Freedom

"It's never been my team, its always been the players team. Thats just how it is, the players are what get it done on the field, I just do what I can to help prepare them. It's a players game, not a coaches game. In soccer the title should be manager and/or trainer. The title of coach makes little sense. Managing a group of talented individuals to be successful, that is the goal. Having the drive to win comes from the confidence the individuals gain from being trained in highly competitive and demanding atmospheres. It is the responsibility of the players to get the win and my job to allow them the creativity to earn the win in a fashion that allows each individual to express themselves on the park. Freedom on the field, freedom in my homeland. Express yourself without consequence. Long live soccer in America."

-Jeff Ginn

Parents Seeing The Big Picture

By Jim Thompson

I have long been a fan of "The Family Circus" comic strip. Perhaps my favorite strip of all time features the family dog barking up a storm in the middle of the night. Dad, irritated that he's been awakened from a much-needed sleep, clomps down the stairs to yell at Barfy, who dutifully hangs his head. Dad climbs back up the stairs while the cartoonist has a surprise for us. He pans back so we see in the far corner of the yard a burglar retreating.

We who see the "Big Picture" know Barfy has protected his family from a burglary. The dad, seeing only the "Little Picture," is angry at being disturbed.

This comic strip can serve as a metaphor for youth sports. Youth coaches and parents are often overwhelmed by so many Little Pictures filled with barking dogs that they miss the Big Picture entirely. How our children do in any given sporting event is Little Picture. Whether they win or lose, play well or badly, laugh or whine after the game - all Little Picture.

What children take away from youth sports to help them become successful, contributing members of society is the Big Picture. Whether they remain physically active throughout life, learn to bounce back from difficulties with renewed determination, discover how to support other people within a team context - these are the Big Picture.

THE BIG PICTURE AND YOU. This book* describes a model of sports parenting that focuses relentlessly on the Big Picture. We call it the Second-Goal Parent.

There are two broad goals in youth sports: striving to win and building character so kids develop into successful, contributing members of society.

As important as winning is, Second-Goal Parents let coaches and athletes worry about the first goal of scoreboard results. Second-Goal Parents have a much more important role to play: ensuring their children take away from sports lessons that will help them be successful in life. Remember, that is the Big Picture. And attending to this is much more vital than being an extraneous backseat coach.



Now, there is nothing wrong with caring about whether your child's team wins or loses. Go ahead and care about it! Likewise, there's nothing wrong with giving pointers when your child asks for them.

But the lifelong impact you can have - that no one else can in quite the way you can - is on the life lessons your child takes away from the sports experience. No one can be there for your child in this way better than you. No one.



If you embrace your role as a Second-Goal Parent, it will transform the way you see youth sports. It will help you seize the teachable moments that will come your way again and again because you are looking for them.

What might have seemed like a disappointing loss or a failure by your child becomes an opportunity to reinforce resiliency. A tough competition in forbiddingly hot, cold, or nasty weather can prompt a conversation with your child about learning to enjoy challenges. Whether your child succeeds or fails on the playing field, you will be able to use the experiences to reinforce the kind of person you want him or her to be.



*(Excerpted from "Positive Sports Parenting: How 'Second-Goal' Parents Build Winners in Life Through Sports," the fifth book by Jim Thompson. It is available for $8.95 at www.positivecoach.org/store . Thompson is the founder of the Positive Coaching Alliance.)

For Kids Only …

By Mike Woitalla

This column is for the kids. Adults can stop reading now (but really Infinity parents... read it, but make sure your kids do too :)

Dear Soccer-Playing Children of America,

The fall season is underway and I’m hoping you’re having a great time. I’m hoping that you’re playing soccer more than you have to stand in line and do drills.

I hope you’re falling in love with the soccer ball and keep it with you as much as you can. Juggling it. Kicking it against a wall. Dribbling it around in your backyard.

And I especially hope that your parents aren’t screaming at you during your soccer games.

~view 30 second video ~


I worry that you probably do get yelled at, because that’s what I see at almost all the youth soccer games I go to. Hopefully you just ignore it. But I don’t blame you if it bothers you.

No one enjoys getting screamed at. Sure, if you start crossing the street on a red light or throw a toy at your little sister or brother, your parents are justified in raising their voices. But they shouldn’t scream at you while you’re playing a game.

If they do, it doesn’t mean they’re bad people. But, unfortunately, sports does something to adults that makes them behave in ways they usually wouldn’t.

You may have noticed this if you watch sports on TV. A coach, for example, dresses up in a fancy suit and throws tantrums like a 3-year-old.

Get adults around sports and all of a sudden they forget the same manners they try to teach you. In a way, sports are like driving. A grown-up gets behind the wheel and all of a sudden forgets you’re not supposed to pick your nose in public.

And when grown-ups go watch their children play soccer, they, for some reason, think it’s OK to scream like maniacs. Perhaps they don’t realize what they’re doing. Like the nose-pickers on the freeway who think they’ve suddenly gone invisible.

