Never say "it's only house league"

Why do people feel they need to slot the house league experience below "rep" or "travel" teams?

True success as a sports stakeholder is realizing the best place and situation for a child to develop and enjoy themselves.  It may be rep, it may be select or it may be house league.

Remember, the right level, the right coach at the right time.

House league and grassroots sports are the backbone of all sports in Canada.  Because a child may not be at the level to win a spot on a rep team, it does not make them any less a participant in that sport.  The level of play and execution may differ but that does not minimize the passion.

Whether you are the right defender on a rep team,  the striker on a select team or the centre midfielder on a house league team, you are as much a footballer as Lionel Messi.  The same applies to coaches and managers.

"At the end of it all, 99.99% of youth players, regardless of level, will be playing in the same beer league.  And that's OK."

House League/Grassroots soccer has just a big a portion of Ontario and Canada's Long Term Player Development as everything else.  The "Active for Life" stream of the philosophy is very important.
 
Don't fool yourself.  The sports world is driven by what happens on Saturday mornings in every sport across the country.

My personal opinions:

1. A parent or player shouldn't feel house league is a lower level of sports experience than travel.
2. It's wrong for a sports organization to treat house league as an after thought.
3. It's wrong for sports organizations to not offer their house league coaches support.
4. It's wrong for sports organization to not offer meaningful pathways for house league players who are looking to make the transition to travel.
5. It's wrong for organizations to not have proportional representation from house league on their boards.
6. It's wrong to let facilities assigned to house league fall into disrepair. 
7. It's wrong to give house league what's left over in terms of time at facilities. 
8. It's "bad business" for groups to discount the importance of their grassroots program.

I like how the Welland Soccer Club has handled house league and the indoor program has been almost exclusive to house league.  There is another club in Welland, Plymouth Park Soccer League, who do a good job as well.

People who know me will tell you that, in spite of my personal involvement with travel soccer, my favourite place is the Welland Soccer Club on Saturday mornings.

As a final note: At the end of it all, 99.99% of youth players, regardless of level, will be playing in the same beer league.  And that's OK.

MLS and NASL ... are we there yet?

In 2013, Major League Soccer officially outlives the defunct North American Soccer League.

There have been countless attempts to bring professional soccer to North America, but the NASL and MLS are the two biggest stories.

I have a personal attachment to the old NASL.  In 1981, my youth team from Port Colborne was selected as the ball boys for the Soccer Bowl held at Toronto's Exhibition Stadium.  The Chicago Sting played the New York Cosmos.  My friend Mossimo and I were placed behind the one goal and I got an up-close view of my favourite player, Giorgio Chinaglia.  The Sting won that game in a shootout after playing to a 0-0 draw.

The old North American Soccer League ran from 1968-1984 and, in my opinion, this league was an amazing story.  It managed to wiggle it's way on to ABC as a weekly national broadcast in between broadcasts of Major League Baseball and early season NFL.  The NASL sold soccer to North America, period.  Big name players came to North America to play out their final days.  Pele, George Best, Johan Cruyff, Giorgio Chinaglia, Roberto Betega, etc etc etc.

You can criticize the actions of certain owners, but you can't argue that soccer grew at a crazy rate during the NASL days and those people who put their money where their passion was are soccer heroes.  A lot of people had NASL jerseys and t-shirts and all of my soccer friends had favourite teams and players.  EVERY SPORTS FAN knew details about the New York Cosmos.

"the final nail in the coffin was the USA not getting the 1986 World Cup after Columbia had to withdraw"

Teams played in cavernous football stadiums and modified baseball parks.  You could see the football and baseball markings on the field along with the soccer lines and people did pay to watch.  The highest average attendance was 14,201 in 1980.  The league also has a high 24 teams that year.

In 4 short years the league went from 24 teams to 9 and average attendance dropped to 10,759.  In 1984, the league played its last game.

A lot of things led to its death, but the final nail in the coffin was the USA not getting the 1986 World Cup after Columbia had to withdraw in 1982 because of economics.  Mexico was named the new host.  Experts agree that awarding the USA the 1986 would cup would have been the boost needed for continued growth.

