The Soccer Sidelines

I had just earned my first coaching certification in the grassroots game and was still proud and amazed by how much I had learned. Standing in the foyer of one of my player's homes, the mother of this player took in my happy chatter about what I had done and the plans I was making for her son and the other players in the upcoming season. Her head tilted a little to one side and her face struck a pose that looked like she had just sucked a lemon. "Why would you DO that for rec?" she asked. I will never forget that sour face. Or my disappointment and surpsise.Sour faced woman with closed body postureI was looking right back at her with what was probably a similar face... Well, mine was a face that probably went through a metamorphosis through surprise and puzzlement before it achieved a similar sour pose. "Why would you NOT do that for rec?" I asked. "The age band and range of motivations in the grassroots game is broader than we find on select teams. I never know who is going to show up and it's hard enough to make the most of our time when I know who's coming in advance. The more we know about reaching kids where they are, the more fun they're likely to have. There is so much we can do..."I could see that my logic and excitement was well buried under the grassroots game label. This mom had a daughter who played select travel soccer and was surrounded regularly by others that bought into labels and marketing hype. The fundamentals of youth development, the statistics of how many kids actually play soccer in college or at a professional level, and the challenges facing a coach supporting the grassroots game were not going to get me anywhere that evening. What I discovered in my training to be interesting and even profound was considered pedestrian in that foyer that evening.  It was time for me to take my lumps, shut my mouth, and move on. What is the Grassroots Game?The grassroots game is often referred to as recreational soccer or "rec" for short. Distinguishing characteristics of this form of the game include, but are not limited to:No tryouts neededInexpensive (under $200) seasonal fees50% play time guaranteeLocal practices and gamesEmphasis on life lessons, age appropriate development, and funHigh levels of VolunteerismInexpensive uniform kitsThe grassroots game sounds pretty horrible, right? Sarcasm intended. If you're a parent or a coach and you're scratching your head about how the grassroots game can get a bad name, stick around. I'll give you some reasons, but if you are scratching your head, then excellent! You know how I felt that night in the foyer. That mom made me think. Is there something I missed about the way I was thinking about this game or was she missing something? You decide. Why the Sour Face for the Grassroots Game? In three words, marketing, ego, and investment. Here's the deal: Grassroots or Recreational soccer is no where near as profitable as select or travel soccer. Follow the money and you will find prettier everything - fields, uniforms, training equipment, backpack bling - even labels. There are some behind the $17 Billion youth sports industry who know your weaknesses. They know you want your kid to be associated with words like Elite - possibly the most over used word in the expensive brands of soccer. They know you're going to feel pressure from fellow parents. "Where does your kid play?""My kid plays for XY Elite!""Oh wow... that's so cool!"It's a rush for many - parents, coaches, and administrators alike - to get to the top of a hill. Don't ask me to show you the hill because most of it is imaginary. But make no mistake: Competition is equally as real for adults in this game as it is for the kids - sometimes competition among adults is even more intense. My son qualified to play on select travel teams. He did and he enjoyed his experience, but when asked if he wanted to "move up" and play for "White" or for "Blue" teams - the next rung in a hierarchical ladder of good, better,

Returning to youth sports is something we all want to see happen - the sooner the better. Let's get ready for the fun to come!

At long last, it's time to try to get back to the field. What we're returning to looks very different from what it used to be like before COVID-19, but it's a start. In this episode, let's talk about who's returning to play, how we're returning to play, and take in a good example of return to play guidelines.  Is it Time to Return to Play? In the World: German Bundesliga says that it returned to play May 15th English Premiere League announced that it will return to play June 17th The Italians Serie A announced that it will return to play on June 20th. The French have announced that they will not be returning to play in the near term In the US: NWSL announced on May 27th that it will be returning to play with a 25 game tournament that starts on June 27th.  USL Championship Board of Governors voted to return to play - target July 11th The MLS is targeting early July to return to play while they work through a number of obstacles I talk about in the show.  It looks like the time is now to start stepping carefully back onto the field - with restrictions I talk about in the show that are described in the document in the resources section of the show notes below.  Please: support the show and join our community as a Patron through my Patreon page Resources Cadeaux, Ethan, and NBC Sports Washington. “NWSL Announces Return to Play with 25-Team Tournament.” NBC Sports Washington, 27 May 2020, www.nbcsports.com/washington/soccer/soccers-back-nwsl-announces-return-play-25-team-tournament. Butler, Alex. “Soccer Return: Messi, Barcelona to Play June 13; Ronaldo, Juventus on June 22.” UPI, UPI, 3 June 2020, www.upi.com/Sports_News/Soccer/2020/06/03/Soccer-return-Messi-Barcelona-to-play-June-13-Ronaldo-Juventus-on-June-22/8021591181655/. Gardner, Hayes. “USL Championship's Vote Is Promising First Step in Return to Play.” Journal, Louisville Courier Journal, 4 June 2020, www.courier-journal.com/story/sports/soccer/louisville-city-fc/2020/06/04/loucity-fc-usl-championship-announces-return-play/3146931001/. Baxter, Kevin. “MLS Players Union Ratifies Agreement Clearing Way for Return in Early July.” Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 3 June 2020, www.latimes.com/sports/soccer/story/2020-06-03/mls-players-union-agree-to-return-to-play-plan. “Arizona Soccer Association Return-to-Play Guidelines.” Arizona, www.azsoccerassociation.org/arizona-soccer-association-return-to-play-guidelines-/.

Connect with me: https://thesoccersidelines.com/connect/What are solidarity payments, why do we have them, and how do they work? Do they work at all in the United States? Let's talk through a use case.In this episode, we share some recent news, then jump into the concept of solidarity payments. Specifically, we talk through the case of DeAndre Yedlin, featuring Crossfire Premiere, FIFA, USSF, and the MLS.  At the end of this episode, I hope that the concept of solidarity payments (and training compensation) are a little more clear. May 27, 2015 - Shah Alam, Malaysia: Tottenham Hotspurs play the Malaysian Selection soccer team in a friendly match at the Shah Alam Stadium in Malaysia. The English Premier League football club is on their Asia-Australia tour.COVID-19 Impact on the GameWPSL and ODP have both suspended their summer programming & are looking forward to the Fall. Expect to see more delayed openings and Summer impact across the US. As the country re-opens, it will likely be uneven and state or regionally based. The game of soccer is a social game. Not only do we have 22 players on the field, but we have active and very social sidelines. Part of the joy of the game is playing and chatting with others in concentrated fields and sideline environments. It'll be impossible to do social distancing with players and nearly impossible to social distance on the sidelines. Kids are at home and many are not working out regularly. A big question in my mind as a coach, is how can we keep our kids engaged and active? This is when super coaching and parental support can play a big role.  Please: support the show and join our community as a Patron through my Patreon pageWhat is Training Compensation?From MLCSoccer.com: "Under the FIFA Regulations, when a player registers as a professional for the first time in a country other than the one where he did his training, the club with which he registers is responsible for paying Training Compensation to every club that contributed to his training, starting from the season of his 12th birthday through the season of his 21st birthday. Additionally, Training Compensation is due on a player's subsequent international transfer through the season of his 23rd birthday to his immediately prior professional club."These exist as a way to incentivize youth clubs to do their best at developing players, to invest in the development environment, and to earn some rewards for the effort. The US system is largely paid for by parents, sponsorships, and charitable donations. Is it fair for US-based clubs to also get training compensation and/or solidarity payments? Is this "double dipping" or getting paid twice to develop youth, or is this a system we should consider embracing - possibly phasing out high family costs? What are Solidarity Payments in US Soccer?From MLSsoccer.com: "Under the FIFA Regulations, any time that a professional player is transferred (whether on a temporary or on a permanent basis) from a club in one FIFA member association (i.e., a federation) to a club in another federation during the course of his contract, up to five percent of the transfer fee is to be withheld and paid by the club receiving the player proportionally to the club(s) involved in that player's training during the years between his 12th and 23rd birthdays. Unlike Training Compensation, which is only paid for players who have not yet reached the end of their age-23 season, Solidarity Payments will be due for the duration of a player's professional career, any time he is transferred between federations while under contract and a transfer fee is paid."What are Your Thoughts?This is an issue with lots of arguments and interesting positions. Any time money is at the center, things like Training Compensation and Solidarity payments are going to be contentious. Is it time to embrace a more European style of funding the game? Should we consider instead Norway's model?

In this episode, post a thank you sign for essential workers, host a MASKquerade, and check in on the DA and ODP. From senior graduating without a prom or even a formal graduation to players finding new homes after being displaced from the DA, I cover several topics in an informal discussion format made specially for these Pandemic times.  Share Your Wisdom with High School Seniors! I'm asking you to help me assemble an audio mosaic for 2020 graduating high school seniors. Would you wish them well? Offer them wisdom from your own experience? Visit the tab above, click the orange button about half way down the page, and leave a short comment or wisdom. I will assemble our comments together for our graduating seniors and post a Bonus episode just for them!  If you don't want to leave a voice message, write me instead! All of my contact info is listed on this page.  Please: support the show and join our community as a Patron through my Patreon page Our MASKquerade Photo Shoot 6' of separation? No problem! Wear a mask in public? No problem! We managed to put together a 2020 prom photo shoot in the midst of a global pandemic! These young ladies looked great and they had some fun with the default theme of the year! Masks are in fashion this year, and hopefully won't be back for any future prom season, so why not embrace the situation as it is and make it fun?! There was a lot of giggles and laughter under these masks. We even had some fun with a jail theme! Is ODP Still a Thing? Yes! ODP is still producing world class players who are emerging on the world stage. If playing soccer on a US Olympic team is your thing, then it's definitely worth a look! What's Going on With DA Players Since the DA was shut down, some have opted to raft together and start a new league called the Girl's Academy (GA). Others have decided to join ECNL. Others will go on to join US Youth Soccer and/or the Olympic Development Program (ODP). The key is to stay humble and keep playing! Essential Employee Gratitude Project Update After several meetings, our Club's project leadership team has decided to create signs with open space on them. Families will be encouraged to contribute to our fundraising effort and "sponsor" a sign or multiple signs. Families will be encouraged to decorate the signs with messages of thanks and to post thee signs throughout our community in thanks for essential worker's service.  Any additional money collected will be turned into meals for essential workers in various favorite locations around our community.  What kinds of projects are you workin on in your community? Please share some of the good ideas you're seeing and tell us how it's going!

