Youth soccer coaches can learn lessons from good and bad coaches in all sports.
This spring I finally had enough time to let my oldest son play baseball again after a 3 year absence. I could only train part time due to soccer clinics I do and other obligations, so without any research we joined the local “B” team who play around a 16 game schedule. The coach has been with the organization for 5-6 years and is known locally as a “baseball” person. I agreed to be the part-time “hitting” coach.
I knew there was a problem in the first practice, when the kids warmed up, the “coach” wasn’t giving any instructions. The first “drill” in the first practice was to line up all 14 players at third base to catch ground balls. It doesn’t matter that kids haven’t yet been instructed on proper stance, approaching a ground ball, proper glove placement, or proper pitching mechanics. This 10-12 year old group had 4 players who had never played, they were green novices. “Coach” went straight from hitting ground balls to putting players in position and hitting infield.
As you may have guessed, this was not his only fault, his batting practice would have consisted of 1 player batting and 13 fluffy balls. His organization skills, practice flow, and teaching skills of him are poor, and poor is too kind. No player was being held accountable to any kind of standard because no standard was set.
As a first-time assistant with this team, I bit my lip and followed. In the first game, none of the players got into a proper stance, no one ran onto the field, players played out of position, players questioned balls and strikes and the first baseman.
(the coach’s son) made 4 errors due to poor fundamental basic receiving skills. The match was a total disaster, the team lost 22-2. The coach blamed the other team for having all the “sixth graders”, typical of how “blazers” try to divert attention from their poor coaching skills.
I blame myself for this dilemma, I should have gone and watched this team practice last year or at least asked the coach about his practice philosophy. If I had ever attended one of their practices, it would have been obvious within the first 5 minutes that their teams are poorly trained and not a good fit for us. While I don’t claim to be an expert baseball coach, I managed baseball in Omaha for 3 years before we moved, that Omaha league is considered by most to be the best little league in the state and often has state championship teams. By following to the letter what Coach Olsen gathered in his baseball training clinics, studying some youth baseball training books and tapes, and studying how the best teams in the area practiced, my teams didn’t lose a game in 3 years. . I train
I guess there are well-intentioned guys like this who coach youth soccer in a similar way. The moves are not broken down or taught correctly, kids are rushed to play before the basics are perfected, and time is wasted. In baseball, my teams did a lot of base drills without gloves or balls to perfect basic movements before putting on gloves or taking a live ground ball. We did a lot of bucket “crocodile” drills before adding the throw to the drill. Before adding the pitch, we worked on “set and freeze” drills to hone proper pitching mechanics. This “baseball” twilight zone we landed in has done none of that.
I graciously shared my baseball training DVDs with the “coach” before the season started and he claimed to be grateful and watch them. Well he didn’t see them or someone dubbed him into a Bad News Bears movie on my DVDs because no concept from the DVDs was used.
I’m not going to create a stir with this trainer, it’s my fault for not doing the research. Either do your research or the team’s head coach will be the lesson I learned from this wasted season.
I’ve been a youth sports coach for 15 years and I’ve heard many horror stories about poor youth coaching, but I’ve never seen it up close. I feel sorry for the guys trapped in those places. Now I can say that I have walked a bit in your shoes and it feels like I have sand in one shoe and a sharp pebble in the other.
I might add that this is not the talk of a disgruntled father, “Coach” had my son as an infielder when he is probably the 10th best fielder on the team. My son is a very smart and manageable kid, but he’s not an infielder. I suggested to “coach” that my son play outfield and not start as I felt he was not a top 9 player.
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