Since I began coaching soccer six years ago when my daughter started playing I've tried to pay close attention to what works and what doesn't when trying to teach the game to kids. I played in High School myself but had no training in coaching so I really had to learn by trial and error like every other volunteer Coach at NKYA. It's our goal at NKYA to maintain a recreational/instructional league that is affordable for its participants so we rely completely on volunteer coaching with no paid trainers. As a result we have new volunteer Coaches starting with us almost every session. These are parents of players who agree to take on the responsibility of coaching the team their kid plays on even though they may have no experience themselves. As I mentioned above, the new Coach is put into a situation where they have to work through trial and error to figure out how to handle their team. This doesn't always result in a good team experience for the players and parents involved.
This morning I received the following via e-mail from a parent addressing precisely this issue:
I wanted to email to inquire about my son's coach for Soccer for this coming fall season. Last year we were on a team with a coach that filled in last minute. He was rarely there (at practices or the games), and when he was he was not coaching the kids at all and it was truly a waste of time for everyone involved. Finally, at the risk of being rude, some of the parents stepped in and took over coaching because it was so bad. The parents that stepped in were not experienced with soccer, but at least we tried to create some sort of structure for the kids involved.
My response was as follows:
I'm sorry about the situation with your Coach from last season. You do understand that all of our Coaches are volunteers, parents of kids who are playing who offer to handle teams. Some have experience as players themselves, some do not. Very few have any formal training as Coaches. That's the nature of our league. We're all just volunteering our time to ensure that our kids have a league to play in that we can all afford. That being said, the response to the situation that you and the other parents made, to step in and take over the team yourselves, was perfectly appropriate and not in any way "rude". You volunteered. That's what our league is all about.
As the new Administrator of the NKYA Youth Soccer program one of my goals is to raise the level of coaching generally in our program by giving our more experienced Coaches the opportunity to share their knowledge with new volunteer Coaches and to develop a simple set of coaching standards for our Coaches, especially those working with the U4, U6 and U8 groups. During the last indoor session NKYA hosted a U4 clinic before the first week of games with the aim of introducing both the kids and our new Coaches to some basic practice activities and to share with the Coaches and Parents some basic insights into what they can expect from the kids in that age group and what their goals for the session should realistically be. This one clinic made a huge difference in the overall quality of the entire session and we'll be looking to duplicate that success with other age groups.
So going forward I'm hoping to find ways to "Coach" our Coaches so that the experience gained by veteran Parent/Coaches can be passed on and so that over time we can raise the standard of coaching within our program without incurring the expense of bringing in paid trainers. Going back several sessions NKYA began, under the leadership of Andrea Sipple, making a regular practice of spending some time at our session-opening Coaches' meetings discussing in some detail issues of coaching technique and team organizing, including helping parents to understand the rules of the game. We have continued to build on that practice and I hope to expand our efforts. If you have any suggestions on how to help improve the quality of coaching within NKYA let me know. You can leave comments here or you can e-mail me at nkyacoachpat@gmail.com.
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