Over the coming weeks teams will either be in the full swing of their season, or starting their Spring season games.
- We define our success as – DEVELOPMENT
- We coach for – DEVELOPMENT
- Our Club Development Plan is for – DEVELOPMENT
Our coaches are compensated for their skills in coaching, being able to get their point across and approaching youth sports as an environment for players to learn through making mistakes, and having fun. Our coaches are not compensated for win-loss ratios, division titles, and cup victories.
Support the coaches by being patient, understanding the process, and reaching out to them with an open for answering questions you may have so we can better develop education for both players and parents.
The following videos (Positive Coaching Alliance and the18) highlight the difficulties we face when challenged with people perceiving compensated coaches being there to win games, and why we coach – we do it for the kids.
Let the kids play, and support your coaches.
Julie Foudy (@JulieFoudy), a PCA National Advisory Board Member, played midfield for the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team (1987-2004), winning two World Cup titles and two Olympic Gold Medals. A 2007 inductee into the National Soccer Hall of Fame, she now works as an ESPN Analyst and runs the Julie Foudy Sports Leadership Academy, teaching leadership skills to youth.
In this clip, Foudy speaks with PCA at the National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA) Convention about the approach paid coaches take to winning and player development. She begins by acknowledging that coaches whose jobs depend on winning are in a tough position. However, she quickly conveys that this doesn’t make negative coaching behavior acceptable.
More importantly, Foudy strikes on the point that emphasizing winning over development is an impossible environment for kids to learn and grow. Making mistakes is a part of mastering any skill, and a young athlete will be fearful of failing when taking on a new challenge if a coach can’t concentrate more on development than the outcome on the scoreboard.