A good article about Coaches and Parents here in America

Denied said:
My kid was out for a year, injury. When he returned I wanted to find a coach who didn't yell all game and make the kids nervous and afraid to make a mistake. The coach he ended up with, is what I hope will be, the new generation of coaches. The guy is only about 24, played in college, still plays in an adult league but more importantly starts every practice with about a 20 minute review of what was covered in the previous practice or game.

Maybe it's his youth but his enthusiasm for the game is contagious and the boys can see it. We need more coaches like this.
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Having a young coach that was a player is not always a good thing. They don't have the maturity and life experience, they know how to play but may not know how to teach. Also often don't understand cognitive and developmental levels of children so they miss the boat sometimes. Sometimes expectations are way to high and forget they are kids. This is probably more of a problem with the U12 and younger (and also girls) but maybe not so much with olders
 
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Soccer43 said:
Having a young coach that was a player is not always a good thing. They don't have the maturity and life experience, know how to play but don't know how to teach. Also often don't understand cognitive and developmental levels of children so they miss the boat sometimes. Sometimes expectations are way to high and forget they are kids. This is probably more of a problem with the U12 and younger (and also girls) but maybe not so much with olders
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Totally agree. A fresh out of college player is in a fresh out of college mode. They dont remember what it was like when they were 8. Or they were a high performing 8 year old and have a hard time connecting with a kid who is decent but isn’t highly motivated.
 
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There's a tremendous piece on this month's "real sports with bryant gumbel" about youth sports in norway, with some great lessons for us all. they dominate winter olympics and have the world's best female soccer player.

until 13 years old, they don't keep score (or winners and losers in track events), they don't do "travel teams" and they don't rank anybody. it's all purely for fun.

After that, major programs, funded in large part by sports gambling(!!!)
 
messy said:
There's a tremendous piece on this month's "real sports with bryant gumbel" about youth sports in norway, with some great lessons for us all. they dominate winter olympics and have the world's best female soccer player.

until 13 years old, they don't keep score (or winners and losers in track events), they don't do "travel teams" and they don't rank anybody. it's all purely for fun.

After that, major programs, funded in large part by sports gambling(!!!)
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Enjoy that show and saw that episode. It is impressive what they do. Cost of participation is purposefully kept low. But they also mentioned that after 13 years old athletes are weeded out from these national programs. It felt like they were cut and never brought back into the mix, hopefully I am wrong. And with their size in both population and land mass it makes something like this much more manageable.
 
messy said:
There's a tremendous piece on this month's "real sports with bryant gumbel" about youth sports in norway, with some great lessons for us all. they dominate winter olympics and have the world's best female soccer player.

until 13 years old, they don't keep score (or winners and losers in track events), they don't do "travel teams" and they don't rank anybody. it's all purely for fun.

After that, major programs, funded in large part by sports gambling(!!!)
Click to expand...

Gosh, I thought we were supposed to be following the Japanese model. Or the Dutch. Or the Spanish. Now we're supposed to be doing what Norway is doing? Is there any country in the world that isn't better than the U.S. at creating great soccer players? Now that Bryant Gumbel has determined that more snow is key to making great soccer players, I guess I should apologize for criticizing USSF's decision to hold the GDA spring showcase in Colorado.
 
messy said:
There's a tremendous piece on this month's "real sports with bryant gumbel" about youth sports in norway, with some great lessons for us all. they dominate winter olympics and have the world's best female soccer player.

until 13 years old, they don't keep score (or winners and losers in track events), they don't do "travel teams" and they don't rank anybody. it's all purely for fun.

After that, major programs, funded in large part by sports gambling(!!!)
Click to expand...
It seems it would be pretty easy implementation by Cal South and local leagues to stop posting scores for all teams under 13. I would even say under 15. I don’t think many 10 year olds are looking up their team records online and every team that they play. It’s clearly serving the the adults and not the youth. I’m amazed at how many parents know
more about socal youth soccer team records and players than any professional soccer league. I imagine it would make its way to the internet somehow but it would at least make it harder to obtain and reduce the amount of people that are accessing the scores/standings. It might help reduce some of the craziness from the adults involved and put the focus more on serving the youth and developing players than just creating winning teams.
 
foreveryoung said:
It seems it would be pretty easy implementation by Cal South and local leagues to stop posting scores for all teams under 13. I would even say under 15. I don’t think many 10 year olds are looking up their team records online and every team that they play. It’s clearly serving the the adults and not the youth. I’m amazed at how many parents know
more about socal youth soccer team records and players than any professional soccer league. I imagine it would make its way to the internet somehow but it would at least make it harder to obtain and reduce the amount of people that are accessing the scores/standings. It might help reduce some of the craziness from the adults involved and put the focus more on serving the youth and developing players than just creating winning teams.
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What about State Cup?
 
espola said:
What about State Cup?
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Personally I am not a fan of State Cup and wouldn't mind if it went away. Another example of a youth event that really serves the adults. It's the adults that make State Cup important to the kids and it's full of truly terrible sideline behavior BUT since that's just my personal opinion maybe State Cup is the one exception and the scores are public.
 
