Mowing the Lawn

The field we've been training on was way over grown, and 3 calls to the school district's facilities department didn't help. One of the dad's offered to help me mow it, so we did! It was so thick, it took us 3 passes to get it down to an acceptable height.

I wanted to make sure this got on the blog first and foremost because it was a really cool thing for that parent to do. I've been fortunate to have a lot of parent help with all of my teams through out the years. Most youth teams in the US couldn't function with out parents volunteering their time and energy, whether that's as managers, administrators, board members, coaches, or even just making sure a training field is playable.

As a coach, I've come to recognize the big role that parents play, and tried to direct that energy in the right way. I know that my best role is managing the on-field aspect. I truly love watching our video footage, planning and running training, managing games... All of it. If I can find ways for the parents to help manage the off-field matters, it allows me to focus even deeper on my work. Educating them on our style of play and my coaching style has been another way for me to direct their energy in a way that best helps the team. Finding families that fit in with the environment and the culture is challenging, but the more deliberately constructed it is, the easier I've found it to be.

I'll end it with a quote from Seth Godin that's been useful to me:

"People like us do things like this."

What does that mean for you with your team?

Parent + Player Slideshow

For the blog today, I'm simply attaching my slideshow presentation I presented to my U11 and U12 teams. Here it is in:

PDF

PowerPoint

Feel free to adapt it and use it however you want. If you have any feedback, pass that on as well!

Parent Education Part 2

I'll be giving a slideshow presentation tomorrow to the parents of my U11 and U12 teams. It's the first time I've ever done something like that. I'll be focusing on two aspects of 'education':

1. Sharing the details specific to my coaching style
2. General, broadly applicable soccer education

The first aspect serves as part marketing campaign, and part insight. It's marketing in the sense that I want them to buy into my specific vision of coaching. This encompasses style of play, how training is run, the way in which to evaluate games, and more. I want them on my side. I also want to give them insight into the specifics of that vision. So the background on why I coach a certain way, how it plays out on the field... A behind the scenes look.

The second aspect is something I tried to build in because I want to leave this group with something tangible they can use on their own. A way of framing proper coaching, for example, and some trustworthy resources to educate them. Not just journalists or articles, but teams to watch, coaches to follow, and practices to use when watching games. The parents are the ones REALLY in charge of their kid's development, and even after I'm gone, I can help ensure this group takes a critical look at their soccer environment, and makes the best choices.

Trying to Hack Parent Education

Parent education is something I've never really made an effort to do. Because I'm lazy, because I don't know that it would have any meaningful effect... and quite honestly, I don't even know where to start.

I'm going to try 2 things for my upcoming spring season.

1. I'm putting together a slideshow presentation to present at a player and parent meeting. I'm trying to keep it bare bones, which is tough for me, because minimalism is not a strength of mine. I want to focus on 'evergreen' topics, so it will require only minimal maintenance from year to year, or even from team to team. It will touch on the style of play I want to implement, and outline the roles of the players and the parents
2. I'm compiling some online resources to share with the parents following the presentation to, in effect, do the rest of the job for me. This allows me to do less of the work, let smarter people than myself explain some of the most complex topics, and like the slideshow, maintain broadly the same message over time, but with the flexibility to add and remove content.

For point 2, this is what my resources look like so far:

3four3 Blog Posts: covers a variety of themes and topics

http://blog.3four3.com/2010/01/20/fundamental-guide-to-soccer-iq/

http://blog.3four3.com/2011/05/31/the-importance-of-a-soccer-identity-barcelona-manchester-united/

http://blog.3four3.com/2011/05/15/2-fundamental-and-objective-metrics-to-judging-a-coachs-quality/

http://blog.3four3.com/2010/12/11/winning-vs-soccer-development-really-thats-the-problem/

http://blog.3four3.com/2013/02/07/pickup-soccer-versus-competitive-club-soccer/

http://blog.3four3.com/2010/07/29/developing-soccer-technique-the-best-tool/

3four3 Coaching Primer: introduction to the style of coaching I use

http://343coaching.com/powerful-coaching-primer/

Links to websites featuring replays of recent games

http://www.espn.com/watchespn/index#type/replay/sport/soccer-futbol/

http://www.fullmatchesandshows.com/

Tactics Column from the Guardian: decent analysis of English Premier League games

https://www.theguardian.com/football/football-tactics

Soccer fitness coach explains soccer-specific fitness

http://www.mockingbirdsoccer.net/News/TabId/387/ArtMID/1379/ArticleID/4092/Raymond-Verheijen-%E2%80%93-Dispelling-the-Myths-of-Soccer-Fitness.aspx

Anything you would omit or include in this list?

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