My Responsibility

Since I do not coach at the college or professional level, I never view my success in the short-sighted view of wins and losses. Although, I always want my players to compete to try to win, as a youth coach, I do not promote myself through the success of my players. Instead, my success is measured heavily by whether or not the players want to come back and play again, have improved over the season, and developed a stronger passion for the game. If just ONE player does not want to play again because I put my goals above the player's, I have failed to follow through on my most important responsibility as a youth coach. It is my responsibility to make sure that kids want to continue to play the game.

Yes, kids will make a choice when they want to stop playing, and no player should continue to play if it is decided playing soccer is something that is no longer desirable. But if a player makes that choice, it should be because of other interests or by a personal choice. It should not be because I took away the experience the player should have had on my team due to making choices that were in my best interest and not the player’s. It is my responsibility to help kids learn how to play the game and develop the skills required to have success on the field. Over the course of a year, everything I do, everything I say, needs to be aligned with helping reach that goal.

As a coach, I firmly believe that it is my job to serve each and every player. It is not the player’s job to serve me. I adapt my coaching style and approach to each player to try to find a way to positively impact each player over the course of a season. It is the players’ team, it is their experience, and it is their season, and my job is to help each player, and the group as a whole, make the most of each second on the field. The quality of my coaching needs to impact each player to help them become a better player and a better person.

If a coach is serving the best interest of the players and trying to teach them the soccer and life skills required to be better players and people, the results on the field will take care of themselves over time. But when coaches take the fun and learning out of the game, instills unnecessary pressure and fear on the players, and do only what is necessary to ensure the team gets wins, the only person that benefits is the coach (perhaps the parents too) and there is no longer lasting or meaningful benefit to the players. Yes, most people feel good after a win, but it is more important that all the players have grown and learned from the experience. After the initial inertia of a win wears off, what are the players left with? What did they gain that they can use the next day on and off the soccer field?

At the end of each season, I want each player to want to play soccer again. Not because they won more games than they lost or have a lot of trophies on the shelf, but because they learned a lot, had fun, and love the game more than they did at the beginning of the year. I know not all players will continue, but even those who choose not to continue to play, should still look back on their experience and feel it was meaningful because it impacted their lives in a positive way. I do not want them to look back and feel it was a waste of their time because nothing was gained.

A player-first approach to any sport makes the experience better for the players and the coach. A coach-first approach only makes the experience better for the coach. It is a simple philosophy to follow throughout the season. Before anything is said or done, the coach can ask, “Is this best for my players.” If the answer is yes, than it is probably something the coach should move forward with. If the answer is no, then it is probably needs to be reconsidered.

To be clear, this is not an “everyone gets a trophy” and “everyone is a champion” approach to coaching. In fact, I think it is very much the opposite. When you coach in a way to try to do what is best for the players, you give the players the opportunity to face adversity, work hard to achieve success (it is not given), and help each player understand the process of getting from point A to B over the course of a season. When coaches make decisions to just secure results, it actually makes winning easier on the players. The success is not earned nearly as much as when a coach expects players to do things that are in the best interest of their growth and development, and are normally much harder and require more from the players to earn success on the field.

As an example, if a coach only allows one player to play forward because that player is the team’s best goal scorer, and the other players are told to just get the ball to the forward when they get it, winning will actually be easier for all the players and not really earned. The coach has actually given the players the “path of least resistance” to have success versus making the players earn that end result through all players developing their skills and working together as a team.

As a youth coach, my primary responsibility is to teach and help each player learn to love and play a game. It is not about wins and losses. It is about helping each player grow their understanding and skills of the game and making the game enjoyable. This is what all youth coaches should be evaluated on and use to determine their effectiveness with the players. If at the end of the season, my players are better, have enjoyed the experience playing the game, and like the game more than when the season started, I have stayed true to what my responsibility and goal is as a coach of kids learning how to play a game.

How do you measure your success as a youth coach? What is your responsibility when you step on the field? Are you prepared and willing to give each player your best effort to teach the game?

