The strangely strange case of Thoughtful Soccer.

It was on the old and-again soccer forum that I encountered Russ Carrington. As I recall, he appeared on the forum one day with the intent of publicizing a book he was authoring.  Self promotion in Internet forums is probably second only to trolling to set a forum's regulars against you. And Carrington did take a fair amount of flak on and-again for promoting himself and his book.  I was one of the regulars who took the time to engage with Carrington and in January of 2003 he sent me a free copy of Thoughtful Soccer to read and review.

Thoughtful Soccer is written as a children's book with a target audience of new soccer coaches. There are fables, hisa's, thoughtscrims, comos, tries and cutesy names such as alligator river and one layer - two layer for long established exercises.  Generally, an experienced coach will take a brief look at this book and label it utter nonsense or rubbish. I would like to think I saw through that and appreciated the presentation to be ingenious in the context of targeting first time parent coaches of U6 - U8 players. The children's book approach melded with diagrams clearly targeted for adults reaches out to parents of K - 3rd or 4th grade children. This assessment proved to be a stumbling block for in discussions on the and-again forum Carrington would insist the book was targeted for and would work for coaches of all ages and all levels in youth soccer. This in spite of the introduction to the book being titled "Great News for New Coaches"  After all, how many new coaches begin their coaching careers as head coaches of high school teams? None that I am aware of.  They tend to at least of come up through the recreational youth ranks before being handed the reigns of a high schol team. Anyway, as those discussions on and-again would (d)evolve over the years,  Carrington would insist the book provided excellent methodology to prepare high school aged student athletes to play in college.

Coaches steal from one another all-the-time.  It's why most attend clinics and coaching courses or buy books and videos  - to find the latest best way to train a team. People who conduct clinics / coaching courses or publish books / videos do so to share their ideas ... and to make money, of course. I believe Carrington's motives were at least pseudo altruistic in the beginning,

What's the newest hot drill or exercise to train individuals or a team?  Carrington tapped into this with incredible energy through the presentation style incorporated in his book.  Still, aside from presentation, there are no truly new or revolutionary ideas in the book. And Carrington manages to get some of the ideas he does present wrong - his ideas on zonal defending for example.  The windshield wiper player is another. Misinterpretations of long established concepts that Carrington would argue are actually new ideas.  They are not.

Carrington's inability or unwillingness to accept constructive criticism in regards to anything Thoughtful Soccer related eventually led any discussion of the book and its contents to devolve into very ugly exchanges on and-again.  These "Russ centered" discussions eventually led to the down fall of a once great on line coaching community and resource center.

Russ Carrington not only sabotaged his own work so thoroughly that it is now widely ridiculed and mocked, but he helped bring about the downfall of the and-again site and forums as well. His staunch and steadfast defense of Thoughtful Soccer in the face of constructive criticism from some of the brightest minds in the game soon relegated the book to discount bargain bins and clearance areas. That's a bit of a shame for the book is not completely worthless. It's value was degraded by an egotistical stubborn author who took exception to any offer of help to improve his product. Carrington was a know-it-all and completely unafraid to proclaim himself as one to anyone who dared challenge his beloved Thoughtful Soccer.  And so he destroyed his own work and subjected himself to ridicule. A strangely strange tale indeed.