Coaching To Motivate
“The first duty to children is to make them happy. If you have not made them so, you have wronged them. No other good they may get can make up for that,” as stated by Charles Buxton, Author.
The current COVID-19 pandemic has compounded the problem of training and demanded more from coaches to create environments that engage players and make them happy.
Your practices can no longer be rote learning through drills where coaches provide answers to remember. Now more than before, your coaching needs to create problems for players to solve for players to improve awareness, decision making, and execution.
For kids to enjoy playing soccer they need to be in control. Playing soccer or any other sport for that fact is a way for players to express themselves.
You can offer this through games that make them active and motivates them to play. When it’s a game, players have the opportunity to review what they learned.
Mother Of Learning
When I started coaching I was convinced drills (rote learning) provided the best platform for my players to learn game skills. At a grassroots coaching license, my coaching colleague -Roy Fiel, coined the term ‘repetition is the mother of learning.’
Line passing was one of my favorites drills. Two players about 10 yards apart, passing the ball back and forth. Dribbling and other skills were taught in a similar manner involving straight lines.
Clearly, I had playing experience and was convinced I had the knowledge to teach youth players.
New Normal
What’s your approach to coaching during the current pandemic? Is this a challenge or an opportunity to improve your players’ skills and abilities, or is this a major problem?
Create Independent Thinkers
Soccer players learn best when they are engaged. Your training should provide a challenge (problem to solve) while allowing opportunities for them to succeed. Your players need to be in control, meaning they are developing their spatial awareness, making decisions, and executing the skills.
When you create problems in training through games, you are teaching your players how to think, not what to think. When your players are engaged they are thinking. You can further their engagement through the skillful use of guided questions and by recognizing key moments when to praise.
Coaching Forward
For you to overcome engage your players and create a session that is fun, there are some fundamentals to consider.
- Age & Stage of Development
For young players, age is often the measure of experience. That suggests training should involve games involving the hands before the feet. Hand-eye coordination is more advanced than foot-eye.
When the ball is incorporated, games should be 1 player per ball, and later 2 players one ball. - Competition
Soccer was invented with the objective of having a winner. Whether you organize a game, activity, or drill there needs to be the element of competition. Competition improves awareness, learning, and focus. Competing can be against themself or an opponent. - Check for Understanding
Your ability to clearly explain is important for your players to understand. You will often make the mistake, that what you explained your players have learned.
You need to learn to check for understanding. To ensure your thoughts are understood, explain to one player and ask that player to explain to another player. - Problem To Solve or Answer to Remember
Create challenges for your players to solve, rather than giving answers to remember. That means the game or activity must have the player applying their abilities to perceive the situation, make a decision, and execute a skill. - Social Distance – Stations
Create location points in your practice on the field. This makes players’ social distance from the beginning. At each player station, you can work on skill-building
Next Practice….
To make your training fun while constrained by social distancing, you need to create an environment that demands player awareness, decision making, and execution of skills.
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