Reset the Culture
What new ways can your club instill core values that integrate from the grassroots to your senior teams, post-COVID – 19? How can a club unlock this potential among each team’s coaches, players, and parents?
Does your club have core values and a vision that reflects a culture from top to bottom?
Status Quo
Despite a blank spring season, clubs are preparing for fall soccer by keeping rosters intact where possible. The occasional player affected by age difference or looking for the next best team will search for a new club.
To borrow a term from the professional game it’s the ‘silly season.’
Player movement within a club, and across clubs occur because of various reasons. Sometimes it’s a numbers game and a team needs a few more bodies to exist for the new season.
Other times it’s the marketing terms of elite, premier, and academy, that serve as a magnet for parents.
Core Values
I have been involved with different clubs, in different towns coaching both genders, kids at different skill levels, and age groups. Each team is it’s own club, operating independently of each other. There are limited core values among teams.
Regardless of the club having a director of coaching, who most times is coaching multiple teams, there are no core values instilled throughout the club, top to bottom.
Our team core values were what the manager and myself decided. Our team, like many others, wear the club colors and logo but operate as a separate entity.
Your Club
What core values are present in your club? Are these practiced by coaches and managers so there is a feeling of belonging, level of responsibility, learning, and overall development for the players?
Key Stake Holders
Our current soccer landscape is impacted heavily by players’ feelings and parents’ opinions. There is no loyalty to the team and the club.
In addition, there are other factors that influence decision making – wins and losses, playing time, video games. other voices.
Club Culture
Every club should establish core values that share their vision and non-negotiables. Within this framework, there should be steps to live this culture by creating environments that enable the following.
- Safe environment – welcome and implement suggestions
- Acceptance of vulnerability – mistakes are steps to grow
- Create a common goal – a story behind the club
Core values should not represent a document in a folder stored in the cloud. It needs to be brought to life during practice, tryouts, meetings, and games.
Your club needs to have a system that provides social, emotional development for players and coaches. Key components of such a system for coaching should address.
- Player Development – training model, player welfare, holistic tracking
- Coach Development – coach developers, coaching community
- Coach Recruitment and Retention – licensing, recruitment & selection
- Monitoring and evaluation – player experience, coaching performance
Going Forward
The main reason clubs need to establish core values that are vertically integrated throughout each team is because ‘You want kids to grow with the right culture and values, and the toughest part would be finding out how to instill those values in your players’ Madhuri Dixit.
Your club needs to establish a standard to create a sense of belonging. You need to bring to life core values at games, during training and during meetings.
Please share your club’s value and how these are brought to life within your environment. What questions do you have about core values and club culture?
References
- Building a Club Culture – Webinar, Tim Bradbury. May 29, 2010.
- Soccer Journal, United Soccer Coaches, Aspen Report. July – August 2020, Vol. 65 No. 4
Leave A Comment