First a little background. I grew up in a small town in the Midwest. Played soccer from age 4 through college and beyond. I’ve had many coaches through the years. Spotting a good one is as easy as spotting an unprepared, ill-equipped one. Today I have four children, two of whom play soccer and the other two want to, but two and four are a little young yet.
After signing up my son for Revolution I would hang around for a while and watch practice. Checking things out, here is what I saw. Coaches arrive 15 minutes early. Cones out and goals up welcoming the kids as they arrived. This sounds small until you play on a team where the coach arrives at time or even late without a plan.
Then one day one of the coaches was gone for some reason and I pitched in to help. And before you know it, I’m being offered a position. A couple weeks and a background check later—I’m official.
The style of play, drills and cadence of the practices were familiar to me. But I heard things like, “pass with your heel down and your toes up” and “receive the ball across your body.” These are things I knew but no one had ever told me, I just figured it out along the way. But what if someone HAD told me? And at such a young age. 🤔
These coaches are organized. They develop themselves. They earn licenses. They come to practice with a game plan. They talk to each other throughout the week about players, drills, tournaments, etc. They are invested. And they don’t get paid.
They coach because they are passionate about developing good soccer players but more importantly good men and women. I’m honored to be a member of the organization.