all is well. I don't coach in the winter so I'm enjoying my off-season. I've helped our Rec Director with some sections of our new Rec Coach handbook and last week starting dealing with spring registration issues. In terms of coaching, I will have 3 teams (kinder, 3rd grade and HS) again this season.
I've been so busy I haven't thought to post updates here. Half of our board resigned at the end of the year, and we've replaced them with 4 new, engaged directors. I was elected as our club's president. We're re-examining a lot of how we've done things over the last few years, and that means me spending extra time making sure things are being done the right way. My 19U season started Monday with our first training session. It's been a whirlwind few weeks, but hopefully things slow down now that the season is actually starting. I may have mentioned this before, but I read the book Prepared by Diane Tavenner. I stole her 3 questions that she and her board asked themselves when they started their school and repurposed them for my club: Is LSC the club where I wish I had played? Is LSC the club where I want to coach and volunteer? Is LSC the club where I want my kids to play? I'm going to try to make these my guiding questions for everything I do as the club's president and see where it takes us.
Yesterday was 3 separate sessions: session with kids done by a former pro. I was her assistant-- setting up cones and then helping with the payments as she sold copies of her book. session by our pro coaches on how to run a session for kindergarten through 2nd grade. It was great, I learned somethings that will help my sessions. session by pro coaches for sessions for 3rd grade and up. Again got some great tips. Today was my favorite day of the season. I helped run 2 hour session with new coaches where I provided them guidance on how to run their sessions while making sure they and their teams have fun.
We had our preseason "meet the coaches" meetings yesterday. We have so many kids we had to split it into two sessions this season. Over the last couple weeks we had a new player orientation and our coaches meeting. It's been a lot of work for me and our rec league coordinator, but it's been great to get back to the way things should be done since we're off most covid restrictions.
I'm kinda hovering on the margins of soccer these days. Toying on getting certified to ref—since I haven't reffed since college. Desperate need here for refs. I miss coaching, but really do kinda hate the US soccer pay-to-play club system.
Great moment with my 3rd graders this AM. I was getting my subs ready and told player A she going in at midfield. Her response "what do I do?" Before I could start talking player B perfectly explained the role. It was really awesome to watch
Really interesting game today. I only had 7 show up-- the other team probably had 12. The coach is a friend voluntarily matched our numbers. First half was even but I told her to add more if she wanted to. We ended up scoring twice in the 2nd half to win 2-0. I think she added 1 after our 1st goal and 1 more after the 2nd goal. To be honest. I would have played 8 v 7 so as to not punish my girls that didn't show up.
I decided to hold off for this season. Too bad, we really need it. With gas prices it may be painful. Plus I don't want to deal with shitty parents right now.
I was parking police at our fields Sunday. Had one Karen move her lawn chair into the handicap spot where her son had illegally parked his truck after I made him move it. Sheesh. On a more positive note, my 5U daughter scored so many goals that afternoon that she lost count of them. I was off duty and able to watch her game so that was fun. My son (3U) really enjoyed the M&Ms we found at the concession stand. And my 19Us have our first friendly this evening. League games start this weekend.
It's been a quiet spring around here. I hope that means everyone has been too busy with soccer at the fields to post. My 19U season ended last night with a 2-0 win so that was a good way to end a difficult season. We had a weaker team this year, and we played in a stronger league than in the past so we didn't get too many wins. We also lost one of our best defenders due to injury for the second half of the season so that was a challenge. Despite the setbacks, we did play better in our last 3 games, and we actually should have won 2 of our 3 Presidents Cup games. Unfortunately, we let them off the hook. We had a young team so hopefully a lot of the boys will be back for next spring with another season of experience. As frustrating as this season has been at times, I'm optimistic about next year. I've already decided spring 23 will be the last season I coach the 19Us so part of the planning will be training one of my assistants to take over the team. I'm excited for that transition too to see someone take over the program I've spent the last 5 years building.