It is official. US Soccer has shut down the US Soccer Development Academy effective immediately. This is officially due to "...extraordinary and unexpected circumstances around the COVID-19 pandemic...” but SoccerWire and other news outlets suggest that there is more to the story.  Rumors, articles, social media, and blog posts have been circulating for days. Let's talk about it.  Rumor is Confirmed On April 11th, 2020, SoccerWire carried an article titled: "Opinion: COVID-19 provides US Soccer opportunity to shut down Development Academy." This hit my Twitter feed first, and as you know, I almost reported it to you in Episode 124, but I held it back because at that stage it was still a rumor. I couldn't find any solid evidence that this was definitely going to happen and didn't want to use this show to spread rumors. We talked instead about being critical about the news we're seeing today.  It's no longer a rumor. One hour after I published Episode 124, US Soccer announced that it was closing the US Soccer Development Academy for good. The reason they cited in the letter they released was "...extraordinary and unexpected circumstances around the COVID-19 pandemic...”  I've been around too long to believe the publicly released reasons for just about anything of significance going on are the whole story. There is always more to things than the public story. So I started to dig in.  Please: support the show and join our community as a Patron through my Patreon page Contributing factors to closing the US Soccer Development Academy The SoccerWire article lists four potential reasons for shutting down the US Soccer Development Academy (DA). I've listed them here for your convenience, but be sure to read the full article for the rest of the story and context.  The Girls DA has never taken hold as the nation's most elite league, and has recently been losing very strong clubs back to ECNL. Having talent split between two leagues is definitely inhibiting development of the most elite players, and there is no solution in sight for getting the best players and clubs in the same environments anytime soon. This would solve that problem overnight. The Boys DA has become more a story of Major League Soccer run, cost-free academies; and then the best of the rest for years. While the top boys' talent plays in the DA if there's a club near their homes, every year U.S. Soccer makes some type of adjustments to the competition structure and schedule. And MLS clubs have long been rumored to be on the verge of staging a break-a-away league all their own anyway. Cost – U.S. Soccer spends around $9 Million on the DA's per year, and gets little but grief for most of their investments. With an all new management team at the top of the Federation, and the very real likelihood of an 8-figure financial settlement on the way with the U.S. Women's National Team, cutting bait now would remove a lot of distractions and sure up what may become much-needed cash in the coming years, before the expected windfalls of the 2026 World Cup. Equality – Reference the issues with the Girls DA lagging far behind the boys' version in their efforts to consolidate talent. These are modern times, and U.S. Soccer has struggled greatly in the court of public opinion over their treatment of the women's game. I cannot imagine a world where U.S. Soccer could shut down the Girls DA and not do the same with the Boys. It has to be all or nothing if it's indeed happening. The 2019 Split  On August 9th, 2019, USSoccerplayers.com reported in an article titled "US SOCCER ADDS ANOTHER ISSUE WITH DEVELOPMENT ACADEMY SPLIT" that the USSF was splitting the DA into two tiers: a red upper tier and a blue lower tier, and resulting in 44 teams being demoted. The move was described as a way to even out an otherwise uneven playing field in which some DA teams were getting crushed and others were dominating. This split caused a lot of stress throughout the system,

There are two big things worth paying closer attention to today: 1. the great things people are doing during this crisis. 2. The proliferation of bad, incomplete, politically motivated, or deliberately incorrect information being shared all over our news outlets and social media channels. Gratitude changes everything - handwriting on a napkin with a cup of espresso coffeeSome Great Things Are Being DoneDavid Barbour from FC Copa is a listener of the show and has responded to episode #122 that I did three weeks ago titled "What can we do during the COVID-19 Crisis?" Listen to David talk about what he and the folks at FC Copa are doing to support their community during this pandemic crisis. Jen Anderson, Nabil Chehab, and Matt Kendall from the Damascus Soccer Club are spearheading an essential worker thank you campaign that includes signs, fundraising and meals for those putting their lives on the line for us so we can have essential products and services.  Please: support the show and join our community as a Patron through my Patreon pageSegment Two: Bad Information and RumorsI was nearly duped into delivering you a rumor instead of factual news. It made me reflect on the proliferation of bad information, mis information, and disinformation. This is a big problem when it is fueled by fear, greed, and politics. We're in an election year. We are steeped in fear about the virus and a growing fear about the economy. We are surrounded by wolves trying to make a buck off of our fear. Now, it is more important than ever to be critical about what is being said, who is saying it, what their motivations may be, and what is not being said. ResourcesBoehm, Charles. “US Soccer Adds Another Issue with Development Academy Split.” US Soccer Players, 9 Aug. 2019, ussoccerplayers.com/2019/08/us-soccer-adds-another-issue-with-development-academy-split.html.

Human history is like a book with many chapters. Every generation writes their piece and leaves their mark. Some chapters are uneventful and boring. Our chapter is not. The early part of the century brought us the Spanish Flu, the Golden Age, World War I, and the Great Depression. The middle of the century brought us World War II, the Holocaust, The Desert Fox, Vietnam, America's first orchestrated coup of a foreign country, Woodstock, free love, and bell bottoms. The later part of the century brought a break from the Gold standard, the S&L crisis, The Tax Reform Act, NAFTA, Desert Storm, bank failures, Cabbage Path Kids, and the a presidential impeachment. So far, the 2000's have brought Y2K, 9/11 , more Desert Storm, more coups, global warming, the 2008 mortgage crisis, another impeachment, BREXIT, bank failures,  the Patriot Act, and most recently, a black swan called COVID-19. COVID-19 is unique in that it has profoundly impacted the entire world and it was utterly unexpected by world leaders, markets, or working citizens everywhere. This one event is likely to leave its mark on the world for generations to come. Our kids and grandkids will be talking about the Global Pandemic. We're making history, and the decisions we make and actions we take now matter. The World is Changing for "Good"Of course, we see lots of bad stuff going on. First off, a global pandemic that has the characteristics of COVID-19 is bad. Being locked up in our homes and restricted from socializing is bad. Not being able to work and bring in income is bad. But you don't need come to this show to talk about the bad stuff. It's everywhere. Even where things are not that bad, the fact that humans generally don't like change amplifies the bad in the changes we're experiencing. It is possible to find some good stuff if we look. For every negative, there is a positive (and vice versa), because nature exists in balance. I've listed at least five things that are changing in our world. I suspect each of these things are changing for good. Of course, I recognize that they will change again sometime down the road, but there are some things that exist in different form before COVID-19 and after COVID-19.  Please: support the show and join our community as a Patron through my Patreon pageFive Ways the World is ChangingSocial Distancing and the behaviors discovered and refined during social distancing are here to stay. We're not going to stay 6 feet from one another forever, but we will be thinking about vectors of transmission and about new ways of connecting will stick around. Technology is taking amore prominent role in our lives. The learning curve for adoption of some technologies like video conferencing is forced upon us. This will mean more of this technology in the future - along with the behaviors (like telework) that are enabled by these technologies. We're finding community again! Community becomes a lot more important when we need one another. At times like Global pandemics, information exchange, social outreach, and appreciating one another are all going up. The environment is getting cleaner! People are seeing fish in the water in Venice! The sky is turning blue again! The fact that we're not rushing around so much as the world is changing is having a positive effect on the environment. Families are being stress tested. Some families are buckling under the pressure, but many families are finding new ways to appreciate and support one another. Always two sides to every coinOne the one side, we're seeing the negatives of the fact that the world is changing: forfeiture of human rights and privacy, death and pain from disease, financial ruin for many families and small business owners, etc. On the other side, we can find gratitude in having a family, in finding new ways to connect, and in appreciating one another like we used to! 

Having a global pandemic on the loose is a scary thing under any circumstances, but limit social interactions and keep people from congregating and we're facing double trouble! Humans tend to raft together in times of crisis. This behavior kept us alive when we came down from the tree and faced off against predators. People all around the world are asking themselves: what can we do during the COVID-19 crisis? In this episode, let's talk about some of the cool things going on and maybe stimulate some  thinking around how we can weather this storm a little easier.  What we're facing The challenge isn't just with the virus. There are financial implications for everyone. There is social isolation at a time when humans are used to coming together. There is a lack of exercise options, major changes in routine, fear mongering on the TV, and kids who need our positivity at a time when positivity seems to be in short supply.  Add to this genuine concerns that people have  for loved ones who may be in a higher risk category, and the situation becomes all-pandemic, all-the-time discussions - which leads to fatigue.  The multiplicity of the challenge means a range of secondary effects like depression, getting out of shape, and emotional damage caused by stress. Not great for strengthening the immune system! Please: support the show and join our community as a Patron through my Patreon page Some cool things people are doing As we wrestle with the question, what can we do during the COVID-19 crisis, some thought leaders are stepping up and making a difference in our communities.  Lauri Lane from the Potomac Soccer Club is bringing professional soccer players online to interact with kids in the club.  Steve Knapman from the Potomac Soccer Club has created a season-long development program that kids can do from home.  John Dingle from Soccer Source 360 has his kids doing landscaping jobs and making their home look beautiful.  Rick Watts of St Mary's Soccer Club took his camera, a tripod, a ball, and his son out back to record a series of exercises that kids from his club can do at home.  Each of these projects bring fitness, connection, and value into an otherwise dark situation. Local leaders all over the country are stepping up to do their part and help community keep life going! What can we do during the COVID-19 crisis? Ask yourself and really think about it for a few minutes each day: what can we do during the COVID-19 crisis? Think about this question in terms of yourself (it's important to be a little selfish and give yourself the gift of fitness and stress relief), in terms of your family, and in terms of your community. If you can think of and implement just one idea - good or bad - you might not only make someone's day better, but you may inspire others to do the same. The biggest super power that humans have is community! Please share! I want your idea to help inspire others to try the same. Our community here at The Soccer Sidelines is growing every week. It's full of smart, caring, motivated people who might just pick up your idea and make it real in their community. A little sharing goes a long way.  As you think about what we can do during the COVID-19 crisis, remember that there are lot's of us who would love to know (and maybe try) some of the things you're doing to keep fun in the house!

When bad news is filling our air waves and social media apps... when we're locked in our homes, faced with empty shelves, overflowing with toilet paper, and feeling a little down, we sometimes need to look at the bright side. In this episode, let's talk about the positives of a global pandemic!Making Lemonade out of LemonsLife throws some bitter stuff at us sometimes. Whether we're playing soccer and get a bad bounce in a pass or we're sitting at home avoiding public gatherings during a global crisis, the skill of making lemonade out of lemons gives us power. It allows us to tap positive energy, be creative, and quench our thirst for life - hardships and all. This year, we're suffering form a global response to a new virus that seems to be infecting every country in the world. It's a bad flu, basically. It's called COVID-19. And it's triggered fear, uncertainty, economic hardship, and frustration around the world.  Please: support the show and join our community as a Patron through my Patreon page What are Some Positives of a Global Pandemic?It might seem strange to think there are positives of a global pandemic, but there are two sides of every coin. The side we chose to see can make all the difference in our ability to cope and persevere when things get hard. Our lives are being disrupted. Is disruption always bad? I am arguing that it's not always bad. Sometimes, a disruption in our regular routine is exactly what we need to reset. Sometimes downtime is productive. Sometimes, not fighting traffic can be a gift. Assuming you chose to see the positives of a global pandemic, here are some things we might talk more about:Extra manpower and incentive for Spring CleaningRead more booksSee family again when they're home from schoolTake a pause from hectic everyday life and reflect on what really mattersBipartisan politics have no place in a global crisisGet projects one that you've been putting off - ordering product for renovations, SEO, building a courseFewer cars on the roadA realization that we still need one another The best of us are popping out and offering to help neighbors: shopping, food and TP drives, running errandsPeople are getting educated on medical basics like washing hands, transmission vectors, etc. The general IQ of the television we're watching is going up, less mindless entertainment and more contentOur resilience is showingThe best in people comes out in the worst of timesMany interesting and key conversations are teed up for us to have with our kidsHave More Positives?I don't think this list has to be exhaustive for the point to be made. There are many positives of a global pandemic. To see them, we simply need to look. I've got comments open on this show's Website, on our Facebook page, and on Twitter. Have you got a few extra minutes? How about sharing a positive that you've experienced (or will experience) as a result of this global pandemic? Personally, I think this kind of conversation is a nice needed break from the regular stream of news the networks are continually sharing. 

If our goal is to deliberately expose our kids to Character Development coaching this season, then we need an actual plan. We can't leave it to chance that our kids are going to understand the hidden life lessons youth sports teaches. Teamwork, work ethic, perseverance, sportsmanship... these are all multi-syllable words to kids without concrete examples. In this post, I'm going to walk trough an actual 8-week character development coaching program that you can print out and put to work in your club in about a week. If you're not a coach, listen in because this isn't just about coaches. If you want your kids to understand the lessons and remember them, the lessons need to be called out and rewarded. This episode will give you more to celebrate than a scoreboard win. We will discuss the what, the when, and the how of coaching Character Development in a standard single season of youth sports. Let's talk about it. Getting StartedThe program I've laid out in this session has a communication component, a fundraising component, a reward component, and a method for getting it done during an actual eight or ten-week season. For the big picture program overview, please see episode 119 titled Have-a-Ball Character Development Program. Episode 119 describes the 7 steps to follow to set a program like this up. I include some costs and budgets, communication, and source of funds recommendations. In this episode, I'm fast-forwarding into an 8-week soccer season and lay out the pre-game, game day, and post game activities that coaches and parents can follow and support across your entire club in order to make this character development program work. I'm including a downloadable .pdf in the show notes for this episode, so you can have a tangible copy of the program, including recommended coaching questions and a section for reflection after each character lesson. If you're worried that you already have your hands full with trying to teach the basics and you simply won't have time or bandwidth to be deliberate about coaching character development, then this is where I promise you the program is really simple. I'm using standard coaching methodology you should already be familiar with. The only thing you need to add are a few meaningful questions (I provide some concrete examples), a reward mechanism (like a custom game ball or a patch or a mention in your organization newsletter), and the discipline to follow through each week with what's laid out. If you can do these three things consistently, you will no longer have to guess about the lessons your players are learning. You'll know exactly what you're doing and when.  Please: support the show and join our community as a Patron through my Patreon pageThe Character Development Coaching Program On One PageWe have to keep it simple. One page is all you need to understand the full 8 weeks of a program like this. Most of what we'll be doing is stuff that's already happening every day - most of the time without being recognized. All we need to do to be intentional about Character Development, is to drop some key questions as seeds, keep our eye out for emerging behaviors, and reward them. Whether you chose to use a custom ball as I did in Have-a-Ball, you give out patches, or you simply recognize players in a public way, the important part is that you make Character Development a deliberate part of your youth sports experience. You can download a copy of my one-page 8-week Character Development Program by simply telling me which email to send it to. Simply tell me where to send it. The WeeksI've divided the season up into 8 weeks - each with their own Character theme: Work EthicTeamworkAccountabilitySportsmanshipRespectEmpathyCouragePerseverance Each of these character themes have a definition, weekly pre-game activities to incorporate into practices, pre-game (practice day) sample questions, Game day activities, and a place for your own comments and reflection.

