From the Desk of the Director
What makes for a good soccer coach? Better yet, what makes for a good youth soccer coach? Is it passion? Is it how to run a good training session? Does he/she know how to organize the tactics of a team? Might it be that the person in charge uses their authority to be in control of every aspect of a team - and you can hear them on the sideline and you think they know what they are doing?
Most of you will think that what makes the coach a good coach is their ability to make the players play like a team. That they pass the ball well and that the coach knows “how to keep the players in their positions” better than the other teams you see – or worse, the team your child is on. You would be wrong, by the way.
Does that include getting an eight-year-old boy – full of energy and a mind that is taking in the whole world every day – to “play with the discipline and understanding of the game” adults’ play with - that you may or may not watch on television? Or worse, that the kids need to play the way you did when you were a soccer player in high school or in college – because when you played, it was better than what you see now. Again, you would be wrong.
Does that include getting the eleven-year-old girl – full of energy, and compassion for her friends on the team – to play with the competitiveness that you see from your friend’s oldest daughter on a college soccer team? When in fact most young people simply want to go to practice and see their friends, and laugh with their friends – to socialize with their friends.
A good youth soccer coach has a skill that most do not have the stomach to attempt to try and learn, or the commitment to do. A good youth soccer coach can withstand more challenges than most adults that do not coach, because they will do one thing many of you reading this will not do.
That person, who is a good youth soccer coach, has one prerequisite that makes them a good coach. THEY ARE WILLING TO PHYSICALLY SHOW UP.
They want to show up.
They want to put themselves in a position to help young people play a child’s game. That person will show up and do their best to protect the environment and put the children in a place to enjoy the game, to learn from simply playing the game, and to function in a way that any one child may want to come back to the next practice.
In youth soccer in the United States there has never been enough adults who will show up to coach, and certainly in the travel soccer world. There will likely always be a shortage in even the number of coaches available to physically show up.
We will do our best to help the adults who physically show up to coach your son’s or daughter’s team be a better version of themselves as each season passes. We will support those adults who show up and do our best to give them the resources we are capable of providing, in an amateur sport, played at the grassroots level.
I for one will simply thank the coaches, and managers, of the Burlington Soccer Club for showing up every day. Every day! Thank you!
