Keep learning.

It is winter here in Ohio and although we do not have snow on the ground it is generally to cold and wet to do much soccer related activity outside. Basketball and wrestling dominate the gyms and where I am located we have one turfed indoor facility and field time / leagues are outrageously overpriced. Factor in the sun rises late and sets early... well, this is definitely the off-season for us. We do futsal in a gym on Wednesdays after basketball and on Sunday afternoons when basketball generally does not play or practice.

I also do a lot of review work from our past season.  I make notes in journal form on every practice, game and team gathering when in season.  Now is the time to review these to glean every bit of information that might be applied going forward. I also watch last seasons practice and game tapes for the same purpose. It can be amazing what a distance of 3 or 4 months allows one to see,

This is also the time of the year when I search out new books and articles to read. I spend too much time on YouTube watching soccer videos. Games, instructional and motivational videos. Anything I can find to learn, to enhance my skills as a coach, to make myself better at what I do.

I also take the time to attend practises conducted by other coaches.  I have watched tryouts for club teams this winter.  I have watched basketball and wrestling teams practice. I attend as many sporting events as possible to observe how other coaches ply their trade. I am intensely curious to see how other coaches interact with their players, their assistants, the referees and others.

I am now contemplating attending a coaching clinic or two.  Weighing the price of doing so against who will be the presenting clinicians. So much is available on the Internet these days, but it is refreshing to attend in person. Being able to ask questions of the presenter and other attendees.

On Saturday we ( my high school and program) are hosting a beginners referee and re-certification class. I will be in attendance all day, From 7:30 am until after 4:00 pm. It is important to build relationships with referees and to understand what they are looking for in-game.

These things will all factor into plans for next season. Our off season preparation will be based on what I am learning and in some cases re-learning now, in the dark of winter.  The success of our 2017 fall season will depend largely on my success in learning over these cold winter months.

Coaches' Clinics vs Coaching Courses

When I first turned my coaching attention towards soccer over 20 years ago I knew I needed help to do justice to the young players placed in my charge. Although I had coached various sports for a number of years I possessed a rudimentary knowledge of soccer in general. So, I set about educating myself about soccer.

One of the first things I did was to attend a "clinic" presented by the local high school coach. This clinic was part of a coaches meeting for the local recreational league and lasted all of about 30 minutes. Thus armed, I began my career as a soccer coach. We won the league championship that year with a 6-0-1 record!  This had little to do with my coaching acumen and much to do with the fact the biggest, fastest, strongest player in the league played for our team. As a coach, I knew to get the ball to the kid who couldn't be stopped.

What I did not know was how to teach technique. So I went looking for that information. I looked at the local library for books on soccer - there weren't many. So I went to local books stores to look for books only to discover there were none. Not a single book on soccer. I searched out stores that specialized in soccer and found The Soccer House in Ft. Wayne Indiana. It was, at that time, a mom and pop store offering all things soccer. They didn't have many books or videos but what they did have was a gold mine to me!  From there I learned some of the large national chain book stores carried soccer books and videos, As the Internet was just becoming a thing, I learned about sites like Reed Swain, Championship Productions and Kwik Goal which all had educational offerings, As I have reported before, today I have an extensive library of soccer books and videos.

I also learned of coaching courses which I was greatly excited about. I thought, what a great way to learn how to (coach) teach soccer! The first caching course I attended was the State Goalkeeping Course offered by the NSCAA. It was to this date the best soccer coaching course I have ever taken. Tony Waiters, Tony DiCicco and John Murphy were the clinicians. Murphy remains my favorite clinician of all time.  I learned so much from their presentations.   My next venture into the realm of coaching courses was a USSF course which I still view as the greatest waste of money ever spent on soccer education. The USSF course tested what I already knew.  I was not a novice coach, so had an understanding of how to coach. What I needed to learn about soccer was what techniques to coach and how to teach the properly. I was almost completely out of luck in this regard with the USSF course.

I understand today's NSCAA and USSF offerings, at least at the entry levels, do a much better job of teaching coaching fundamentals before testing your knowledge. They also do a better job of instructing how to teach the fundamentals of the game. They have listened to complaints and suggestions from the grass roots of the game. Kudos to both organizations.