We need practical ways to bake character development into our youth sports programs. In this episode, I talk about one that I recently implemented in my own club and some of the ways that you can implement a similar program in yours. Being Intentional About Character DevelopmentDevelopment is a long game. It's not something that gets done in one session and it's not something that is already baked into and coaching licensing programs that I've taken yet. It's one thing to say that a character development program is already a natural byproduct of participating in youth sports, but it's another thing all together to say that we are being intentional about it. Sportsmanship is going to be learned by kids through participation in youth sports, for example. But the word Sportsmanship can be preceded by "good" or "bad." Kids are going to learn good sportsmanship and/or bad sportsmanship. Which is the one we want them to learn? How about respect. Kids will learn about respect for the Rules, Officials, Opponents, Teammates, and themSelves (ROOTS). But what will they learn? If yelling at referees is allowed, for example, then on the point of respecting referee's, the message is "we don't have to." The key to good coaching is being intentional about development. Whether we have a plan for developing foot skills and set plays, or a plan for developing transferable character skills, plans matter. Plans converted into action matter more. Let's talk about being intentional about practicing a character development program, and what that might look like on a soccer field.  Please: support the show and join our community as a Patron through my Patreon pageCatch Them Doing Something Right!In the book, The One Minute Manager, by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson, the authors talk about this concept of "catching them doing something right." It's a play on words and it's meant to highlight a management approach meant to get the most out of employees, but I've found the concept works great on a sports training field. Basically, it requires us to know what we're looking for in terms of examples of positive behavior, then go on the hunt to find and reward that behavior. In practice, this concept behind this is pretty simple. Let's say we want to develop a players first touch into space. We build up a session plan with that theme and by the final open play activity (where you're no testing for knowledge), you notice a player who had a bad first touch has improved their first touch into space. Well, bingo! That's what you were looking for! You post practice huddle might include specific praise for that player, mentioning the action you noticed as evidence of improvement. Giving praise in a public way accomplishes two big things: The player you're speaking with and about will know that you were watching and that you care. It'll make them feel good about themselves, and probably provoke a smile. Everyone in earshot (players, other coaches, officials, and/or parents) will know what you're developing and can play an important role in supporting or promoting that development. The entire ecosystem is on notice, after your praise, of what really matters in your environment. Have-a-Ball Character Development ProgramWhat follows is a seven step process for putting your Have-a-Ball Character Development Program into practice. This takes some coordination and some pre-planning, but it's not that complicated.  Step 1:Partner with a company that can provide custom balls that kids really want Step 2: Partner with parent and or local businesses to "sponsor" your have-a-ball character development program. This means they provide the financial support you need to purchase the number of balls you need.  Step 3: Purchase 1-2 balls per game for the upcoming season Step 4:Segment your season into themed weeks. For example, Week 1 = Hard Work, Week 2 = Teamwork,

On February 12th, 2020, the players association representing the men's national soccer team made a public statement that sends shock waves through the United States soccer community. If we are to believe the statement they made, it effectively draws back the curtain on previously confidential negotiations between the United States Soccer Federation and its professional players. At best, this statement hints to the inner workings of United States soccer and suggests some ways in which leadership can improve the system. At worst, their statement cripples trust and condemns our system as deeply flawed. At the very least, it draws people like you and I into the debate around discrimination and fair pay. Let's talk about it.  A Tipping Point (The Lawsuit from USWNT) On March 8th, 2019, the United States Women's National Team filed a gender discrimination lawsuit against U.S. Soccer in federal court. This lawsuit, case number 2:29-CV-01717, is a class action complaint, 25 pages long, brought by current and former members of the US Women's National Team with the help of the legal firm Winston & Strawn LLP. It alleges violations of the Equal Pay Act (EPA), and title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  The USSF discriminates against Plaintiffs, and the class that they seek to represent, by paying them less than members of the MNT for substantially equal work and by denying them at least equal playing, training, and travel conditions; equal promotion of their games; equal support and development for their games; and other terms and conditions of employment equal to the MNT. USWNT The lawsuit "seeks an end to the USSF's discriminatory practices, and an award to make Plaintiffs and the class whole, as well as to provide for liquidated and punitive damages and all other appropriate relief."  It might help to understand this dispute as one between employers (USSF) and labor (the USWNT in this case). The WNT is presenting themselves as employees of USSF, a 501(c)3 nonprofit. They represent that they receive pay and a series of benefits from USSF such as coaches, trainers, nutritionists, doctors, massage therapists, etc. To give you some context around staffing, at the USSF annual general meeting (AGM) on the 14th of February, USSF revealed that the USWNT has a staff of 35 people caring for 23 players.  In addition to staffing, the class action reveals the USSF provides other benefits like deciding the number of games that will be played, where they will be played, practice fields, locker rooms, game surfaces, exercise equipment, scheduling times, transportation, and more.  The WNT claims that USSF provides centralized management and control, that the women require equal skill, effort and responsibilities as their male counterparts, and that the women have "Achieved unmatched success in International soccer leading to substantial profits for the USSF as employer."  Some stats the WNT cite include three World Cup titles and four Olympic Gold Medals. They point out that they were three-time winners of the U.S. Olympic Committee's Team of the Year Award, and Sports Illustrated's Athlete of the Year. They're ranked number one in the World, a position they've held for ten out of the last eleven years.  They claim to have generated "substantial" revenue and profits for the USSF. This is a claim I questioned as I read through the materials in preparation for this show. As President of a 501(c)3 nonprofit myself, I know it is not legal to generate profit in the pure sense. For your information, what we might call "profit" in the nonprofit world is usually classified as "retained earnings." In other words, money generated must be recycled back into support of the mission - something I may talk more about at another time.  There are several references in this class action to "profit," "net loss," and "net profit" that I hope can be better clarified with the help of an actual nonprofit accounting professional.

Happy President's Day 2020! Big news in the world of US Soccer this week. Full episode coming soon after the holiday. Get ready!

None of us are perfect parents. Let's talk about a parenting and work promotion tool that is within your reach. Improve your parenting and your career!

This episode was inspired by another great sideline chat. This one was between myself and a soccer day on the side of our futsal court last weekend. His son is looking at playing for more than one soccer team at the same time in the Spring. He was asking me about it & it reminded me of you, of course. You should hear what we talked about.  We talk a lot about multi-sport kids and the advantages kids can have by rounding out and improving their overall athletic IQ, but how about those kids who love soccer and want different experiences from different levels of competition and/or different groups of friends?  What is a Multi-Team Kid Both my son and daughter were both multi-team kids. They played for more than one team each season. My daughter played on two teams at the same time. My son played on three. They got something different from each environment.  A multi-team kid is a kid who plays for more than one team in the same sport at the same time. Many of you should be cringing when I say this, but it's not uncommon. It's also not without its risks. What follows will be a discussion about some of those risks, the rewards, and what families and coaches should consider when dealing with multi-team kids.  Please: support the show and join our community as a Patron through my Patreon page Why Would Kids Play on More Than One Team?  A lot of it comes down to friends. Kids have friends on other teams that play in other leagues. They connect with one another in school. They say things like "You should come play with us. We have fun!" Kids hear about different styles, different experiences, and they want to go where their friends are and try new stuff. This is all very natural.  Other reasons to play on more than one team might be to find new challenges. Many kids love to play in a relaxed environment where fun and friendship rule AND in a more challenging environment where a crispy through pass is received by a competent player who can use it to the team's advantage. I'm not saying that either is more or less fun or that there are not competent players in recreation or classic programs. I'm merely pointing out that there are multiple reasons why players might like to play on more than one team.  For some, it's about exposure. Though I fear this is too often more of a marketing gimmick to attract parents willing to pay big bucks, than it is an actual opportunity to be scouted. Clubs, coaches, or parents move kids from platform to platform hoping to find the right platform so their kid can have the best chance of being discovered. While discovery is possible, see my episode describing US Soccer's alphabet soup for reasons why this might not be the best strategy.  Considerations As a coach, I want to be clear right out of the gate that playing on multiple teams in the same sport in the same season has risks. It can be made to work, but there are things we need to think about. Going down this path will require additional communication and in some cases, checking with your medical professionals.  So what are the risks?  Overuse Injuries: rest and variety are important to the human body. Injuries occur when we perform the same task over and over again. Running too much can lead to shin splints, tendonitis, hip pain, back pain, and even fractures. An exclusive focus on one sport (one set of similar actions) doesn't allow other supportive tissue structures to form. This, combined with repetitive stress placed on the same structures without adequate rest can result in injuries. These can be serious enough to take a player out of the game - or worse. It's important to avoid overuse injuries.   Confusion: at the younger ages - below 13 - specialization really shouldn't be the primary focus, but for 13 and above, kids are starting to identify with positions and will begin to take deeper dives into those positions in terms of what skills and attributes those positions need. The coach often has some input as to where players fit toge...

I was minding my own business, eating my lunch alone at a table when two women asked to join me at my table. The conversation that would unfold for the next hour or so went way beyond my expectations.Before I went to this convention, I thought that gender bias in the game was mostly as a thing that didn't have any real effect on my life. Today, I can't stop seeing it everywhere - I mean everywhere. In this episode, I want to talk about women and gender bias in the game and in life. What is gender bias and how is it affecting not only the women in our world, but the men, our children, and the entire game. I don't know if this episode is more for my men or women listeners, but I promise you, it's worth paying attention to. Let's talk about it. What is Gender Bias?Unfair difference in the way women and men are treated.Understanding the definition of Gender Bias is easy. But I think actually understanding and appreciating gender bias in real life and the effect that it has on us - men, women, and children alike - is a whole other ball game. I've known the definition of gender bias for years. But as with most hot button issues, I didn't think it applied to me, so I honestly just considered it one of those many social problems that someone else was better at dealing with. I was wrong. As a manager of employees, I felt like I always stood ready to address a gender bias or sexism issue if it ever came to my attention, but it rarely showed up explicitly. When it did, I was there to do my part in dealing with it, but honestly, I thought it was another of those issues that the media and social pressures were blowing out of proportion. There is so much noise about groups being unfairly treated these days, they're enough to make anyone curl into the fetal position and cry uncle. So... I live my life and put the noise on ignore. Again, I was wrong.  Please: support the show and join our community as a Patron through my Patreon pageMy History with Female Gender BiasAs with most things, I think it's useful to know where I'm coming from when I talk about this. My perspective is likely different from yours because my exposure has been different. I'm a 6'2" man who's had many successes in life. I've climbed to the top of several career ladders. I have a great family. I don't fear walking alone at night. And I have had what I believe are many healthy professional relationships with women employees, peers, and supervisors over the years. My mother is a feminist. She grew up with four older brothers in New York, and from the stories she told me, her life was a testosterone heavy environment. My uncles were scrappers. Gender inequality affected her profoundly, and to this day, she and my sister are pretty adamant about the idea that whatever men can do, women can do better. To them, it doesn't matter what. Women can pretty much do anything better than men. As a boy and later as a young man growing up, the continual refrain became pretty annoying actually. I felt like I got it already and wondered what they wanted me to do about it. I never felt like pay inequality or glass ceilings made sense. I won a lot of work related awards and I've been beaten by women who were clearly better the job than I was and genuinely celebrated their success. As a Treasurer and member of the board of directors for a fire department I was a member of as a young man, I was the lone voice advocating for two women to join the department in the late 80's, early 90's when women were boxed out of the fire service.I spent a lot of my life working in operational environments, and I treasured having a female partner. I'll talk more about that in a few minutes, but to me, male/female partners were more balanced; a yin and yang working together in harmony. I was medical operations and I found that we reached and connected with more humanity together than we ever could as single sex teams. I felt that gender bias was not my problem.