Specialization

Specialization is a hot topic in youth sports and I get asked about it a lot by parents. There is a lot of science and data out there now that shows the dangers of kids specializing too early. The saddest point is that 70% of kids drop out of sports by the age of 13. There are lots of reasons for this… unnecessary pressure on kids as they play, the “game” becoming too serious too quickly, not enough options to play the game outside of the select competitive levels, cost to families (financial and emotional), and the list goes on. In short, playing a sport becomes more about trying to set kids up for the future to play in college or at the professional level, which is highly unlikely, than just letting kids enjoy playing because they enjoy it.

There is also the concern about injuries. By specializing too early, kids are more likely to have overuse injuries due to using the same muscles and performing the same movements repeatedly with a lot of intensity and little variation. On top of this, kids just do not play enough on their own anymore. Kids from 20 years ago probably actually PLAYED exponentially more than kids PLAY today, so it is not really about the AMOUNT of activity but the TYPE of activity.

When my generation were kids, we spent all weekend and week nights running around the neighborhoods playing all the games under the sun and anything else we could make up. Now, kids spend most of their time sedentary at school (which keeps cutting physical education) and at home. Then, they go to organized practice or games for an hour or more, and “play” at a high intensity under a lot of demand. This alone is not good for a kid’s body.

Although I only played one “organized” sport my entire life, I played all sports around my neighborhood on a consistent basis. In a way, I did “specialize” in my sport, but only at an organized level as I was exposed to many sports and activities in an unorganized way as I was growing up.

So…do kids need to specialize? My answer is no. I do not think kids should or need to specialize early in a particular sport by the strict definition of the word “specialize.” Either formally or informally, kids should be involved in many activities and sports to be able to understand what is out there and see what they really like to do. It is needed for their overall development, and to really enjoy being a kid. A child should never be FORCED or ENCOURAGED to only play or participate in a single activity because a “third party” believes it is in the kid’s best interest, or for trying to earn college scholarships or professional contracts. This is key and the main sticking point with me when it comes to specialization and youth sports. Why are the kids playing... because they love it or because someone else wants them to play?

With that said, I think kids who have a passion and love for something should be allowed to pursue it, and that means something different for every kid. There is not a “one size fits all” approach to anything, especially learning and the pursuit of our dreams and goals. For all those who have achieved great things, they did it chasing a goal based on their passion and love for it. It always comes at a cost on other areas of life, but it is a choice they made for themselves as they decided it was important enough and worth the sacrifice.

For example, if my daughter grows up to LOVE art, I will give her every opportunity she needs by getting the supplies and classes she wants to learn and grow her love for it….not because I want her to be a professional artist down the road, but simply because SHE LOVES IT and SHE WANTS TO DO IT. The minute she does not want to do it anymore, when she wants to put the brush down, that will be her choice and I will support her 100%. If she wants to do other things as well, I would support her and encourage her to do those things too.

I would want her to pursue a goal because I think it is important that kids learn how to do that. It is a skill, and one that many people do not have. Too many of us sit around and just hope or wish something great will happen for us. Maybe because we never learned what we really loved to do or how to do it?

This is what I think is missed in the topic of “specialization” when discussed and debated. There is not a “one size fits all approach” to this topic. A child specializing in something they are passionate about is not a bad thing, nor should a parent or child feel they are doing something wrong. BUT, and this is a HUGE BUT and where the line is thickly drawn, to FORCE or MANIPULATE a child to specialize in the hopes to move up teams in a club, play in high school, get a scholarship, or a pro-contract can be detrimental to a child’s development and is fundamentally wrong. Also, even if a kid is only playing one ORGANIZED sport, there should be plenty of opportunities for the child to play other sports (or activities) in an unorganized way.

With everything in life, we are best at the things we love to do and choose to pursue on our own. Specialization is not the issue. The issue is the pressure from overzealous coaches and parents who force kids into specializing in a single activity when it is not appropriate or the desire of the child. Kids should be encouraged to pursue many interests and passions, but should also be allowed to spend the time they want on the things that mean the most to them.

Passion is a fire that should always be fueled by love and the opportunity to pursue dreams and goals. Manipulation and pressure are the quickest ways to put that fire out, forever.