End of the Line said:
Gosh, I thought we were supposed to be following the Japanese model. Or the Dutch. Or the Spanish. Now we're supposed to be doing what Norway is doing? Is there any country in the world that isn't better than the U.S. at creating great soccer players? Now that Bryant Gumbel has determined that more snow is key to making great soccer players, I guess I should apologize for criticizing USSF's decision to hold the GDA spring showcase in Colorado.
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Funny. Of course we don’t know if Norway (or Japan?) is making better soccer players than us, but we certainly know that Holland and Spain are. So are Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, France, Germany, Italy, Croatia, etc etc.
Norway’s philosophy about sport, and life in general, is fun to look at.
 
foreveryoung said:
It seems it would be pretty easy implementation by Cal South and local leagues to stop posting scores for all teams under 13. I would even say under 15. I don’t think many 10 year olds are looking up their team records online and every team that they play. It’s clearly serving the the adults and not the youth. I’m amazed at how many parents know
more about socal youth soccer team records and players than any professional soccer league. I imagine it would make its way to the internet somehow but it would at least make it harder to obtain and reduce the amount of people that are accessing the scores/standings. It might help reduce some of the craziness from the adults involved and put the focus more on serving the youth and developing players than just creating winning teams.
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You'd have to fix the bracket system too then because the wins/losses determine promotion (and for what's left of it, relegation). The clubs want the promotion so they can attract better players and have multiple teams in the same club (and a more healthy bottom line). The coaches know that they'll be judged on promotion/relegation. At the same time, you can't have gold level teams playing bronze teams and whipping them 20-0. The main reason scores are still tracked, despite the player development initiatives of 2 years ago, is because of the need to bracket teams. But the brackets have also become a way that parents judge the success and competence of the teams (and the players and coaches on them).
 
Grace T. said:
You'd have to fix the bracket system too then because the wins/losses determine promotion (and for what's left of it, relegation). The clubs want the promotion so they can attract better players and have multiple teams in the same club (and a more healthy bottom line). The coaches know that they'll be judged on promotion/relegation. At the same time, you can't have gold level teams playing bronze teams and whipping them 20-0. The main reason scores are still tracked, despite the player development initiatives of 2 years ago, is because of the need to bracket teams. But the brackets have also become a way that parents judge the success and competence of the teams (and the players and coaches on them).
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I never suggested that the leagues stop tracking the scores. Just that they stop making the info available online for the parents to see. That’s an easy change to implement and could have some positive affects. There’s no reason I can think of that the results of every game need to be known online by anyone that wants to see. Again it’s the adults that are looking at the results, not the kids. Then we tell them whether the team they are playing are good or not.
 
foreveryoung said:
I never suggested that the leagues stop tracking the scores. Just that they stop making the info available online for the parents to see. That’s an easy change to implement and could have some positive affects. There’s no reason I can think of that the results of every game need to be known online by anyone that wants to see. Again it’s the adults that are looking at the results, not the kids. Then we tell them whether the team they are playing are good or not.
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For every 1 person that wants to block the scores from the masses, there are probably over 50 people who want to see the scores. I think you're out numbered bro. So what if they show the scores. My dd always asks me if the team she's about to play is any good. She's been doing this since she was U9. Maybe your kid doesn't care how good the next team is, mine does, and I'm sure others do as well. How will we know how to compare teams if no scores are posted?
 
MR.D said:
For every 1 person that wants to block the scores from the masses, there are probably over 50 people who want to see the scores. I think you're out numbered bro. So what if they show the scores. My dd always asks me if the team she's about to play is any good. She's been doing this since she was U9. Maybe your kid doesn't care how good the next team is, mine does, and I'm sure others do as well. How will we know how to compare teams if no scores are posted?
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This is the crux of the problem. At this age, comparing teams is pointless. It's the absolute last thing anyone should be worrying about. What matters is developing players and if teams are worried about their record or youth soccer rank or promotion and relegation, they don't develop players as well.
 
focomoso said:
This is the crux of the problem. At this age, comparing teams is pointless. It's the absolute last thing anyone should be worrying about. What matters is developing players and if teams are worried about their record or youth soccer rank or promotion and relegation, they don't develop players as well.
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We don't worry about YSR so much. Its more of how well are we gonna play against the next team. You don't want to play a team you're gonna crush, that does no one any good. And knowing how well the next team does can help you avoid playing them or schedule games against them. The coaches/docs don't schedule/arrange every tournament/friendly, sometimes its left up to the team managers/parents to find good competition. So knowing a good team to play would be helpful.
 
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