I'm trying to find way to deliver perhaps one of the most important life lessons that youth sports can teach. I want to help people transition from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset. In this episode, I'll explain the differences between the two, how they each manifest on the pitch and in real life, and share some ideas I have so far. I want your input here, so if something I say strikes a chord with you, please use one of the many avenues I've given you to connect with me at https://thesoccersidelines.com/connect/. Let's talk about fixed vs growth mindset and how each of these can have profound consequences on our own and our children's ability to succeed in youth sports and in life. Why Two Mindsets?Very simply, I'm referring to a body of work done by a Stanford psychologist, Carol Dweck, Ph.D in a book titled Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.  If you have not read her book and you find what we're talking about today interesting, I welcome you to use the link I put in my show notes to pick up a copy and read it. That link is my Amazon Affiliate link, so you'll contribute like five cents to the show, but every penny counts. Dr. Dweck's work really resonated with me because after being exposed to the concept, I was immediately able to see the two mindsets in my own two kids at home, and in the kids I was coaching on the field. I tagged myself as a growth mindset kinda guy, and found her work provided me a very useful mental framework that I could use to categorize just about everyone in a few short minutes of getting to know them.Understanding fixed vs growth mindset is really about understanding how people view themselves. Do they see the world as a fixed immovable object that they need to navigate, or do they view themselves as in control over creating the world they live in? Once you know how people view themselves and the world around them, you have a vital piece of information in hand regarding how they are going to respond to challenges. As a parent or as a coach (or as a manager), it's important to know where people are so we can get a better sense of what we need to work on in order to help them realize their full potential. From there, we can tailor our own behavior, tone, what we talk about, how we talk about it, etc in such a way that appeals to the people we're trying to connect with. It also helps with patience if we understand where certain behaviors are coming from.  Please: support the show and join our community as a Patron through my Patreon pageWhat is a Fixed Mindset?The first mindset she calls a "fixed" mindset. She will go into much more detail in her book, but at a high level, those with a fixed mindset are likely to believe that they are who they are. They came into this world with a set of skills, personality, character, and intelligence, and they need to discover it. The key here is a focus on discovering what is already there. If people with a fixed mindset discover that they are good at something, they run with it. It's great! If, on the other hand, they discover that they are not good at something, they "know" to avoid it. They wonder with every new experience: "Will I succeed or fail? Will I look smart or dumb? Will I be accepted or rejected? Will I feel like a winner or a loser?..."If you've coached kids with this mindset, you'll know that it takes a lot of effort to convince them to get on the ball at home if they need improvement. They assume they're not good, so there isn't a lot of point in working at it. Many with a fixed mindset would rather move on and try something new - to see if they're good at the new thing. If they are, they pursue that. If they're not, they take a personal hit to ego and keep searching for the thing they are good at. Fixed mindset players and adults are, in my opinion, more challenging to work with. Coaches want players who are "coachable." This means that they take criticism, suggestions, and feedback,

Sure we have bad sideline behavior, but should we blame parents? What else is at play in our world today that might lead to poor sideline behavior?

I don't think I could have anticipated in 2017, that three years later, you and I would be celebrating our third holiday season together. Whatever your favorite way to celebrate the holidays are, I'm hoping that for you it's full of family, good health, giving, and gratitude. There are a lot of ways to celebrate the holiday season, but I think they all serve to recharge our batteries for the Winter season ahead. Let's come together with our loved ones, bask in the warmth of a fire, warm food, good company, and memories I hope are positive for you. If you have memories that are not so good, let's do something to make one good memory this year we can build on next year. Parents doing piggyback to their children in countrysideFor me, I'm grateful for all the stories, tweets, emails, phone calls, and sponsorships that bring us together around the stuff that really matters for our kids and our families. As a listener of this show , you reaffirm your commitment and inspire me every week to spend the 5-8 hours it takes to produce a show and deliver it to your mobile phone, home listening device, or computer. I'm in this more than 110 episodes now. I'm finally starting to get comfortable. I'm making more and more contacts with you, and I'm starting to see some momentum build up around the things that we talk about every week. I'm not alone. There are great people trying to make a difference all around. Just check out my followers on Twitter. I've seen some really great stuff there, and I never thought I would be on Twitter or or like the kind of interactions I see among my Twitter followers. We're going to take a break for now and spend time with family. I'm hoping that you're doing the same. Please enjoy the holidays! This is the stuff that really matters! Please: support the show and join our community as a Patron through my Patreon pageTalk with you again when we return!

Individual development vs organized team sports - let's explore swimming vs soccer and the ways we support our youth in each environment.

Crafting your soccer experience have a place in the future of youth soccer. Imagine the stuff you want without the stuff you don't need. #nopaytoplay

How do you get from wherever you are in the youth soccer ecosystem to the Olympics, a National team, or a professional team? How do you make the most of your experience and come away happy that you participated? As simple as this question should be to answer, it is anything but simple. The array of options and thousands of spin offs that exist today are confusing even to those in the business of youth soccer full time. In this episode, I am going to confuse you temporarily while I lay out the scope of the Alphabet Soup problem, then Im going to try to simplify some things so you can sleep tonight. I apologize in advance for the spaghetti network of nonsense I'm going to throw at you, but if you can tough it out, my hope is that you'll have a better picture of the US soccer landscape and maybe make some more informed decisions about the future for your kids as they(and you) explore this awesome sport. Let's Back Up and Take it From the TopAt the top of the soccer pyramid is the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA). Under the Umbrella of FIFA, 3.6 Billion fans from 200 countries participate in one of six "Confederations." It was founded in 1904; headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland; and is governed by an elected president, a senior vice president, a secretary general, and 7 vice presidents. They are elected by the FIFA Congress which consists of a member from each of the associations that are part of the organization. The total number of participants is 25. They make the top strategic decisions like which nation will host the World Cup - which is held every four years. The Congress also has committees like the finance committee, fair play committee, ethics, rules, and referees. The six confederations include: Confederación Sudamericana de Fútbol (CONMEBOL) - the South American confederation with 10 members and founded in 1916 in Argentina.   The Union Des Association Europeenes de Football (UEFA) - mostly the European region with 55 members and founded in 1954 in SwitzerlandThe Asian Football Confederation (AFC) with 47 members and founded in 1954 in ManillaThe African Confederation (CAF) with 56 members, founded in 1957 in Sudan Oceania Football Confederation  (OFC) - the Pacific Island confederation with 1966 after Australia and New Zealand were rejected by the AFC. Australia left to join the AFC in 2006. And the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) with 41 members including the US, Canada, Mexico, and others, founded in 1961 in Mexico City Please: support the show and join our community as a Patron through my Patreon pageInside the United StatesSince this is a US-based podcast and I am part of a leadership team that runs an affiliate member of US Youth Soccer, I'm going to deep dive into the US system. Just know that the US is one of 41 members of CONCACAF - though it could be argued we're one of the biggest players in this confederation.  The US became an original member of CONCACAF on September 18, 1961. A bit of background you should know about is 1. the US didn't always follow FIFA 100%. That changed in 2010 and we now follow FIFA. 2. Canada, Mexico, and the United States are hosting the World Cup 2026. The last time we hosted a World Cup, the MLS was born, so many in the US are expecting positive disruption in the US Soccer Landscape in the next 5-6 years. United States Soccer Federation (USSF)At the top of the United States soccer pyramid is a 501(c)3 nonprofit governing body; headquartered in Chicago, Illinois; referred to as the United States Soccer Federation or USSF. It was founded on April 5th, 1913, and acquired provisional FIFA affiliation on August 2nd, 1913. The US became a full member on June 27, 1914. USSF also has a relationship with the U.S. Olympic Committee and the International Olympic Committee. Under US Youth Soccer,

Flame out or burn on for a lifetime of passion for movement, teamwork, and healthy living? This seems to be an essential question facing young families today - even though most hardly think about it. Personally, I think sports (and support of sport) has a place in our lives from early age on through geriatrics. Let's be real... It's more fun at any age to do something physical in the context of games or group fun than it is to grind away at the treadmill day after day. Given what we know today about the statistics of youth sports, it seems we can do better at keeping kids interest in sport. Let's talk about some numbers, some conclusions, and some recommendations that you can put into play today. Photo by: Jarek Tuszyński / CC-BY-SA-3.0 [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]The Youth PictureThere are a lot of sports to choose from. Cheerleading is up 18.2% from 2008 with 775,000 kids playing. Track and Field is down 10% from 2008 with 307,000 kids participating. Soccer is down 3.3% from 2008 with 2,200,000 kids playing. While many sports are down from 2008 participation levels, many others are up - with a huge exception: kids are leaving at earlier ages. The average age of last regular participation for the game of soccer is 9.1 years old. 9.1 years old!! Kids turning 9 are just starting to get introduced to the real game. Why are these kids leaving before they ever really get started?!Across all sports, kids are leaving by average age of 11. Just a few years ago, it was reported that 70% of kids in the US were leaving youth sports by age 14. Now it's 11?! What the heck is going on? Are these kids not having fun anymore? According to the latest Aspen Institute's Utah parent survey - reportedly not.  Please: support the show and join our community as a Patron through my Patreon pageWhat is Going On?!The top reasons cited in the reading I've done include the following:Specialization too early. Kids just want to play and have fun. Even if they're good at a sport, most kids want a chance to play other games. Multi-sport kids last longer in youth sports than single sport kids. Something to think about as we pull another few thousand bucks out of our pockets for super clubs and sexy uniforms. Too expensive. Cost is a factor. When mom and dad are always talking about how much youth sports costs (cause it costs a lot!), it puts pressure on kids. Youth sports becomes a job with expectations. They get plenty of that from schools. They don't want more from their play activities. Pressure from the sidelines. Speaking of pressure, let's face it... our sidelines are becoming a nightmare. Parents and coaches yelling like they're going to have a stroke if their kid doesn't win, or pass, or stop the ball, or make perfect set plays, or get's knocked down in the run of play. We all want our kids to be successful, but making mistakes and learning is a huge part of the youth game. Unforgiving sidelines make that impossible. Kid's don't want that. Professionalization of youth sports. When youth sports become more about winning games and entertaining the sidelines, well... you've heard me talk about this a lot in the past. The game ceases to be about the kids. This is their time. Sidelines need to leave them alone to enjoy their time. And It's Not Just the KidsI'm a coach, an administrator, a 501(c)3 board chairman, a parent, a business owner, and a podcaster. I can speak from experience. Sometimes, I've had enough and need a break. Everything except for my business revolves around youth sports - from January to December. I'm sure you can relate! When we're running every weekend to get kids to games and swim meets. When we're working in the off season to secure permits, take inventory, repair equipment, set strategic direction, execute contracts, etc. etc. etc.; a rainy day might seem like a blessing. Vacations are too few and far between even when we're NOT involved in youth sports.

