I care deeply for every child that I coach. I am not here solely to win - I am here to teach hard work, discipline, soccer fundamentals, teamwork, and to inspire a love for the game.
The above statements are the core coaching philosophy that I have been handing out to the parents of the soccer teams I have coached for the last few years. When I started coaching, I did not have a written philosophy; I barely had an idea let alone a plan. The first couple seasons I was coaching in the U6 age group and everybody was more than happy to revel in the simple joy of the “swarm-ball” that their children were taking part in. But something did not feel right.
When I began coaching soccer, I initially looked at it as a way to stay involved with my children’s lives. As a military officer, I often work long hours or am separated from my family for periods of time. This soon evolved to include the opportunity for an additional avenue to instill foundational values, like hard work and discipline, into them. But this was just the effect I hoped to have with my children. It was not until later that I embraced the leadership role that coaching requires, even at the youth levels, when I was presented with a very difficult player that forced me to reframe my role as a coach. As I once recounted for a paper I wrote:
"When I first met him, his father was long gone and his custody had recently been transferred from his mother to his aunt due to his mother’s drug addiction. His aunt told me up front that he would be a handful, and for the first season, he was that and more. But his behavior had improved dramatically in that first season and he was one of my hardest workers by the middle of the next season. I know that it was not all because of me but his aunt made sure to acknowledge the role that soccer played in helping him cope with his new situation."
That is when I came to realize the positive effect a coach could have on somebody, even a young child. And while I had always wanted the other children on my teams to succeed, I realized that I was attempting to do that by managing potential failure rather than actively enabling them to be successful. I decided to expand my “why” to include taking a personal interest in molding all of the children I coach into confident and capable people.
Every time an excited player yells “did you see me” after doing something I taught him, every time a parent (or guardian) thanks me, every time a post-season party gets emotional when the team finds out I have to move away, then I know that I have succeeded in positively affecting somebody.
Sports are a fantastic factory of life lessons and I take pride in being able to guide my player’s discovery of them. That is the care I espouse in my philosophy above. That is why I want them to work hard as a team, be disciplined, and learn – that is success that translates to any facet of life, on or off of the field.
The above statements are the core coaching philosophy that I have been handing out to the parents of the soccer teams I have coached for the last few years. When I started coaching, I did not have a written philosophy; I barely had an idea let alone a plan. The first couple seasons I was coaching in the U6 age group and everybody was more than happy to revel in the simple joy of the “swarm-ball” that their children were taking part in. But something did not feel right.
When I began coaching soccer, I initially looked at it as a way to stay involved with my children’s lives. As a military officer, I often work long hours or am separated from my family for periods of time. This soon evolved to include the opportunity for an additional avenue to instill foundational values, like hard work and discipline, into them. But this was just the effect I hoped to have with my children. It was not until later that I embraced the leadership role that coaching requires, even at the youth levels, when I was presented with a very difficult player that forced me to reframe my role as a coach. As I once recounted for a paper I wrote:
"When I first met him, his father was long gone and his custody had recently been transferred from his mother to his aunt due to his mother’s drug addiction. His aunt told me up front that he would be a handful, and for the first season, he was that and more. But his behavior had improved dramatically in that first season and he was one of my hardest workers by the middle of the next season. I know that it was not all because of me but his aunt made sure to acknowledge the role that soccer played in helping him cope with his new situation."
That is when I came to realize the positive effect a coach could have on somebody, even a young child. And while I had always wanted the other children on my teams to succeed, I realized that I was attempting to do that by managing potential failure rather than actively enabling them to be successful. I decided to expand my “why” to include taking a personal interest in molding all of the children I coach into confident and capable people.
Every time an excited player yells “did you see me” after doing something I taught him, every time a parent (or guardian) thanks me, every time a post-season party gets emotional when the team finds out I have to move away, then I know that I have succeeded in positively affecting somebody.
Sports are a fantastic factory of life lessons and I take pride in being able to guide my player’s discovery of them. That is the care I espouse in my philosophy above. That is why I want them to work hard as a team, be disciplined, and learn – that is success that translates to any facet of life, on or off of the field.