Knowing what I do now, I wish I had availed myself of the coaching clinics that were available to me. Quite frankly, I confused the pursuit of knowledge with the pursuit of Diplomas and Licenses.  I have numerous of both and ... well, so what?

I have not attended a coaching course in five years. The last being the NSCAA High School Diploma Course in Georgia which was quite good. Probably second only to the State Goal Keeping course referenced earlier in this article. I did help host an NSCAA Level III coaching course last summer as the DOC for a local club. Our coaches needed diplomas / licenses to meet league coaching requirements so it had to be done.  It was a decent course focused more on how to prepare a practice plan and what to present in that practice plan. Good information for the level of coach targeted.

I have continued to attend (and conduct) coaching clinics.  Yesterday I attend a small and short but sweet clinic at Ohio Northern University. It was a one day clinic consisting of 3 sessions.  I came away with perhaps a dozen different things I will be trying out in the camps I conduct and with the team I will coach next fall. There is some different nomenclature that I believe will benefit the players I work with to better understand the input I am providing them.  Despite specializing inn goalkeeping instruction for two decades I saw a different exercise I think is practical and functional that I will give a try. And  I rediscovered a tactical consideration that I believe the teams I work with might benefit form.  It was a productive use of 4.5 hours on a wintry day.

Today, I view the NSCAA and USSF as necessary evils in the sense most leagues are demanding coaches be "licensed" before they are permitted to coach. Real education in the game remains in the purview of coaching clinics.

At coaching clinics many coaches become engrossed in the drill or exercise being presented. Excitement builds and they want to rush right out to try out the new drill on their own teams. I do not have a problem with this as long as the coach understands the reasons for having the team perform the exercise - the coaching points involved.  The good clinicians explain these things before, during and after their presentations. It is important to grasp these things otherwise we turn it into an effort to train monkeys, so to speak.

The elite clinics, in my opinion, will follow a day's practice plan.  The warm up, individual, small group and eventual full-team or game phase of practice will be presented by a variety of clinicians. There is a flow and structure based around the theme of the sessions. A picture is painted for the coaches in attendance of what a well thought out and organized training session should look like. The exercises and accompanying coaching points are icing on the cake.  The different ways of organizing a team and the nomenclature used are bonuses.

At yesterday's clinic they provided us with a nicely done written synopsis of the what was to be presented, I still ended up with 7 pages of my own notes.  Most of my notes are of ideas the clinicians and or the exercises they presented prompted in my own mind. I diagrammed some variations of the exercises they present that popped into my mind while watching theirs presentations. I jotted down terms and phrases I think may convey my own ideas to teams better than what I have been using. And as noted above, I will be borrowing an exercise or two to use with my teams, if not in there entirety then certainly in there general intent.  Hey, it's what coaches do!

So, my message to you is to know he difference between a coaching course and a coaching clinic. My personal experience has been coaching clinics are far more valuable learning experiences. They have met and continue to meet my needs better that coaching courses that award diplomas or licenses based on what you already know.

Continuing Education

Here in Ohio it is a frigid -7 degrees Fahrenheit  this morning.  What better backdrop to continue learning about the game?  The truth is I have over 200 DVD's and 100 books on the game of soccer.  I often accumulate more of these "in-season" stock piling them for the winter months when active coaching opportunities are limited.

I have just concluded reading an outstandingly good book titled Soccer for Thinkers by Malcolm Allison.  As has been previously mentioned on this site, I participate in a couple of email groups comprised of coaches from around the world. While these groups are small (12 - 20) people a wide range of age and competitive levels are represented. Everything from U16 through college and the professional ranks.  The participating individuals are themselves a ridiculously good source of information on the game.  The recommendation of Soccer for Thinkers is a prime example of this.

Obtaining a copy of the book proved to be a bit of an adventure.  It has been out of publication for 35+ years and as far as I can tell was never published here in the United States.  I searched the Internet daily for over a month before I found a copy to purchase.  Oh, there are copies available, if you wish to pay the price.  They are quite expensive.  A recent search found the cheapest price being $312 dollars plus shipping from England.  It's a great book, but not worth that price.  I found mine here in the states for $50 plus $20 for shipping, but it took diligent effort over the course of a month to locate a copy at this price.

