For Coaches
Volunteers Still Needed
We are short on field marshals and concession volunteers for Saturday mornings. Two hours once a month makes a real difference. Fill out the volunteer interest form to help.
Start Here: Your First Season as a Volunteer Coach
What the coaching director wants every new coach to know
If this is your first season, the most useful thing I can tell you is that nobody expects you to be a soccer expert. We expect you to show up on time, know every kid's name by the second practice, and treat the referee the way you would want a stranger to treat your own teenager. Everything else is teachable.Before…
Building a Practice That Works
Structure, timing, and the mistakes that waste an hour
A good youth practice has four parts and almost no standing around. Ten minutes of a warm-up that involves a ball. Fifteen to twenty minutes of technical work with every player on their own ball. Fifteen to twenty minutes of a small-sided game that puts the technical skill under mild pressure. Twenty minutes of scrimmage to finish. Then everyone goes…
Required Certifications and How to Complete Them
What is required, how long it takes, and who pays
Every coach in this association completes the same baseline before stepping on a field: a background screening, an abuse prevention course, and concussion recognition training. Recreational coaches add an introductory grassroots coaching license for their age group. Select coaches complete an additional license level appropriate to the competitive track.All of it is online except the field portion of the higher…
Managing Parents Without Losing Your Season
Set expectations early and most problems never happen
Most parent conflict in youth sports is caused by an information gap, not by bad people. Fill the gap early and you will spend the season coaching instead of negotiating.Hold a Parent Meeting in Week OneFifteen minutes before or after the first practice. Cover the practice schedule, your communication method, the playing time policy, what you expect at games, and…
Equipment, Fields, and Game-Day Logistics
The unglamorous part of the job
Each head coach receives a ball bag, cones, pinnies, corner flags for the older divisions, and a first aid kit at the preseason meeting. All of it is signed out to you and returned at the end of the season. Replacement items during the season come from the equipment shed at the North Complex — contact me for access.You are…
Age-Appropriate Development: What to Teach and When
A rough map from ages four to eighteen
Coaching the same session to a seven-year-old and a fifteen-year-old is the most common mistake I see, and it usually runs in the direction of teaching too much tactics too early.Ages 4–6Everything is individual. One ball per child, lots of dribbling, simple games with a start and a finish. Do not teach positions. Do not teach passing as a system.…
The Biggest Crowd Ever for a Club Match
On 22 April 2022, a world-record 91,648 fans packed Camp Nou to watch Barcelona beat Wolfsburg 5-1 in the Champions League semi-final. Barcelona had set the previous record themselves just three weeks earlier, with 91,553 against Real Madrid.
The First Ballon d'Or Féminin
The Ballon d'Or has been awarded to men since 1956. A women's award was not created until 2018, when Norway's Ada Hegerberg won the first one. She was 23.