Hi my name is Steve
I have played all my life and have been coaching for 20 years. I love Soccer (Football, were I come from) and I enjoy helping new coaches and parents understand why their children can have so much FUN playing the game.
During the 20 years in which I have been coaching, the way that we have coached children in this wonderful game called Soccer, has changed dramatically. We have moved from creating practices full of DRILLS (which were NOT FUN), to creating FUN Games and activities which are FUN. Children and adults learn much better when they are having FUN, and in some cases they don't even realize they are learning.
My Goal in creating this website is not only to help coaches and parents understand soccer, but also to try and keep children playing this great sport by making practices and learning soccer, FUN!
Although Soccer is the one of the fastest; if not the fastest growing sport in the US, we still have a great deal of children quiting because coaches get to competitive, to soon. In talking with some players that have quit, I asked why they stopped playing:
- Playing Soccer was no longer FUN, I didn't like the coaches and parents yelling at me all the time (U10 player)
- I didn't enjoy it anymore (U12 player)
- I wanted to play and was told I wasn't good enough, I didn't like the coach (U8 player)
By the way; this is not just the fault of the coaches, but of the parents too. We need to ALLOW our children to have FUN and ALLOW them to be children.
Today I work with a great team of coaches on the Rhode Island Coaching Educating Staff, teaching coaches and parents how to understand and coach today's youth while making every practice a FUN Learning experience. During our clinic's many of the new soccer coaches and parents have asked where they could get some simple activities to use in their practices, and although there are many websites out there I decided to create this site for the younger age groups anyway.
The activities found on this website are not unique or developed by me, they are activities which where developed by either US Youth Soccer or many coaches around the world.
During a session I once attended which was given by Bruce Arena he said:
"The best coaches, take ideas from other coaches and make them better."
So take these activities;
- Make them yours
- Improve on them
- and make them better
USE & ENJOY!!!