In this episode, we continue the dialog about bad apple officials, introduce some practical ways we can be intentional about coaching character, and share a warning story about a lawsuit against a JV baseball coach that dragged on for 7 years and cost $75,000 for telling a player to slide into third base.More Bad ApplesA continuation fro last week's discussion, a listener writes in about his experience as a coach with a bad referee, an assistant coach's bad behavior, and parents that ultimately threatened the refs in the parking lot. This story serves to highlight the need for higher quality communication between parents, coaches, and players. When communication breaks down, assumptions get made, and feelings get hurt. Let's keep the dialog going! Share these shows with your community and help the rest of us keep the dialog going.  Please: support the show and join our community as a Patron through my Patreon pageRewarding DevelopmentHere are a couple of ideas you can use to help make coaching character intentional: 3x5 cards with development goals written on them. In this case, we pass out cards to parents on the sidelines and ask them to help us track stuff that actually matters (beyond the scoreboard). Listen to the show to see where I got the idea from and how we might use it. Ages 3-18Have-a-Ball. In this idea, we purchase game balls for every game in the season. We segment the season into weekly themes. Each week, we publish the theme of the week to coaches and parents. At the end of each game, we bring coaches and players together and give the game ball to the player(s) who best represent the character subject for the week: respect week, sportsmanship week, teamwork week, empathy week, etc. Ages 9 and above. Suing Coaches for CoachingThe article in the resources section below is a must read. Imagine coaching as every other coach does. A player gets hurt during a game, and you spend the next 5 years + $75,000 in legal fees to ultimately secure an innocent verdict. Your crime? As a 3rd-base coach, you told a player to slide into 3rd base. The player took a bad slide and broke their ankle. That break turned bad so parents sued. What might this mean for youth sports in general? What might it have meant if the coach was found guilty? How manny more lawsuits would end up in court - tying up coaches and clubs for years - simply for making a call as a coach that parents didn't agree with? What can we do to improve communication and discourse around youth sports? ResourcesPoliti, Steve. “He Told a Kid to Slide. Then He Got Sued.” He Told a Kid to Slide. Then He Got Sued., 12 Nov. 2019, https://www.nj.com/slide-trial/.

We have good eggs in every community and bad apples that ruin it for everyone. In this episode, we talk about listener-provided examples - one of each.We have stories like this going on all over the world. I would love it if you sent me one or two that I can use on the show. This stories inspire people or serve as warnings, and they keep the focus on the stuff that really matters in youth sports!A positive example of a coach strengthening 5-year-old players with encouragement Bad ApplesOur first story came from a tweet earlier this week. A listener of this show wrote me:"I'd love your thoughts on this. Today, I experienced a broken child because a referee was saying negative things about him during the game; one statement in particular that he was trash. What would be your response? How should this be handled?Dr. Timeka Cline​​ - Principal of an Elementary School in GeorgiaHow ridiculous is it for a referee to call a player "trash" in a game.  I know many referees who would find this a violation of trust and respect. I can't imagine any adult considering this acceptable behavior. This referee need to be reported to their Assignor and to league officials. In the episode, I describe my full advice to Dr. Cline.  Please: support the show and join our community as a Patron through my Patreon pageGood EggsEvery community is full of good eggs. There are many more good eggs than bad apples. In this case, a soccer parent from my own club wrote me with the following:"David,A few weeks ago, our 5-year-old son Christian, had a rough game day. He felt like he couldn't get to the ball, thought nobody wanted to play with him, he kept saying “I can't do this”. My husband, Christian's older sister, and I kept cheering him on, asking him to keep trying, to help his teammates because they needed him, to no result. He looked really sad, he cried, it was just a bad day. His coach was incredibly patient and observed, tried to engage him as much as he could. Christian wasn't responding to it. That coach never gave up on him even for a second. He showed compassion, encouragement and understanding, and finished that day still showing Christian that he was an important person there. It just wasn't a good day after all, but we thanked him so much for trying so hard to help.We know kids are resilient, but nobody wants to see their kid having a sad day. The following weekend, it looked like that same coach was ready for Christian. We noticed he put some strategies into practice that were really engaging. He had Christian (and all other players) doing designated tasks such as kick starting a few different times. He was fun, funny and also addressed the players by their names. They loved their goal celebrations, and there was Christian, at this time running, passing, and scoring, with a smile on his face. He looked confident, happy, and all because that coach, that volunteer coach, put a lot of energy into helping him, and was able to bring him out of his little limbo. We naturally thanked him again, to which he responded “See? Much better, right? I knew he would”.I wanted to bring to your attention how much our family appreciates that volunteer coach. Each family has their our stories, the behind the scenes, the challenges, and having that one person, a volunteer, who legitimately believes in your child, will always have a major impact. Not only on a Saturday 5-year-old soccer game, but as he grows and builds his character based on the impression that coaches like his coach left that day. (See attached picture - the coach with the team - Christian is on the far right) (See photo above)With gratitude,Ty"

This episode is about winning more youth soccer games. Everybody wants to win, right? So how specifically do Clubs, coaches, and teams ensure the wins? Continue on with me as we explore several ways in which you can win more games. These are tips and techniques that I have personally witnessed and are widely in use, but rarely talked about for the gotta-win club, gotta-win coach, and gotta-win youth soccer parent. Go Team!What is Winning? Winning youth sports games and in life is top of a lot of American agendas. And why wouldn't it be? If we have to spend all of the crazy money we spend to get on a youth sports team, to pay for our coach, on all the gear - and let's not forget about all the time we've invested in driving to practices and games, team parties, and sometimes messing up the car with other people's sweaty, dirty kids when it's our turn to car pool. The investment we make better pay off. Do you agree? We better see some wins on the scoreboard or we as well have saved our money and played in some Rec program or not played at all.In this episode, I'm going to share a number of ways that you can win - starting next season or even next game. If winning is your thing, then this episode is for you. These are practical tips. This is not pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking. Let's jump into the stuff we need to know and do right now.  Please: support the show and join our community as a Patron through my Patreon pageFirst Things FirstThe first thing we need to do to win more games is to set our sights firmly on winning. Having a bigger number on the scoreboard than our opponent needs to be front and center. There are multiple ways to accomplish that larger number, so we have to forget about this Kumbaya campfire marshmallow development nonsense. It's a numbers game. We have only so many kids in our community. We need to find the best ones, get them on the field, teach them how to win, and take our show on the road to bring some butt kicking to anyone who tries to stand in our way.Go the extra mile.  Games are good to win. In fact, we MUST win, but winning games is not enough. We have to remember the big picture. It's about winning consistently. We need to string wins together to make our winning track record. We need to climb over the corpses of any other team in our way as we climb the standings ladder. At the end of the season, our names will be on the trophy. If Johnny, Sam, or Jane can't cut it, bench them. Let's face it, I don't drive the kind of car that I drive to the parking lot every Saturday so we can go home a loser. We come from a winning family. We drive a winner's car. We pay winner's prices to play.  We play on winner's fields. Have you see our uniforms? Those are winner's uniforms, baby. Race car stripes down the sleeve because we're fast like race cars. If you don't know me and have never heard this show before, then hopefully, you're shaking your head, getting ready to turn off this bonehead, and go listen to something else. But you know this story is real. It's happening every day across America in youth sports. And if I want to attract parents to pay obscene amounts of money, I'm going to dangle the golden carrot in front of you. I'm going to convince you that your kid is a winner when he or she is on one of my teams. We're awesome together - especially when you pay a few thousand dollars to buy awesome stickers for the back of your car. Yeah, I may be acting out the worst among us, but there is truth between my sarcasm. The truth is: if we want to win games, we need to put winning over development. As a coach, there are plenty of games I could have won. I know how to win games. It's not hard. I don't even have to have good players. I just have to play against teams that have players who are worse than mine. It's all relative, right? Let's talk about a few other ways that I can win youth soccer games. I hope you can appreciate sarcasm. Gotta Look Good!

Twice this week, I was asked by parents - each from opposite sides of the country - about how to improve the competitive mindset of their children. One dad is father and coach of a 7-year old in California. The other is a mother of a 9-year-old in Maryland. In this episode, I will share the questions and their context and do my best - with the help of a couple of friends of mine - to address these listener questions.  There is a lot of stuff in this episode, so make yourself comfortable while we explore the question of aggression, confidence,and the competitive mindset.  Self Confidence word cloud hand sphere concept on white background. Setting the Stage with The Questions First of all, shout out to listeners of this show! You always inspire the best episodes with your questions and comments, so thank you for sharing! Don't sleep on the SpeakPipe integration I have with my Website at https://thesoccersidelines.com/connect/. SpeakPipe a cool tool that I pay for that gives you a simple press-to-talk button on your mobile device or computer where you can leave me voice feedback, ask questions, etc. I can't think of an easier way to communicate.  My first question came last Sunday at 10:30 PM Eastern from Paras. Paras writes from California: Hi,I am a dad of soccer kid who will be 7(born Nov 2012) years old next month.. I played lot of soccer and other sports in Asia during my school days. I today train my son and is also in U8 academy at local club in California.. My son skills, strength and pace is good for his age.. Besides U8 ,I enrolled him for a rec program for 2011/2012 , which was for two months at local club just to get games exposure . I noticed in these games that he was not aggressive (positive aggression) which may be because his cognitive is in developing phase ... He has a feeling that older kids will be hard on him and do something negative.. The club should have conducted the games for U8 only rather than 2011/2012..  His games with U8 kids are good.. Can you please share your experience on how can kids develop the mindset to overcome this? I am using strategy like watching with him European soccer leagues and talking /discussing with him about how players are being strong with the ball, soccer drills, motivation. Paras Tiwari  The Soccer Sidelines Listener Community My second question came to me in person during one of my Culture Walks this weekend. Culture Walks, you may recall from very early episodes back in 2017, is what I do as Club Officer to walk the sidelines of my games every weekend, evaluate coaches, connect with parents, and in general support and maintain our club culture. Conversations from my Culture Walks inspired this show.  This soccer mom in this case is wife to one of our assistant coaches, very involved with multiple sports with her kids, and generally active in the youth sports community. She asked about her 9-year-old & was wondering what she or her husband can do to improve their child's "aggression" on the pitch.  Her child plays in a recreation league, in an age band that included 9 and 10-year olds, and has played for a few years in our Academy program for younger players, ages 3-8.  Please: support the show and join our community as a Patron through my Patreon page Unpacking the Issues Paras' question is actually several great questions, relevant statements and assumptions rolled up. They deserve some unpacking as we dig into what's going on here. First for context, we're talking about a 6-year-old player. Per United Soccer Coach standards, this is a Stage 2 player. Next, we're talking about a child born in the 4th quarter of the year. See last week's episode #102 about Relative Age Effect (https://thesoccersidelines.com/relative-age-effect-in-youth-soccer/) to understand more about why this is important. His son will son be 7. His player has a mixture of academy and recreation games experience and Dad noticed that his son is not as aggressive in the game environment as he...

Relative Age Effect in Youth Soccer is a bias that highlights the attention we give towards winning vs development. At its worst, it can be cheating

Travel tournaments can be full of excitement and fun. What are the pros and cons of travel tournaments for our players and families?