I got a 5U daughter as well. Not scoring so much goals, she's a late July birthday and is not running past people yet. Got good ball control though. I got to my 5U field early, set my stuff down about 1 yard from the touchline at the midfield. Grandma rolls in 10 minutes later and sets her chair down in front of my stuff. I didn't ask her to move, but I hope she enjoyed having a good view of my ass all game.
I said goodbye to my seniors yesterday. Not going to lie, I got emotional. Of the 3 that showed up, I'd coached 1 since 4th grade, 1 since 5th and once since her sophomore year. I got a lovely note from the mom of the one I'd had since 4th grade. Sharing part of it: "When she moved to your team, it was a dramatic time and the change was what she needed... You've been a great cheerleader and support at just the right level. It still amazes how you can coach from the sideline without yelling. Thank you for providing a place where she could continue to play soccer." Notes like this are why I coach.
Spring season is done. Once again it was a blast. Biggest news is that I've stepped down from the admin role I've done for almost 14.5 years. Our rec program is divided into 12 clubs for purposes of team formation/coach recruiting and I've been in charge of one of the largest of those. I'm stepping down so I can travel in the off-season. I'm 3 years from retirement and want to set myself up for my next steps
I just registered a 10U and a 12U team for our club for the fall season. These are our first travel teams since our 2008 team that fell apart after Fall 2019, other than my 19Us. I'm pretty excited to get this program moving forward again and to build from the bottom. I'm not coaching either of these teams myself, but I'm going to have a lot of work helping the coaches and managers learn the ropes.
For the fall-- I will have 1st grade girls,4th grade girls and HS girls. For the HS team, I had to merge my seniors with a team of juniors to make a viable team
Our high school team has its first game tomorrow and just now I've been told by the head coach that, while we're in a competitive league, most of the kids don't want to work too hard and that for most of them this is just a way to stay busy in the fall or at best a warm-up for the basketball season. Yet they also get angry and/or sulk when we lose. I've always been able to create passion for the game but this whole thing might just push me over the edge. I don't know how long I can handle dealing with a group whose attitude consists of, pardon the French, IDGAF. Blargh.
I have 6Us this fall. My daughter plus 6 more 2017s and 2018s. Our first training session was Wednesday evening. I only had 1 kid who didn't want to participate with the group, but his mom at least had him out on the field playing. He did well when he was out there. We have 2 more weeks of training before our first game so hopefully we can get everyone excited to play before then.
I will be on the practice field 3 nights a week this fall. 1st grade: Tuesday 5-6 (one of my families is super happy because I picked the field across the street from their house). 4th grade Wednesday 5-6 HS: Thursday 5:30-7. We are sharing the field with the team of a friend of mine so we will likely do many joint activities. Game schedules came out tonight. The coolest part is that for about 1/2 of the games, I will be back to back at the same field complex for 2 of the 3 teams. I prefer this to the days when I have an early morning, mid-day and late afternoon game.
@jmnva, why does your club divide kids by grade instead of birth year? Is that common in your area? Everything through Indiana Soccer Asssociation is by birth year. I'm really getting tired of having to explain why kids are 10Us even though they just turned 9 or whatever and hearing about all the kids who are "in the wrong divisions".
When the switch to birth year happened, my club made the decision to make our rec program explicitly grade-level based. This was so that kids could always play with their school classmates. I think I've shared before that we have more than 5,000 kids in our rec program so we organize neighborhood "clubs" based on elementary school. This really does allow us to generally create school-based teams which the families love. For our travel programs we do follow birth year. I agree explaining the concept of Uxx is always interesting.
We had our "coaching educatio Saturday event on Saturday. Over the course of the day, the club had 5 different 60-90 minute sessions for coaches: 1) Session run by pro coach on how to run a session 2) session for new coaches. Following intro we split them up by age group to show how to run age specific activities 3) session for coaches of 3rd grade teams since that is where we go to 7v7 and introduce goalies 4)session for 1st/2nd grade coaches 5) session for kinder coaches There were easily north of 40 folks at each session. I attended 1 and 4 as a student and co-lead 2 and 3. I went home before 5.