If not for the coaches email list, I would not have ever known about Soccer for Thinkers.  In discussing this book with good friend Graham Ramsay he seemed a bit amazed I had not only heard of the book but had obtained a copy of it.  Graham is a great resource person for me.  The conversation immediately turned to other out of publication soccer books and it turns out Graham has a few stockpiled in various storage locations.  AND, he contacted someone in the England who also has a stockpile of similar books.  I am in the process of procuring these now.

The thing about Soccer for Thinkers is that it validates many of the approaches I have adhered to in recent years.  I understood I was not inventing a new system but I struggled to find a template for how I envisioned the game should be played.  I found it, albeit belatedly so in the process, in Soccer for Thinkers. 

My coaching philosophy and style has evolved over the years. With all the DVDs and books in my soccer library I have obviously become a student of the game. A primary reason I began accumulating DVDs and books was being left unsatisfied by the NSCAA and especially the USSF coaching courses.  For me, the NSCAA courses present good information on a limited basis.  They point you in the right direction, but its up to you to follow through.  The USSF tests what you already know and reverse engineering of their courses is the best way to learn new things from them, in my opinion.  In addition to DVDs and books, people like Graham, Ken White, Steve Burns and the members of the coaching lists I participate in have been extremely valuable resources of information and sounding boards for me.

One theme or focus for this winters learning is the Commitment Continuum made popular by Jeff Janssen.   This concept has been around for a very long time. Janssen has simply brought it to the fore in recent years through his work with various college programs and an ever growing list of books on leadership in general. His works are very good and if you have not already, have a look at it. 

Two well known disciples of the commitment continuum are Anson Dorrance of UNC women's soccer and Jim Harbaugh of the University of Michigan football.   They have made a science of including competition as part of, perhaps the driving part of, the commitment continuum.  They chart everything.  They make everything in every aspect of training a competition between teammates. They "publish" the results on the locker room walls.  It is an approach that has served both men extremely well.  Motivation is plainly a driving force behind this approach but if we are completely honest about it, they are identifying the winners on their rosters. These are the people they want to go into battle with.

My question is, will it work in high school soccer? 

It will.

In fact, it has been working in high school soccer for years.

I used to relate to people how the training sessions at the high school program I began my coaching career with were "wars".   Intense, competitive daily sessions.  Those practice sessions were often more competitive than the matches those teams played against opponents.  This is a theme often espoused in athletics.  "Practices were so hard that games were easy" is a well known sentiment made famous by coaches like Lombardi, Wooden, Schembechler, Bryant, et al.  I don't think I ever fully understood or was able to succinctly communicate just what this meant until recent years.  This past spring I had nearly 50 players interested in play U18.  This is an unprecedented number for our rural area.  Some self-selected in the face of competition for positions on the "A" team. As decisions had to be made for the final roster spots on that "A" team I found myself cutting some very good players.   The determining factors were found in their performance on the commitment continuum.  

I did not have the luxury of filming every practice or even every game so I could not chart as many things as I might have liked to.  I suppose one could say I was left to take a more subjective approach since my decisions were not supported by charted and documented statistics.  Still, my decisions were driven by a commitment continuum - I observed the approach, attitude, effort, deportment and comportment of players.  Those who were immature, inconsistent and incapable of focusing for the length of an hour and a half training session were relegated to the "B" team or self-selected themselves off the team and out of the program.  The result was a stunningly successful club season. 

So, much of my time this winter is being spent of refining my approach to the commitment continuum with hidden gems like Soccer for Thinkers thrown in for variety and spice.  If you have suggestions on books or other materials for me to review, I am always open to suggestions.  And if you yourself would like further suggestions, please do not hesitate to ask.  Coaching is a brotherhood. I often hear of football coaching staffs going to another teams staff to learn how they do things. It happens in basketball all the time.  No so much in soccer, I think.  This is something that probably needs to change if we really want the sport of soccer to reach its full potential in this country.