I'm hearing some variation of this over and over again: "My kids looked forward to playing varsity soccer in high school, but they (or we) have been disappointed with the experience." Why?  In this article, let's explore the downside of the varsity experience and what we can do about it.  The Varsity Experience Summary Where we live, our Varsity players play 12 games in 6 weeks. After tryouts, selected players get a few weeks of preparation, then a rapid fire schedule of games and practices. There are playoffs at the end and teacher-coaches along the way. Kids play in front of their peers for school pride. Wins are lauded during the school day. Losses lamented. Cheer leaders turn out to fire up the crowds and all manner of fast food is sold, along with $5 tickets to get in.  Games are lunchroom, hallway, and even the occasional class time discussion. In other words, varsity sports are very much part of the fabric of the school and everybody knows about them. To get on a varsity team is a big deal. Cultures for each sport evolve each year. Everyone knows the "Lax boys," the "soccer players," the "football players," and the swimmers. Everyone knows how the various teams are doing, and even if a student is not a player on a team, it's often school yard conversation about what happened at the last game, who beats who, and what players are the play makers. To be on a varsity team in high school means a certain amount of celebrity.  Youth sports in high school is meant to be "an extension of the classroom" with a focus on developing "the whole child." In our area, this is made clear through pre-gam announcements before every match. Have a listen to this: Listen to this opening announcement from earlier this week. Please: support the show and join our community as a Patron through my Patreon page Challenges Faced By High Schools Out of the gate, I have to admit that although I coach and parent kids of High School age, I am not a High School teacher or coach and I am not privy to the internal politics and budget constraints of high schools in general. I have some very specific experience that I am extrapolating to a bigger picture. My experience as the coach of high school players, as a father of high school students, as the host of this show who reads and listens to feedback from listeners, and the weekly reading I've done on the subject (found in the show notes for every episode) informs my opinion. My opinion doesn't represent every situation. Your situation may be different from what I describe here. These issues are in no particular order:  Staff Shortages I spoke with athletic directors, coaches, and teachers from several schools. They are unanimous about the fact that there are not enough people around who are willing to coach. At least not around here. "We're lucky to get anyone to take the job. It pays $15/hour. It takes up a lot of time. And it's a thankless job that comes with a lot of parent hassles." said one person who I spoke with two weeks ago. I heard similar comments from several different people in the last two weeks. I got a sense from those discussions that "we'll take anybody. " I want to be clear about something. I'm not saying that if somebody steps up and takes a job that no one else wants, that the person who stepped up is somehow lesser quality than the person who wins a job that has stiff competition. I'm a fan of taking on jobs that nobody else wants. For the right person, these kinds of jobs are pure opportunity gold. When a hard working, creative, visionary type person steps up and takes on a job that nobody else wants, they often have an opportunity to turn it into whatever they want. The right kind of person can break paradigms, overhaul an antiquated system, bring value beyond anyone's imagination... However, when someone takes the job to avoid doing another job, just because they need the $15/hr, because they're not qualified to do anything else,

Physical exercise like playing soccer is preventative for many disease processes. Diseases brought about by obesity, for example, are often prevented or avoided through regular physical exercise. It's ironic, therefore, that physical activity itself can cause injury too. As with all things: too much of a good thing can be bad for us. Being or getting physically fit isn't something we can rush into. It's a process. Staying physically fit means subjecting our bodies to controlled stress over time. If we over do it, we can hurt ourselves. If we do too much too fast, we can hurt ourselves. If we don't learn to maintain a more physically fit body that is subjected to regular controlled stress, we can hurt ourselves. Let's talk about it. JRR007 [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]Injury Prevention in Youth Soccer - TypesInjuries in youth soccer come in many forms. If you've been listening to this show for long, you know that I gather a lot of things under the safety umbrella: Physical abuse, mental abuse, sexual predation, physical injury, etc. For this episode, let's narrow the focus to avoiding physical injuries due to overuse, over stress, or subjecting athletes to situations where either their bodies or their support system is not prepared. Further, let's break physical injuries into a few sub categories, including:Too much, too fast (coming up off the couch after a long summer of inactivity)Overload (not maintaining balance between stress and recovery)Internal injuriesEquipment and Environmental situations Overuse injuries brought about by stacking similar body movements from different sports on top of one anotherAs always, I'm not going to merely describe each of these five physical injury hot spots, but I will attempt to provide some solutions that you can use to prevent injuries for your soccer players.  PLEASE: support the show and/or join our community as a Patron through my Patreon pageToo Much Too FastNot all kids are created equal. As kids get older, their natural flexibility starts to decrease. I'm pretty sure every listener of this show is painfully aware of decreased flexibility that comes with age, but it might not be common knowledge that this decrease in flexibility can start as early as Junior High School. It's true that most kids are still more flexible than most adults, but bones begin to harden, muscles and sinews stretch with the rapid growth of bones and support structures, and additional stress on the body in the form of additional weight all become contributing factors and good reasons for coaches and parents to start paying attention to fitness, stretching, and whole body conditioning early on. I coach high school kids between the ages of 14 and 18. I worry about making sure my players don't get hurt - particularly early in the season before their bodies have a chance to adjust to what amounts to an increased level of activity for most of them. A summer of sitting on the couch seems more and more common these days. It used to be that kids were outside playing street hockey, kick the can, kill-the-guy-with-the-ball (a form of tag), kickball, swimming, frisbee, stick ball, and all manner of creative outdoor games kids use to love. We have a real issue today with kids literally sitting on the couch if they're not being directly instructed to physically play. This makes the Too Much Too Fast problem a real concern. Without adequate pre-season conditioning, players are at risk for stretching, tears, pulls, and even metabolic problems (that I'll talk more about in a minute).  Perhaps equally as important, players who's bodies are not prepared for the rigors of a soccer match won't enjoy the match as much. They won't play as well because they're in their head worrying about being gassed. Or, they find themselves facing an early injury they end up wrestling with the rest of the season, or a season-ending injury that takes them out of the game all together.

The job of being a coach requires men and women who pursue this craft to know the kids they're working with. Different age groups have different needs. They have different communication styles and differing abilities to understand the game, one another, or even instructions given them.  Most coach's training programs parse development into physical, mental, emotional, and psycho-social buckets. Today, I'm going to talk with you about age-appropriate mental development. Lest you think this knowledge is just for coaches, I assure you that if you're a parent, you'll benefit as well. I personally believe that every parent would benefit from coaching training & if such a thing as a license to have kids ever became a thing - let's hope it never does - but if it did, I would want parents trained in coaching kids at all ages. The stuff we learn as coaches is stuff that often takes parents years to figure out. We learn the hard way as parents and the stakes are highest with our own kids. A coach works with all types of kids, at all stages of maturity.  There are Stages of Development Before we start talking about mental development, it helps to be able to frame it in terms of the ages I'm talking about. I base the stages of development in this article on the United Soccer Coaches Player Development Diploma Course. If you're a coach and have a deeper interest in this material, courses taught by United Soccer Coaches het two thumbs up from me.  Understanding development across a continuum of 15 years from 3-years-old to 18-years-old not only helps a coach or a parent relate more effectively with kids, but it helps to make the experience more fun. It's frustrating to kids when they are shown material that is too advanced for them. It's boring to kids when they are shown material that is too young for them. Find that goldilocks perfect practice session is a whole lot easier when you understand the development needs of each age group.  Please: support the show and join our community as a Patron through my Patreon page Let's Look At Mental Development in Each of the Five Stages In the toggle table below, I share some thoughts about each age group within a development stage. My thoughts are by no means exhaustive on the subject. In fact, I'm thinking I could do a separate podcast for each of the elements we consider, but for this one, I'm going to stick as closely as possible with mental development. It's really impossible for me to prevent some bleed over into psychosocial or even physiological aspects of development, because they do affect mental development, but I trust you'll have patience.  Stage 1 Kids (3-5-years old) Young players at this stage have short attention spans. They are starting to understand visual instructions, but they tend to do better with concrete demonstrations of what they are expected to do. While many are still "parallel playing" an unaware of team dynamics like passing and group movement, they are starting to become aware of one another and the fact that other people have ideas and emotions.  Kids at this age are beginning to become more cautious. They understand there are things in the world that can cause pain and they proceed accordingly. They have wonderful imaginations and can be super spontaneous and creative.  In our program, we disguise "lessons" in the form of games. To teach movements like hopping, we might have them pretend they are bunny rabbits escaping from a fox, or we might work on coordination by playing body part tag with a ball (When I say Crumpet, touch the ball with your elbow!).  Stage 2 Kids (6-8-years old) Kids in this age group still love games and imagination. Their attention span is becoming a little longer but it is inconsistent. They can focus on one task longer (not as many changes in activities). These kids talk a lot and ask a lot of questions. Their interests change frequently. They learn quickly. They like to try new activities,

Support the Show (https://thesoccersidelines.com/go/)Access to affordable youth sports is at risk. It's facing extinction in communities all across America. I'm afraid that too few people understand how precarious the situation is. In this article, I share two very personal stories that I hope illustrate the problem as well as some solutions. Volunteers Keep Costs Low and Provide Access and AffordabilityWithout Volunteers, the cost of youth sports easily jumps to 10x what it would be with volunteers. Those who are volunteering are burning out. Too many jobs are being piled onto the few volunteers who are willing to help. For volunteers, it's death by a thousand cuts. Each new little thing that needs to be done - doesn't get done unless the already overloaded volunteers take on more work. This has to change or there won't be anyone left to serve.  PLEASE: support the show and/or join our community as a Patron through my Patreon pageResourcesBrian Barlow's Offside Facebook PageVolunteer Jobs that Support Kids

Support the ShowFinishing in the game of soccer is a string of a complex series of actions and thoughts that end with a net rattle. The finishing mentality follows a flow, from the goalkeeper and defenders through the midfield, to the player taking the shot. Each player in the chain processes a three-part Do loop over and over again in the course of a single attack. As coaches and parents, we can strengthen our player's ability to process the game and bring an effective finishing mentality to the game.The Finishing Mentality Extends Well Beyond the Opponent's Third(U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Danielle Johnson)Some might say that a good finish starts in the back field. In the context of game day, I would agree with this. A good finish is a flow that's built up from the back field - payers reading cues in their environment, making decisions about those cues, and acting on them based on how they interpret those cues and how they judge their own abilities.  I would take it one step further back from the game day field though and say that a good finishing mentality starts well before game day. It's something that is made of interpretation skills, confidence (or lack of confidence), and abilities as developed in family and player units both on the pitch and off. Every player carries whatever they have with them - both good and bad - into a game. If they believe it's okay to make mistakes, to be the person who doesn't score, and that they can be creative without judgment in front of their family and friends, they are much more likely to to the right thing or attempt seemingly impossible acts of creativity and courage. If, on the other hand, they are judged as not being worthy unless they sink an asteroid ball into the back of the net, dribble through 5 defenders, or take an over-the-head bicycle kick shot into the upper corner off the cross bar, they're not likely to rise to the occasion. What we do and say in practice, how players interact with one another and come to learn one another's cues, and what we say to players at home - they all make a difference when it comes to that game day shot on goal. Get the first part right, and kids can be kids. Get it wrong and they can choke on pressure or fail to find their own confidence.  PLEASE: support the show and/or join our community as a Patron through my Patreon pageThe Finishing Mentality is About More than Kicking a Ball in the NetA great finishing play requires a string of thoughts and activities pulled together in concert. Capturing the ball, supporting ball movement, re-capturing the ball, timing pressure and runs, creating space for teammates to run the ball through - all of it is part of the finishing play. Every player - on the ball or off the ball - is contributing in some way to a good finish or a miss. Assuming you accept this to be true, the question becomes: what can we do before game day to support the finishing mentality? It's not all on the coach, on the player, or on the parents. It's on all of us in the player's ecosystem. Think I'm zooming out too far? Consider how a player might play in light of a recent family crisis. Don't think coaches notice that stuff? Of COURSE we do.Finishing also includes reading cues from the environment, interpreting and making decisions about those cues, and acting on those cues in a way that either contributes to the finish or detracts from it. Teaching players to read cues, to make good decisions, and to frame the context of their actions is something that takes time and practice. It also takes support from home. A Lesson from EVOC ClassEVOC stands for Emergency Vehicle Operator's Course. I used to teach this to police, fire fighters and EMS personnel when I was int he military. It may seem like an odd thing to talk about in the context of a finishing play in soccer, but it has relevance. While teaching professionals how to drive in high pressure / high adrenaline environments,

My team came to me two years go with the goal of playing varsity soccer. Today, my team makes up half the varsity bench. They didn't pay thousands!

There is a good reason to standardize the training environment for kids in their development years. Do you know what the US Youth Soccer standards are?

