Category: Missy’s Musings
Schralp It.
A wicked new mountain bike path begging for tire tracks, alone time with your in-laws, the grocery store before the big football weekend: we want to hear about it. What was the last thing YOU shralped?
Lean In
With a combination of enthusiasm, curiosity and the resources below – utilized by Missy herself – anyone can become a great youth soccer coach. The first two resources offer great general and strategic advice about how to approach coaching youth; they are applicable to any sport.
A Coaching and Philosophical Starting Point
If you can avoid the three L’s–lines, laps and lectures–outlined in this one-page guide, you are well on your way to being an excellent youth sports coach.
Piaget for Soccer Coaches
A good one-page resource about appropriate developmental skills for each age.
Soccerhelp.com
Don’t be intimated by this text-heavy site! Soccerhelp.com is a great resource for first-time, parent-coaches of young players, U-11 and below, There is a free version which is enough to get you started, but the paid version is well worth the money. We also use their patch program to incent kits to set and achieve goals.
Bettersoccercoaching.com
If you can wade through the pop-ups and ads, there is very good information on all aspects of coaching the game of soccer. Their weekly newsletter has valuable drills and practice planning tips that are particularly valuable for kids U-12 and up.
YouTube
This seems obvious, but YouTube is a treasure trove of technique tips. Pretty much any move you need to teach or want your team to master, you can find a great instructional breakdown on YouTube.
Baffled Parent’s Guide to Coaching Youth Soccer and Baffled Parent’s Guide to Great Soccer Drills
Prefer something in print on paper? These two classic books can probably get you through U-6, U-8 and perhaps U-10 soccer. If you follow Bobby Clark’s advice, you will be well ahead of most parent-coaches.
Share with us your great coaching tips, and for this fall season, let’s all lean in and help!
9 things* EVERY WOMAN should know how to do:
As determined by our highly unscientific T9er poll:
Play On!
We here at T9HQ love to get out and play! Even if we think we can’t, we do. It doesn’t matter who wins or loses, okay, okay. Who are we kidding? We always want to win 😉 But, it’s just about getting out there and staying out there, no matter how hard you think it is. The important thing is that you went out there and did it. What has been your experience with perhaps trying something new that you weren’t completely successful at? Or do you have a time where you just had to power through a game with a broken nose? Let us know in the comments below!
