FORM A TASK FORCE OF OUTLIERS
Karl Dewazien
Emeritus State Director of Coaching, California Youth Soccer Assoc., Author & Creator of the FUNdamental SOCCER Player Development Methodology.
Establish a national curriculum that starts at the grassroots and works its way up to professional. Great idea but where do we begin?
The following excerpt “Curriculum” is from the San Diego Union-Tribune’s Reporter Mark Zeigler’s recent article entitled, “US soccer and the continued failure of its pay-to-play model.”
CURRICULUM
It’s one thing to have more licensed coaches. Their effectiveness, though, depends on what you teach them. U.S. Soccer’s national coaching curriculum has been modified over the decades, and it includes some excellent material.
But why not refine it further, with an eye toward not burning out kids before they’re teenagers and not mass-producing robots who view soccer practice like math class or piano lessons – something they do at a prescribed day and time because their parents want them to.
Let’s form a committee of outliers with global perspective who have been challenging the outdated methods for years but whose voices have largely gone unheard.
It would be chaired by Julie Foudy. The former women’s national team star has been a critic of pay-to-play and has the juice to get things done.
Also on it would be Tom Byer, an American who revolutionized youth development in Japan and recently had a pilot program in Seattle squelched by U.S. Soccer that introduces soccer at home before kids begin playing on teams. So would Todd Beane, an American who runs a respected youth academy in Barcelona and is a pioneer in teaching cognitive development over athleticism.
So would Brian Quinn, the former U.S. national-team player from Northern Ireland who currently is the head men’s coach at the University of San Diego. He has long advocated a two-track system of talent identification – one using the normal parameters, and a parallel track for smaller, late bloomers with supreme technical skills to see if a Leo Messi or Andres Iniesta emerges.
So would Toumi Abdelghani. This is a selfish choice, being my daughter’s coach. He’s a U.S. Soccer coaching instructor but, those who have played for him will tell you, is unlike any youth coach anyone has encountered.
His first priority is not training specific skills but empowering the mind, teaching kids ownership so their decisions on the field are theirs, not an adult screaming from the sidelines. Practices are primarily informal small-sided games with a daily concept introduced, where kids are encouraged – even ordered – to dribble and try moves without fear of failure while he quietly watches.
Two things happen: His players become comfortable on the ball, able to think and problem-solve for themselves. And they learn to love the sport. Practice ends, and they don’t grab their water bottle and bolt for the SUV. They ask to stay, to play longer.
KOACH KARL’S KOMMENTS
Developing a curriculum can be quite challenging especially when there are so many potential themes to cover. Examples for Attack include: Read the Game; Run to Attack; Receive the Ball; Retain the Ball & Release the Ball and for Defense: Read the Game; Run to Defend; Ready Stance; Reject Advancement & Regain Ball Possession. Where to begin?
How about starting the potential national curriculum discussion with a very simple question: Does ‘it’ or could ‘it’ happen in the game?
If the answer is “NO” ‘it’ does not or could not happened in the game. Then, the curriculum must include discouraging coaches from doing ‘it’ in practice. Three examples: Do players have to wait-their-turn to play the ball? NO! No Lines Are players asked to run-the boundaries of the field? NO! No Laps Can players intently listen to the coach talk? NO! No Lectures
If the answer is “YES” ‘it’ does and ‘it’ could happen in the game. Then the curriculum must include encouraging coaches to do ‘it’ in practice.
The quest of the curriculum must be to correct, mold and perfect player’s actions & reactions in practice -Today. Because the way a player practices is the way they can be expected to play in the game - Tomorrow.
Developing a national curriculum can be quite challenging especially if there is no agreed upon foundation. May I be so bold and suggest that the outliers committee, if ever formed, peruse the “9-Step Practice Routine” and consider it to begin their curriculum development deliberations.
Thank you for taking the time to read these points-of-view and sharing them with your soccer community. Comments on this subject are very much appreciated!
Your FUNdamental, Koach Karl (Karl Dewazien)
Emeritus Director of Coaching, California Youth Soccer Association. 1979 - 2012
Author - FUNdamental SOCCER Books Series Producer - ‘FUNdamental SOCCER - DVDs. Clinician at: www.fundamentalsoccer.com
Management & Coaching
6 年From where I stand, most courses aimed at the grass roots coach have a curriculum that is based on what was needed 20 or 30 years ago.? They focused on helping coaches get to grips with technical and tactical basics of the game because we had a generation of coaches coming in with little knowledge of how to play and no experience of having been coached in soccer, and not many resources for them to get this information from.? This type of curriculum has served a purpose but should not be used as a model to carry forward into the future.? People know? more about the game now, and ideas of what to coach are easy to come by - youtube is full of them. Instead of teaching only what to coach, we? need to teach how to coach.? The outliers we need to bring in to help design the curriculum are the people who understand the role that? team culture, relationships, and emotional intelligence play in developing young people, all of which fall under the one topic that present curricula avoid at all cost: psychology.? A new national license should be all about the ability to lead competently.? While this type of education will not impact the coach of a 6 year old recreational player so much, coaches of older players and of players competing at higher levels will eventually wonder how they ever managed without it.? And in the end it will produce a stronger pool of talented, happy, confident players to keep moving the game forward.
???? Solution Focussed, Collaborator Shaping the Future Fusing Academics and Athletics in the United States
6 年You had me at outliers and although not real sure that these folks that you nominated are quite there, I’m glad that they agree to be nominated and stand contra to the stays quo. Nonetheless, the pedagogy here needs developing before any curricular agenda is brought forth especially because you elude to the session plan being the base of curriculum development when in fact it is proven to be motivation. Although we want to believe that we can analyze the US game separately, in curricular terms the discussion has to begin with critical questions about American culture, not US soccer/ US Soccer’s culture and create strands from there. Session planning, which you largely base your argument, should be only discussed as a product, not as sole modifier. Moreover, “coaching” as you point out, has many looks as well as assessment and evaluation. The latter are not really addressed at the grassroots level at all. In addition, no curricular discussion can be had without addressing the horrible level of instruction that coaches receive. In general, there a lot to be considered. And our “Systems” are in need of an overhaul, rather than just the session or some cultist approach like having a ball in every room.
Business Development & Digital Marketing Expert
6 年Your "outliers" were not too far out there...all were from the existing soccer community. A truer "outlier" would be someone from entirely different fields i.e. other sports (especially where the USA dominates), statistics experts, pure athletic performance experts, etc. The current soccer community needs some outside blood and outside eyes to accelerate the skills growth needed in soccer.