The Parent Soccer Coach

So you find yourself accepting to be a soccer head coach for the the very first time. There may have been many reasons that you decided to accept this role and the main one could be that there wasn't anybody else stepping up to the challenge. In an effort to support the need and not have the soccer league abolish the team your child is part of you decide to help.

These are all very good reasons and you are definitely doing a good service for a much needed community activity. There are some perspectives that you need to consider along with some tips that will allow you to ease into this new role.

From my years of coaching first my children’s teams then other teams where my children were not a part of there were realizations that I would like to share with a new head coach.

First it is the acknowledgement that a coach is a role model not just to the young players that you will be training but to the parents that you will be interacting with. This maybe hard to do at first but you need to keep your perspective and realize that the team along with the associated parents, will be looking to you to be a leader in all aspects. The way you act and how you communicate will become very important. It will be a factor in how well the team will gel and the fun that will be experienced by not just the young players but their parents.

The other factor that is most important concerns your child. I have come across many parents that live through their children when it comes to sports. You must separate this feeling right from the start and understand that your time has passed and now it is your child’s time. Each child learns at their own pace and they perfect their talents in due time. Your attitude and actions play a big part in this development and your patience needs to be at its peak.

And lastly the realization that you will be leading a team of players should be fully understood. I have seen soccer coach parents that place their child on a pedestal and put undue pressures on them to be the best on the team. Such a parent coach fails to understand that they are leading a team as a whole and rightfully so you need to train and teach each player equally allowing and helping each player to play and develop to their full potential. This means that your child needs to be treated equally just like the rest of the players on the team.

At the younger categories it is a lot about teaching the skills needed to play the game. As the team evolves and advances to higher categories the rules of the game become a large factor till eventually you are delving into the tactics and strategies ofsoccer. This is a learning progression for both the parent coach and the team they lead.

Therefore, as you ponder if you should have accepted being a head coach and acknowledge that it is a big responsibly there are things that will facilitate your experience. These are tips that I have used during my years of coaching and have yielded great results. I will cover these in another blog but for now the points I have listed here are a good starter as food for thought.

Being the best soccer parent coach you can be is a rewarding experience for both you and the people you will be interacting with. It is a learning experience in not only the soccer sport but in people management and learning to do it well will create lasting lessons to the team you lead. After all you will be a role model and if you do it to the best of your abilities you will be teaching life lessons to the youth under your charge. Along the way you maybe also influencing some of the parents within your team.

Noun: Role Model

Definition(s):

• A person regarded by others, especially younger people, as a good example to follow.
• A person who serves as a model in a particular behavioral or social role for another person to emulate.

Definition obtained fromThe Free Dictionary by Farlex

The Coach Within

So you find yourself in a situation where you sign up one of your children or all of them to a soccer league. It is a first experience for you and your children. Excitement, nerves, sense of pride and many other feelings all become a part of the initial experience for both you and your child.

It appears that all is well with the club you have signed up with but what most parents do not realize is that most soccer clubs rely on volunteers to offer the service. The clubs find themselves short of them to effectively deliver a community service that runs smoothly and in harmony. Member registration at times overwhelms their capacity to staff even when they try to limit the enrollment. Volunteers always have the best intentions and therefore, the club may not want to turn away new members and scramble to look for more volunteers to fill in the need.

Soccer clubs in this situation will reach out to their soccer parent pool first to fill in the head coach positions for the teams they build within the different categories. Players are grouped by year of birth and teams from these groups are assembled. The groups are call categories and are identified as U5, U6, U7, etc. Within each of the categories there may be as little as one team just like there could be four or five teams. Some are co-ed and others are divided boys and girls.

The category identification is preceded by the letter 'U' which stands for the world 'Under' and then by the group's age. So a U5 soccer category is made up of soccer teams with 5 year old players. A U12 category will have teams with soccer players that are 12 years old. There may be exceptions were players are mixed within the category and there are many reasons for this. An 8 year old player may be playing within a 9 year old category. This is another topic which I will cover in another blog.

When a club realizes the shortfall on soccer coaches they promote your participation. Now keep in mind that most parents have doubts about taking on this responsibility. After all they went in to sign up their children and never even thought that they would be recruited in the process. Parents worry not just about the knowledge of the sport but the time that it requires. Therefore, parents will not commit to this role other than to bring their child to games and practices. But before you turn this opportunity down there are some things you should evaluate and those I will cover in another blog.

For those of you that take on the challenge there is a feeling of excitement and fear if it is the first time doing such volunteer work. The coach within you needs to be born and the implications are plentiful. One thing is for sure there are certain realizations that a soccer parent coach needs to acknowledge. I'll cover these in another blog post. But for the most part you have filled in a need and at the same time your children have a team to play in and are proud to say my Dad or Mom is the coach.

Soccer clubs have programs in place to help volunteer parents learn the sport and also how to teach playing it. So for those parents with little knowledge there is help. For those parents with the knowledge then they will benefit from the training by learning how to teach.

A new venture starts for you and the proud child that you will be guiding within this sport. I hope to share with you my experience that taught me a lot about myself and help you be the best coach you can become.

The Aim of This Blog

As a parent you may find yourself delving into the wonderful world of recreational sports. All this in an effort to give your children opportunities that help build their confidence and self esteem. Off course you may find yourself with children who are more inclined to none-sports in which this blog may be of little interest.

But for those of you with little athletes this blog maybe of interest. The aim is to express and communicate the experience encountered throughout my many years involved with being a soccer parent volunteer.

I hope to share with others the interesting happenings and mind sets found which I am sure are similar within other soccer organizations let alone other sports. The focus will be within recreational realm and in somewhat the elite or competitive levels as my experience touches both.

Volunteering can be a thankless endeavor but evaluating why you got into it and keeping the right perspective is important and will contribute to a good experience. I have learned a lot especially from my own children which has helped me become a better volunteer.

This introduction is my start, where we go from here will be the fun factor as there are many areas I want to touch which I am sure there will be many points of view.

Oh one last mention! This is my first attempt at blogging and I welcome constructive criticism as I gain more blogging experience.