Different leagues have come and gone in both Canada and USA but the NASL was the first to take it up a level and have some kind of exposure and staying power.  All of those leagues before and after the NASL were instrumental in keeping the market active and laying the ground work for MLS.

MLS was founded in 1993 and played it's first season in 1996.  The announcement of the USA being awarded the 1994 FIFA World Cup Finals played a huge role in the league birth.  In fact, the league's formation and planning for the 1994 World Cup was all under the same umbrella with US Soccer.

Major League Soccer is entering it's 18th season in 2013, officially surpassing the life of the old NASL. MLS currently has 19 teams and the average attendance in 2012 was 18,807 over 323 games.  Most teams have soccer specific stadiums and that is a boost to credibility and a testament to the owners' collective commitment and confidence in soccer.  The occasional big name still makes the jump over and big name friendlies are always being played.

This league is for real and sustained interest in North American soccer and the USA's perennial qualification for the FIFA World Cup keeps adding fuel to the fire.  Each team is adding full academy systems to their organizations.  In Canada, the three MLS youth programs are constantly contributing talent to our younger Nation teams.

The caveat with MLS is the ownership structure and how youth academies fit into the system.  They don't.  Sooner or later MLS will have to be independently operating teams truly competing with each other and profiting from selling players to bigger clubs.  There is also a quality issue on the pitch (players and officials) that fans are wanting to see.  There is also international criticism of not taking days off for international matches and a true relegation/promotion system.

"It's like a smouldering fire that people kept trying to fan into a flame."

Does the MLS owe a debt of gratitude to the old NASL, the players and those who invested in soccer? Nobody can separate the two leagues in terms of a foundation being laid and a market being present.  Having the courage to invest in big names and bring Pelé over moved soccer into the mainstream.  You can also qualify the effect the 1986 World Cup would have had on the NASL by the fact that the 1994 World Cup was the catalyst for MLS.

The defense of the ownership structure is to protect the league from spending it's way out of business.

Locally, Toronto FC fans wait for success.  And wait. And wait.

A lot of people have emptied their pockets over the past 100 years in hopes of bringing professional soccer to Canada and North America. Every major city has somebody who tried to champion high level soccer. Former Toronto Maple Leafs owner Steve Stavro is an example of such a person in Ontario.  There are also countless people who have owned teams in the Canadian Soccer League, National Soccer League and CPSL.  There are countless stories of passionate fans, broken hearts and bad investments and they truly deserve a space of their own. 

It's like a smouldering fire that people kept trying to fan into a flame.  From a marketing point of view the story has been consistent : Who will be the first to find a way to convert all of those soccer players in North America into paying customers.

But TV coverage of soccer is awesome, brand names and globally recognized teams are seeing their jerseys in our classrooms and municipalities are investing in more pitches.

So are we there yet?  Is professional soccer here to stay?  I think it's safe to finally say "YES ... maybe", despite it currently being in an unorthodox, not truly 100% competitive structure. 

Now, go buy a ticket.  :)

U4 - "Active Start" Session - Saturday morning

I finally had a U4 session where each player had an adult partner.  And it worked like a charm.

In keeping with LTPD, I ran the session framed by the development stage "Active Start".

Getting parents to realize they were actually helping was not difficult.  Everybody was ready to go and very co-operative.  I think some really enjoyed themselves.

When I show up to guest coach an outdoor U4 session, many parents are in sandals or have other children to tend to, so getting a 1:1 adult ratio is difficult unless the coach sets the standard for the season.

The Active Start session has 4 simple criteria:

• General movements
• Soccer Co-ordination
• Soccer techniques
• Small Sided Game

We started off with simple games of tags where the parents chased the kids and vice-versa. 

That was followed up by a series of activities to promote familiarity with the ball and forcing certain movements (dribbling, turning, running with the ball, etc).  Every activity involved the parent as a partner.

