In effort to keep some type of theme meandering it's way through the convolution of this blog, I am going to drop some posts in the next month or so about my experience with coaching my daughters U-5 soccer team.
This is meant to be educational in variety as I am a highly trained soccer professional whom likes to base my level of expertise in soccer on the use of terms such as "pitch" instead of field, "boots" instead of cleats, and "clean sheet" instead of shut out. As you can tell, based solely on my Euro-centric adoption of football terminology I am advanced. In an effort to appear more broadly to my domestic readership I will use the more commonly accepted terms such as soccer.
The first practice is like opening a new restaurant. You want to start banging away with high energy, lots of activities, and loads of customers, our team lived up to the first two. As mentioned in my first T-Ball post, having a solid team name makes up for the lack of remembering any of the kids names. Also, take into consideration the age of the players you are coaching because calling four year olds "killers" is evidently not appropriate. We, and by we I mean me, decided what we would be called, I was racking my brain trying to come up with something and then it dawned on me. The Pink Elephants. I know what you are thinking, "nice work Ben" but truth be told our uniforms are pink and they have a giant elephant on the front but hey the other team didn't even have a name.
Now with all due respect to the other team, they had nothing on us. They were instructed by one of the "Premier" coaches that are available to all teams in the league. I opted not to have a premier coach but to handle the coaching responsibilities myself. You might call this arrogance and there is probably a sliver of truth to that but I have gone to some of the local "training" academies and clubs with my daughter and the coaches they have are typically "premier" in name only. My assumption played out fairly well in this regard. The other team had a premier coach and they pretty much were crying and not having anywhere near as much fun as we were having. Plus, she failed in her first job as coach, and that is getting a team name and doing a cheer.
Back to the Elephants. We started with some simple introductions and rules of the game. "This is out of bounds so stop kicking the ball and running if you go out over this line. This is the goal, if you kick it in here we will all go crazy. Don't push or pull or do anything mean to the other team. You are on the same team so don't kick each other but kicking them is okay." Lastly, I instilled the three main rules of soccer for five year olds.
1. No using your hands ever. (we don't have goalies in this league)
2. No kicking with your toe of your "cleats" (we use the laces, instep or outstep)
3. No crying (this is possibly the rule the parents love the most)
I make my team tell me those rules, scratch that, I make my team yell me those rules many, many times throughout the game. We yell the rules and do 1, 2, 3 Elephants as often as possible. The kids love it and the parents get a kick out of it.
Next, bring a whistle, my wife found mine before practice and it came in handy on countless occations. There are four fields and seven other teams practicing and the kids don't respond to your voice but they sure as hell respond to a whistle.
Finally, make sure you stop the game if one of your kids does something mean to the other team. One of my girls was tackled, and one of my girls pulled a kids shirt. This lead to loads of crying by the offended player. Making them say they are sorry but more importantly singling them out and drawing attention to it, makes them not want to go through that again. We scored two goals, which did lead me to a drill we will be working on this Saturday, goal runs. Ruby and I have been working on the airplane and it's going to be sweet. Remember, the impression you give to the parents and the amount of fun the kids are having are the criteria you as a coach are going to be judged on with five year olds. If someone thinks their kid is the next Landon Donovan, they need to check themselves or find a new team. Also, I am adding this rather incoherently but remember to bring treats to the first game, two of the girls first questions or rather statements were regarding how much they were looking forward to them. Priorities of a five year old.
Please feel free to add comments or tips on making coaching five year olds the best possible experience you can provide. In the meantime I will leave you with this. The other team did come up with a team name by the end of the game. The Pirates...lame.
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