Support the Show and our Mission Dealing with loss in life can be a profoundly life-changing experience. Learning to deal with loss on a smaller scale before the big life-changing losses affect our lives is a way for us to learn some basic things about staying positive, turning negative experiences into positive ones, and more. In this post, I share some deeply personal experiences that have changed lives and how they relate to lessons we can help our kids learn on the youth sports field. Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay Learning About Loss in a Scale Model of Life If you've been following this show for any length of time, you know that I consider youth sports to be a proxy for real life. Youth sports are a safe place to learn essential life skills. The lessons learned in this environment are lessons that really matter when life serves us much harder losses later.  This past week, my 17-year-old daughter and her friends lost someone dear to them. A friend to some. A boyfriend to one. A mirror of their own mortality for all of them. In this sad real-life situations, lessons learned earlier in teamwork, friendship, coming together to overcome challenges came into focus. When kids learn how to deal with life's hardships early, they are much better equipped to deal with them when they inevitably arrive. PLEASE: support the show and/or join our community as a Patron through my Patreon page A Personal Story Dealing with Loss I fell in love with a young woman when I was in college. It was a comfortable relationship. We both found comfort at the end of the day in one another's company. We shared pizza,  hours of overnight conversation, and a bond that I believed deep down would lead to marriage at some point way down the road. Everything felt right with her. She and I would always be close. She was killed in a car accident on the side of Dannemora mountain in New York.  Her death had a profound effect on the rest of my life. I was fortunate enough to find love again, but the journey I set out on soon after she died lasted for a very long time. I became a volunteer fire fighter, an EMT, a Navy Corpsman, and set out to put myself as close to death as I could get - to save as many lives as I could, and at some level, come closer to being there for the woman I wasn't able to be there for on that cold day in November.  Making Lemonade out of Lemons The rest of my life was created through a series of decisions. A lot of good came from this loss because I chose for good to come of it. I suppose I could have easily gone the other way and never realized the joy my family brings me or the good things I've done for others.  [tcb-script type="text/javascript" src="https://rch.evsuite.com/player/aW1hZ2VzLWFuZC13b3Jkcy5tcDQ=/?responsive=1&autoResponsive=1&container=evp-TOE3OBJI8D"][/tcb-script] Learning Starts Young There is a big difference between losing a loved one and losing a youth sports game, but many of the fundamentals are there: How do we react and process loss? How do we lean on others (or not) when we face difficult times? How do we empathize with others (or not) when they are down or need our help? We teach our kids how to deal with life in layers. With each new level of complexity, our kids learn to process wins, losses, good times and bad. They learn about the essential ingredients that go into making good citizen adults. They watch other adults for signs of volunteerism and community focus, for how they treat other adults, and how they should react to life themselves when they are older.  Youth Sports Provides the Perfect Training Field If you cold create a safe space where kids can be exposed to the range of emotions and situations they will be exposed to later in life, and you made it a fun and healthy place to hang out, you'd have the youth sports environment. Careful planning and management of the youth sports space gives us a unique and powerful way to teach life lessons - including dealing with loss. 

I've spent the last two years and 90 episodes talking about the stuff that really matter in youth sports and hoping to help you understand and appreciate the game and better support your player(s). Now it's your turn to connect here: https://thesoccersidelines.com/connect/Your challenge is to use any of the connect options and tell me a story about your life! Tell me about your athlete, your team, your club, or your own youth sports experience! If you can't think of anything to say about someone else, tell me which is your favorite from the last 90 episodes and why. I can't wait to hear and read your story and get to know more about you! PLEASE: support the show and/or join our community as a Patron through my Patreon pageResourcesConnect via PatreonConnect via SpeakpipeConnect via TwitterConnect Via FacebookConnect via Email

It's Easy to Support this ShowYou would not dream of suiting up and taking on the New York Giants by yourself. I don't care if you're the biggest and strongest dude on the planet. You're going to die. Literally. I have found in my lifetime of working in corporate America and in business that the same is true off the field as it is on the field. No employee or CEO is going to survive long in business without a team. The stronger the team, the better chance the individuals on that team have of winning. Strength of a team comes from places few people know to look. If you've never considered where to look for team strength, you may be surprised by some of the things I'm going to say today. For experienced coaches and business people, get ready to smile. In this episode, I hope to shine a light on a few things that most people don't consider important. However, those in the know understand that without this, your chances for success go down a lot. Join me for a few minutes as we talk about the whole team and why you're important - no matter how popular or well known your contribution is. You're ImportantAs a listener and maybe as a Patron of this show, you're important. It doesn't matter if you have a background in soccer or not. What matters is your desire to contribute and your willingness to be part of a team that is working together to bring value to the community. I've had some interesting discussions this week. In one case, a fellow by the name of Richard reached out to me via email and text. He's a long-time, 30+ year coach and former President of the Club I am currently President of. He's coached at high schools, at colleges. He's run our club for a couple of years, and he carries a lifetime of wisdom and passion for players and the game that is refreshing for me to experience. I think anyone who has invested real time and energy into developing kids is infected with the desire to do more. It's just so satisfying to see the effect we can have on the world when we choose to give to others. Coaching is all about helping people to realize the best version of themselves., and when they do, and we're lucky enough to witness it, there is little else that compares to that feeling. Despite the huge value that Richard brings to the world, he was President at least three President's ago. Coaching has changed. Community demographics have changed. The competitive landscape has changed. And I certainly bring an emphasis to the Club on both the business back end - as an investment banker and consultant to other businesses, I naturally gravitate towards the infrastructure, to risk mitigation, to creative financing, and to long term strategy that I don't imagine many people really care about. But I love it! Richard and I were sharing perspectives - both old and new - when I noticed that he looked a little out of his element. Website conversion rates, using a financial statement to get a picture of operations, and creative financing techniques are not just not something he had reason to dig into in his former roles. You can't blame him, right? Most people will die a happy death without ever having explored these subjects, but they are a real and regular part of my vocabulary and thinking. I got the sense that he was almost apologetic that this wasn't his thing. He clearly has a ton of value to bring, but in different ways. My brain jumped the rails a little during our lunch conversation. I was at first a little surprised by what i saw in his face, and I brought the conversation where this episode is hopefully going to bring you and I. You. Are. Important. PLEASE: support the show and/or join our community as a Patron through my Patreon page​​Support the Show You Are HereLike players on a soccer team, once kids get old enough to have mastered the basics, and start  specializing - we're talking about around age 14 - everyone has a different role to play. A good team doesn't have 22 Strikers.

Youth sports in the US is dying, not because the business model isn't working, but because it is working too well. It's drawing in $17 B at what expense?

If you think coaches are not paying attention in youth sports, don't. They are. Things like being reliable matter. If you think I'm talking about just consistently hitting a crispy seam pass through defenders, I'm not. I'm talking about a players ability to make an honor commitments. Seemingly little things matter: being late to practice or games, not keeping promises to show up at a special events, failure to follow through with a promised email or not responding at all. Players need to learn how to sweat the small stuff, because if it comes down to two players: one who's always reliable, communicates well, and follows through - or one that doesn't - the one that is reliable gets the money. Let's get behind the scenes and learn what's going on with the people who support our players. Reliability by Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0 Alpha Stock ImagesBeing Reliable In Youth SportsFor young athletes, being reliable is one of those things that youth sports provides great opportunities to learn. I think most coaches would agree that we don't expect kids to understand the importance of reliability right away. Learning this lesson is something that moms and dads can help with a lot - once they understand the opportunity and know how to tap into it. By the end of this episode, you will. More importantly, you'll know why it's so important for our kids! They may be missing out on some great opportunities for silly reasons. There are many ways to define reliability in youth sports. Being fit and being able of running the full period of a game is one way. Fitness is something all coaches are looking for. It's also something that isn't going to come entirely from the practice or game environments. After say, ages 12 or 13, if the only fitness a kid gets is at practice, they're going to fall behind. Having reliable skills in a game environment is another way. As a coach, I've had players I know are consistent on the field and some who seem to bring a different player every game. I've heard some players tell me they're going to do something in a game and I've watched with delight as they did it. I've had other players tell me they're going to do something in a game and I've gone home afterwards wondering why they said that. Reliability is important and coaches come to rely on certain players to anchor the team strategy or informs the playing formation. unreliable field players need contingency plans. A coach might find themselves thinking: if this player is on today, then A. If they're not on today, then we need to do B. Reliable players on the field make a pretty big difference in the overall experience. Now you may have expected me to say something about reliability on the pitch, but what I'm about to say when we come back may come as a surprise. Don't worry when you hear this. The good news is that moms and dads can have a direct and profound effect on player reliability on the pitch and off - in youth sports and in real life.  Please: support the show and join our community as a Patron through my Patreon pageReliability Off the Pitch in Youth SportsCoaches are looking for solid people for their soccer teams, but let's not stop there. Employers are looking for solid people to work for their companies. See where I'm going with this? The youth sports environment is a great learning environment. Kid's will do well to do their best to learn reliability while the adults supporting them are still understanding about mis-steps. Employers are not so forgiving. The reality is, coaches can lose patience too. This should never be in the sense that players get lesser treatment on the soccer pitch, but there are a lot of things that happen off the pitch that are affected by player reliability. It's well known in the coaching community that coaches tend to go above and beyond for players. We spend so much time thinking about and working towards making players successful, that when we see a good chance to help someone, we jump on it.

Imagine yourself sitting at a table. You're at a nice cafe in Paris. You're drinking a cup of fresh brewed coffee, eating your favorite breakfast and watching people walk by. People watching can be fun. We all do it. All the different sizes, shapes, colors, personalities, voices... it's not a half bad way to spend a morning in Paris.  Imagine someone you know walks by. You know their family, their dog, what they do for a living, their sense of humor. You know a lot about this person. You think they're funny. They have a signature move you've seen a hundred times. The whole feeling of the scene changes, right? You expect something. Maybe you rooting for their success and want to hear what brought them to the city of love. You just transitioned from passively watching a sea of people to jumping emotionally into that sea. You're invested now. There is a story here. Watching a soccer game is similar. You can be a passive spectator, or you can get so much more out of it. Today, I'm going to help you get more out of the game. I'm definitely going to help you appreciate this latest Women's World Cup. Let's talk about it.  Watching the Women's World Cup 2019 I have to give a shout out to Volkswagon this year for sponsoring a series called "One Nation. One Team. 23 Stories." You can find this series on Youtube spread all over with other "related videos" sprinkled in between, or you can just go to this week's episode of The Soccer Sidelines and find them all stacked neatly together in my show notes. Yes... I did that for you, and I hope you appreciate the effort.  If I'm being honest, I really enjoyed the process. It took me some time, but each video in the 23 video series features a personal interview with each player that runs right about 3 minutes long. What that means is that in a little more than an hour, you can get to know the personal back stories and see the individual personalities of each of these World Class Women soccer players. The interviews are low key. The give the feeling of being up close and personal with each player. And I guarantee that you'll see the Women's National Team in a whole new light when you're done. I started collecting these videos for you before the game against Sweden, then I watched the Sweden game and found myself rooting for our women in a way similar to the way I've only rooted for the youth teams I've coached. I wanted Rose Lavelle to do well and I felt inspired myself knowing that she was inspired by her youth coach. I wanted Crystal Dunn to believe in herself as a player and have the world show her how much she means to the game. I wanted Ali Krieger to love and enjoy her comeback story. I imagined Tierna Davidson dreaming about being an astronaut and wondering how she must feel now playing soccer on the world stage.  If you're a coach, you know what I'm about to say. When you know the personal stories of each of the players in front of you, you're watching a lot more than the score board during a game. You're rooting for the people and their personal stories. You want each one of those players to be successful and you realize that success means something just a little different for each one. The games I watched in the lead up to the Women's World Cup made me literally stand up - I couldn't sit down. When Kelley O'Hara got hurt in what I assume was a concussion on Sunday, I felt like I should be running out onto the field and picking her up - as I've done so many times with my own players. It is gut wrenching to know that a player you know as more than a jersey number got hurt.  What I'm trying to say is this: whether you're watching a youth soccer match or a professional game, the more you know the players as people, the more likely you are to: respect the game and the empathize with the people playing it  (that goes for referees too!) walk away from each game with more than a scoreboard win or loss  enjoy a much deeper personal emotional ride with every touch in a g...

Skills, fitness, physicality... It's all important. And it's often an athlete's Character that helps them make the cut. Character matters.