We ended it all with 2 small sided games.  I wouldn't exactly call them "games" but rather "slight chaos, with uniforms".  It's a good exercise because it starts to introduce the idea of teams, field shape, goals, etc.  But very few of the players understand the concept of a game. 

Why parents as partners?  Your goal for the session is that each player is comfortable and getting as many interactions with the ball as possible.  If you've ever run a U4 session you know that some kids wander away and go where?  Their parents.  With the player's parent there and active, your player is active and participating in every activity taking place.

After drink breaks, I informally explained to the parent partners what the goals were of most of the things we were doing,  but the general message was simple.  Any activity that allows the player to develop a relationship with the ball and learn to manipulate it with different parts of either foot is good.

The session lasted 50 minutes including water breaks.  The Active Start outline suggests 30-45 minutes.  Our game was no longer than 10 minutes and that was about enough.

I lost a few minutes getting parents into the role of 1v1 assistance during the practice and getting the players into a set area but I was happy with how it went for my first interaction with this groups.  I was pretty relaxed about parents going off on a tangent to see what they would do, and I was impressed.  Most parents of the children who strayed kept playing with their child, using their personal play time to get them back into the group.  All with the ball on their foot.

The most difficult part of LTPD, and Active Start, is for parents to forget their adult perceptions of sport.  The players have so much to learn, physically and technically, before presenting anything that  might resemble a game.  Most 4-year-olds do not understand "us against them" and "we score in that net and defend this one".  They all understand comfort, fear, love and fun and training should revolve around those points.

As players in the Active Start stage move towards 6 years old , you can introduce more activities that do not require parent partners.  But for U4 you should involve parents as much as possible.

Understanding and engaging the female athlete

How a 90 minute presentation unsettled my understanding of the female athlete.

I've coached women at the college level and enjoyed every minute of it.  I thought I was doing well then and still think I did well, but I realized after listening to a speaker this past weekend, I did not do enough homework in advance of taking that job (Thanks Linda Whitehead, OSA Master Learning Facilitator)

My confidence in coaching females is still there, but now I know more and feel I can offer more over a season(s).

I take this quote from an article:  "Much of our understanding about training programs and other strategies used to build an elite athlete have been taken from research studies using YOUNG ADULT WHITE MALES (18-25 years of age). The results of these studies have then been directly applied to female athletes, regardless of age."

Rather than share what I think is correct, I will just offer links to information from real experts.  If you coach females, you owe it to them to educate yourself.

http://www.ideafit.com/fitness-library/female-athlete-triad

 

http://canadiansportforlife.ca/resources/female-athlete-perspective

http://canadiansportforlife.ca/resources/actively-engaging-women-and-girls

http://www.sportsdoctor.com/articles/female.html

OSA Learning Facilitator Weekend Workshop

This past weekend, fifty Learning Facilitators for the Ontario Soccer Association gathered for our yearly workshop.

As a group we deliver coaching education across the province.  We spent time on the field and in the classroom reviewing improved delivery methods, new material and sharing experiences.

There is one thing that always happens when we convene:  We have great chemistry as a group and our time together is very enjoyable.  This makes the weekend fly by and sets a great envinronment for learning.

We learn a lot from our workshop leaders and formal materials given to us, but the majority of the learning comes from the group during discussions and post-session debriefing.  This is holding with the spirit in which we are to facilitate our courses to learning coaches.

The old method used in coaching education was "I speak - you listen".  The new approach introduced last season has the course leader put the material and course in the hands of the learner.  Our very titles reflect the new methodology.  The position was called "Course Instructor" and is now known as "Learning Facilitator".

With the implementation of LTPD, a lot of the coaching education program was changed to match the philosophy.

From administration to curriculum to content delivery, the workshop kept moving forward and was busy the whole way through. 

The OSA is certainly not complacent when it comes to coaching education.  A lot of work goes into the development of the program and its delivery agents out in the field.

The LFs in the Ottawa Region gather for the same educational experience in January 2013.

I look forward to sharing information with new coaches during our courses.

Stay tuned to The Ontario Soccer Association for upcoming coaching courses.