I hope you’re able to block out all the sideline noise. But maybe you do hear their shouts. Telling you when to shoot the ball, when to pass it. Ignore all that!

You need to dribble the ball. Try to dribble past players. If you’re dribbling too much, your teammates will let you know. And they’ll help you make the decision of when to pass and when to dribble.

You decide when to shoot. When you’re dribbling toward the goal and the goalkeeper is 20 yards away, and the adults are screaming at you to shoot, don’t pay attention. Because if you get closer to the goal, it will be harder for the goalkeeper to stop your shot.

One of the really cool things about my job is that I get to interview the best coaches in America. And you know what the national team coaches tell me? They say young players are far more likely to become great players if they’re allowed to make their own decisions when they play soccer.

They say that coaches should coach at practice, and when it’s game time, it’s time for the children to figure things out on their own. It’s like at school. The teachers help you learn. Your parents help you with homework. But when you get a test, you’re on your own.

That’s just an analogy. I’m not saying soccer is school! Soccer is your playtime.

I hope you have lots of playtime, on the soccer field and elsewhere. But I bet that you don’t have as much time playing without adults around as we did when we were children.

When we were kids we had summer days when we would leave the house in the morning, be only with other children all day, then see our parents when we got back in the late afternoon.

Things have changed. The reasons adults are much more involved in your activities than they were in your parents’ when they were children are complicated, and a result of your parents’ good intentions.

But sometimes we adults forget how important it is for you to play without us interfering. We love watching you play, especially on the soccer field, because it is such a wonderful sport. But we need to be reminded that it’s your playtime.

You should decide. Ignore the shouts if you can. But don’t be afraid to say, “I’m trying my best. Please, don’t scream at me.”

(Mike Woitalla, who coaches youth soccer in Northern California, is the executive editor of Soccer America. His youth articles are archived at YouthSoccerFun.com.)

~have fun watching this soccer video~

Out of the Mouths of Babes

By Emily Cohen

Driving the school or sports carpool always affords the opportunity to eavesdrop on what's really happening in kids' lives. While kids may not tell their parents about an embarrassing or unsettling experience with a teacher, a coach, or another authority figure, they'll almost certainly tell each other, especially if they're in the backseat of a car and they don't think the parent is listening.

It was just this situation in which I found myself, driving my daughter and some friends home from a soccer game. In between surfing radio stations, I heard the girls comparing the coaching styles of various coaches. One girl said to the others about a past coach, "One minute, she yelled, 'Go to the right!' The next minute, she yelled, 'Go to the left!' I was so confused, I didn't do anything. I stopped to figure out what she was telling me to do, and the girl with the ball dribbled right by me."

I laughed to myself and wondered if the coach realized that her yelling was completely counterproductive. In fact, I wonder if most coaches really think about how their bellows and screeches from the sideline, which they think of as helpful instructions, are perceived by their players.

If coaches ever stopped to ask players whether instructions yelled from the sidelines motivate the player to do what the coach wants, the collective response would be a resounding "No!"

All but two of the 15 kids — ages 7 to 17 — with whom I spoke said that their coach's yelled instructions didn't help them at all. In fact, it made it difficult to focus on what they were doing — playing soccer. And the two who did say that shouted instructions or directions by the coach helped them perform better qualified their answers by saying that they thought the coaches were trying to help but, when they thought about it, what the coach was trying to explain to them would have been better communicated off the field, during a substitution or at halftime — or, better yet, at a practice.

But enough of my interpretations. Let's hear it from the kids themselves:

"Getting yelled at by my coach isn't helpful at all because it makes it harder to concentrate. It's more difficult to control the soccer ball when someone's yelling at me."

"When the coach yells at me to mark someone or run somewhere else, I can't focus on the game. I think I make more mistakes because I was listening not playing."

"Both the coaches were screaming instructions. I tried to do what one of the coaches said, but it was hard to figure out, because the coaches were saying different things."

"I hate it when the coach screams at me to 'play better' or 'run harder.' I mean, really, I'm trying my best already and that just makes me feel worse. It doesn't make me play better or run harder."

"Most of the time, when the coach yells something to me, I saw it already and I'm trying to get there. But I can't yell that to them because I'm too busy running!"

And my personal favorite:

"I don't like it when a coach yells at me to do something because I usually figure out what to do on my own."

There it is, in a nutshell. Isn't that really what youth soccer is about? Figuring out how to play the game and gaining a sense of accomplishment from doing just that?

I wonder how many of those screaming coaches could play an hour of soccer (or play a tennis match or a run a 10K race or cycle up a steep grade) with someone yelling at them the entire time to "run harder," "cycle faster" or "play better." Most would likely lose their patience and yell back at the offender.

I just hope the next time one of them coaches a kids' soccer game, he or she thinks twice about yelling at the players and decides to just let them play.

(Emily Cohen is a freelance writer living in Berkeley, Calif. She is the mother of a son, 12, and a daughter, 9, who both play multiple sports. She has been a team manager for her children's soccer, baseball and softball teams.)