Become a PatronWhen you're moving with the current, you can afford to relax. When the current is flowing opposite of the direction you want to go, you may have to paddle like crazy. A mental image of yourself in a canoe on a powerful river is useful for understanding how time can affect the outcome of a match - or even of a practice. Learning how to manage the clock is one of those things we learn from youth sports, and it's one of those things that really matters. Let's talk about it. The Many Clocks in SoccerI'm betting that you thought that I would be talking about managing the clock during game time. Of course, I'm going to talk about that in a minute or two, but I wouldn't be giving you the full picture without first showing you a few more of the clocks relevant to a youth soccer career or explaining how good clock management translates into real life. After all- we're not just about winning youth soccer games here are we?The first clock is the Development Clock. As a youth soccer expert, you know that the clock in the United States starts at age 3 and runs until age 18. Every season, different things are relevant to kids as a result of their physical, mental, and emotional maturity. I've spoken about this in many previous shows that you can find on this site, so I'll move on to the next clock. The second clock is the Registration Clock. It may not seem like it matters when you register, but as  Club President who's served as Director for programs, Registrar, and Treasurer, it does. Late registrations are a nightmare for clubs and they curb a club's ability to be creative about programmings. The sooner your club knows how many players of what ages they will have, the sooner they can start the search for qualified coaches, reserve the fields, make contracts with referees and order equipment - to name a few things. We all do our best to guess what we're going to be working with, but I can say with confidence that late registrations have definitely affected the quality of programming and additional support that players could have had, but didn't because the clock ran out of time. The third clock, I will call the Fuel Clock. By fuel, I have to combine food and water. Whether an athlete is leading up to a practice or a game, timing fuel and hydration is important. I've often talked about the raisin-in-a-shot-glass effect. Drop a raisin in a 5 gallon drum of water and pull it right back out again, and all you have is a wet raisin. Drop that same raisin in a shot glass of water and let it soak overnight, and it'll plump back up like a grape. The body's cells work in a similar way. Hydration needs to start slowly the day before a match or a practice. Taking in water slowly over time has a much more positive effect than slamming 32 ounces before running out onto the pitch. The slow method will properly hydrate our body's cells and give us plenty of temperature regulation and energy. The slam method will just slosh around in our stomachs, give us a tummy ache, and get dumped right back out again through our kidneys. Food timing is important too. Heavy proteins are great maybe after a match to help with recovery. But before a match, fast acting carbs are a better fit. Stop eating two hours before a match or a practice to ensure the intestines can finish their work and the blood your muscles need is available. The fourth clock I'll call the Recovery Clock. This is one of the most overlooked and least talked about clocks in youth sports, but it's super important. Practice and games cause fatigue and break down muscle and connective tissue. Rest gives the body a chance to rebuild - hopefully to an even strong state than before the event. Professional teams going on the road will often try to pick up some road matches before the big event. Coaches want players to get accustomed to the rigors of games stacked one after the other without adequate rest. Playing without recovery has a profound effect on a team's performance,

Soccer offers students many benefits as they mature through the development years, but benefits of soccer don't stop there. In this episode, we explore how the game of soccer can connect us with 3.5 Billion fans around the world and create networking opportunities in situations far removed from the soccer field throughout life.  Soccer is Big Everywhere! Soccer is the biggest game in the world! Between the players and the fans, you're more likely to run into someone who knows and loves the game of soccer than any other game in the world.  250 Million players world-wide in 200 countries 12 Million players every year in the US 3.5 Billion fans around the world The biggest single sport in the United States is American Football - which has 400 Million fans. This hardly comes close to the numbers of people we find in the game or supporting the game of soccer. You can travel to more than 200 countries, pick up a soccer ball, kick it, and it's GAME ON for you and those around you.  Benefits of Soccer Beyond the Pitch The chances of you running into someone who is somehow affiliated with the game of soccer are significant. Whether you're a soccer parent, an adult player, a former youth player, or a rabid fan who rides the busses around Europe to follow your favorite team, there is a good chance you're going to share the game with someone in just about any room you walk into - for life! If networking is all about finding common ground, knowing, liking, and wanting to get to know others, then the beautiful game is a great addition to the professional's toolbox. Discussions about the game transcend language, age, race, and can almost always draw a smile. Try kicking a ball to someone's feet and see how they respond!  Benefits of Soccer as a Universal Language The rules of soccer are universal. It doesn't matter what culture you come from, what language you speak, or what problems you wrestle with, the benefits of soccer can help us win together in the game of life! Resources “Top 10 List of the World's Most Popular Sports.” Topend Sports, Science, Training and Nutrition, www.topendsports.com/world/lists/popular-sport/fans.htm.

If you haven't heard it yet, there is a new training methodology in soccer town called Play, Practice, Play. It's not really new. We've been doing it in the context of US Youth Soccer for more than a year now and you'll find correlation with an article titled Teaching Games for Understanding: A Comprehensive Approach to Promote Student's Motivation in Physical Education  published in 2017 (see Resources below for full citation). But it may be new to you. I know it's still new to many who are just coming into the sport and it can have a profound impact on how we look at the game. Let's talk about play, practice, play; what it means to players, coaches, and parents; and what effect it has on the way we look at the game.Practice Matters!As a former multi-sport athlete, the thing I remember the most and perhaps the thing that had the biggest effect on the rest of my life was practice. Games were fun and they certainly gave us a chance to measure progress being made in practice sessions, but practice is where the most growth and development happen. It's where we learn to work as a team, where we get the most guidance on work ethic and behind-the-scenes tips on how to play and improve, and where sweat is forged into gold. As a coach, I put a lot more time and attention into practice than I do into games. I tell my players that they own the games. I own the practices. I make the most difference as a coach on the practice field. That is my classroom. Games are players chance to show what they've learned. It makes sense to spend time thinking about practice & trying to find the best practice experiences that we can if we want to become better at the sport we love. It makes sense to emphasize practice if we want to maximize the development experience that youth sports gives us both on and off the pitch. This is what US Youth Soccer did when they re-designed the practice methodology. Play, Practice, Play vs the Four Phase SystemPlay, Practice, Play is now built into every grassroots coach's training education under US Youth Soccer. For coaches (and players) who have been around for a while, this new system of training stands in contrast to the older Four-phase system. It used to be that we were trained to deliver a warm-up phase to get bodies in motion without injury. That would be followed by three additional phases of training - each one progressively more complex than the last one, and all of them united around a common theme. An example of a common theme might be a focus on moving as a unit during a defensive phase of play in the defensive third. A progressive series might include warm ups, defending 1v1 down four channels, then defending 2v2 down two channels, then defending 4v4 down one channel, etc. In the fourth phase of this style of practice, we might execute a scrimmage with the hope of seeing the methods taught in training being used on the field in a game-like environment. This is a coach or curriculum based approach to training. It's designed to progress players through a series of increasingly more challenging scenarios so that at the end, players have hopefully acquired new skills relative to the main theme. this is the way I coached myself for several years and it's still being used in the more competitive training environments. There is nothing wrong with it, but modern thinking is that we lost a lot of players as a result. Especially in the grass roots programs, motivations to come play are not as focused on on structured development. Fun is a huge motivator. The four phase method of structuring training has more of a "work" based structure that Play, Practice, Play. Play, Practice, Play, on the other hand placed emphasis on game-like scenarios and fun. It's structured to put kids into game-like situations as soon as they show up on the field. The first phase of training is labeled the "Play" phase. It's the first thing that players are greeted with when they arrive. The thinking here is that if kids have "play" to ...

How eager would you be to allow a surgeon to cut you open and remove your gallbladder if that surgeon never watched a surgery before? Not very, right? You instinctively know that performing a physical skill is easier if you've watched someone else do it first.  Likewise, if you want to learn to play music, it helps to listen to music. Most athletic skills are the same way. These skills are not life or death like in the surgery example, but the principles are the same.  There are benefits of watching soccer, from watching pro games on TV to watching games in person. There are benefits from watching soccer in person that you can't get from watching the game on TV. In this post, I'll share a few personal stories of games that happened these last two weeks and share what the experts say about the simple act of watching games.  The Inspiration Behind This Episode My wife volunteered as field marshal for a tournament here in the Mid-Atlantic area this past weekend. This was her first time doing this. She was a little intimidated going out the door that morning, but when she came home, the one thing she wanted to talk about the most was the quality of play she saw on the field. The two teams she watched came down from Massachusetts and New Jersey for the 40th annual Potomac Memorial Tournament right here in my back yard at the Germantown Maryland Soccerplex Complex.  She was impressed by the level of play of these two teams. She had never seen such passing, such ability to hold their shape, such possession, teamwork and skill. She talked about it for several days and told my son and I that we would have loved to watch those games. She's right. I know the value of watching games and by the end of this episode, you will too! When I started learning how to be a youth soccer coach, I did what I had always done in the business world and in life. I sought out people who had been doing the thing that I wanted to do - and learned from them. I talked with anyone who would talk with me. I met with coaches who were willing to show me the secrets of coaching young soccer players. I visited my local soccerplex and watched dozens of youth games. I attended every practice for other teams my kids played on with a notebook in hand and took notes and drew diagrams. I took courses, read books, and watched professional soccer on TV. I immersed myself, found coaches and styles I liked, focused the questions I sought answers for in books, then returned to the field to test my new working theories.  I don't expect you to embrace the same level of game analysis that I do, but like my wife, who's never played soccer in her life, the benefits of watching soccer - in this case a good game - moved the bar in her mind. She now knows what good quality soccer looks like and she understands more why it's called "the beautiful game."  I want you to enjoy this sport as much as my players do. I want you to have the same "ah-ha" moment my wife did as field marshal this last weekend. If you haven't already had that moment, I have good news. It's probably closer than you think.  What Are the Benefits of Watching Soccer? One of the benefits of watching soccer is that it gives you a base vocabulary to draw from. Just being around the game, you'll come to know the touchline, the 18, the penalty area, the corner, the timing, the difference between a touchline and a goal line. If you pay attention, you'll get sight pictures of an inside-of-the-foot pass versus an outside-of-the-foot pass. You might understand why, at practice, your coach is playing games with the kids that emphasizes inside-of-the-foot, outside-of-the-foot, and laces. You will notice the difference between a legal shoulder vs a foul from behind. You'll start to see things that you never knew were there and maybe start to see the value in the age-appropriate training that coaches are trying to promote.  Next in our lineup of benefits of watching soccer,

Whether you're a coach, a parent, or an interested observer, you bring more than your lawn chair to a game. You bring your ability to spot leadership, form a thought about that leadership, courage to share your thoughts, and an ability to express yourself. These are powerful tools!Accidental leadership may not even be noticed by the person leading or it might be attributed to something other than reality. But when you see and recognize leadership in action, it's awesome! This is something that gets me excited after three decades of leading people and after ten years of coaching. Are you cultivating leadership around the game? How I Define Accidental LeadershipI've been in the leadership game for a long time. I've mentored many leaders from complete newbies to seasoned veterans who have been leading others for decades. Some of what we do as leaders is learned. Some of it comes from who we are - whether we realize it or not. Accidental leadership happens around us all the time. People are doing things that bring others together, that help people overcome challenges, and that help others become the best versions of themselves. Many times, accidental leaders don't even know that they are having this positive effect on the world - or they attribute the positive things going on around them to other things besides their leadership. This phenomenon of having positive leadership effect, or not intentionally acting as a leader, and perhaps not realizing what they are doing is what I call accidental leadership. This Episode Inspired by Coach EmilyThis past week, I brought together half a dozen of my coaches - mostly from my 11U recreation program. Two of these coaches are doing their first season in recreation. Two have a few seasons under their belt. One is a veteran. We came together to solve a problem. The teams were wildly unbalanced this Spring and scores of 10 - 0 were all too common. We were working through the process using one of my favorite problem solving models:What's the problem? What are the causes of the problem? What are the potential solutions to the problem?What is your (our our) recommended solution to the problem?We were brainstorming our way through the discussion and Emily brought up that she had her 11 year-old recreation players teaching her 9-year-old recreation players certain skills. She saw this as a positive for her team and the reason why her team gelled so nicely on the pitch. She told the group that a father from the opponent's team commented on her's teams cohesiveness after a game and asked her what her secret is. Emily was convinced it was her 11-year-olds. I asked her to describe how she ran her practices. She, a teacher by trade, not having much experience with soccer, explained that she set up some friendly competitions. She told her players that whomever is able to do the skill they were training the best would be able to teach the others how to do it. Her 11-year-olds most often got the skill first and then took great pride (and had fun) demonstrating the skill for others, then guiding them through improvement. To be clear, there is a very valid reason to use players, assistants, and/or trainers to help demonstrate a skill during practice. As coaches, we are not likely going to be the best at demonstrating every technique that teams need to learn. For some of us, soccer wasn't our sport. For some of us, it's been decades since we've played. For some of us, the idea of dropping a bicycle kick shot on goal makes us wince. Using talented players, bringing in players from older teams, bringing in volunteer coaching assistants or trainers... all of these have their place in a good season. However, that's not exactly what was going on here. Teaching others how to do a skill was clearly framed, in Emily's example, as a reward. But she was establishing culture.  Encouraging her players to do their best, seasoning her practices with friendly competition, and creating an environment where players were rew...