I find this hilariously funny!
David Beckham got sent off from a youth soccer match:
"It was the younger kids of Romeo's club, and they're playing in the game and there was a
penalty given. And the kids are 7 years old and he sent the kid off." After that, Beckham, who has
seen his share of red cards in his career (including a crucial one in a World Cup match against
Argentina in 1998), did what so many parents of youth soccer players have done — he opened his
mouth.
Lately we've been getting hammered with spammy new user accounts here at On The Pitch (dozens a
day). It was becoming an administrative nightmare, so we've taken a few steps to try to reduce the
load on our server and still make it easy to comment and participate in discussions.
- We've enabled captchas for creating user accounts and for posting comments anonymously.
Ron Clark has a fantastic article up at CNN highlighting the flight of teachers from the
profession, in part because of trouble dealing with parents. Reading it, I saw a lot of parallels
with coaching youth sports and dealing with soccer parents, which can have a huge impact on a team
and player development.
A common belief is that US youth soccer players suffer from over coaching, and in many cases
that is true. But in our helicopter parent society where kids rarely can just go 'play in the
park', coaches are in a situation where they have to provide SOME instruction and opportunity to
develop. How do you create a fun practice where the kids push themselves vs go through the motions
while also correcting mistakes and allowing for self discovery of soccer skill?
Soccer calendars vary by state, primarily due to the local climate. Yet many soccer parents
chuckle at the concept of 'Spring' soccer, because the weather can get pretty wild (and cold) some
years. Still, the idea of 'Spring' soccer generally meant the bulk of the season was played in...
the Spring.
Soccer calendars vary by state, primarily due to the local climate. Yet many soccer parents
chuckle at the concept of 'Spring' soccer, because the weather can get pretty wild (and cold) some
years. Still, the idea of 'Spring' soccer generally meant the bulk of the season was played in...
the Spring.
Just a heads up that tomorrow, January 18th, On The Pitch will go dark in protest of the pending
SOPA and PIPA legislation. If you haven't heard about this legislation, you need to educate
yourself, as the major media companies are trying to get Congress to pass legislation that will
allow for government censorship of the Internet under the guise of copyright infringement.
We've all seen the 'magic spray' soccer trainers use to heal injured soccer players everyone
wonders what it is and given how it often causes a miraculous recovery, it must be magic.
While researching something else in the USSF Advice To Referees and IFAB Memorandums, I came
across this section in the USSF 2011-2012 Laws of the Game Memorandum:
5.
The Phoenix New Times has an in-depth look at some events in Arizona a few years ago that
highlight some of the problems inherent to youth soccer and how youth soccer has changed recently.
A successful coach at Sereno Soccer Club named Les Armstrong was suspended from coaching after he
forged a parent's signature to drop a player from his roster before the State Cup
championships.
I've spent a lot of time using social media to expand the reach of various organizations,
non-profits, and even our own soccer league. So it made me laugh when I realized I had Facebook
pages for just about everything except On The Pitch. What a silly oversight.
I realize this has been around for a while and has likely made the rounds, but it cracked me up.
The sad part is many youth soccer coaches have had to deal with what is said in this video, and it
can be impossible trying to get parents to understand why winning is not important when they're 10
years old.
I've written a number of times before about youth soccer referees not wanting to use their
cards. Initially it seemed to be due to the age of players that I coached. But now that my older
girls team is in high school, I haven't seen many more cards, even though I've seen plenty of fouls
to warrant them from opponents AND my own players.
ESPN has a radio show dedicated to youth sports called 'Hey Coach Tony', and all the shows are
up on YouTube which is very cool. Word is the show will soon be simulcast on many cable systems.
Podcasts would also be a great thing to have for those with iPods. It's an entertaining show that
tends to focus on the extremes and controversial situations, but overall Tony covers a number of
hot button issues that are worthwhile to debate.
Our recreational league has been coed since it's inception. We formed coed divisions simply
because of numbers. When our league formed in 2002, we had ~350 players or so from U6 up through
U12 just enough to form small two year divisions of coed teams (U6/U8/U10/U12). A few years later
players were split by gender only if they made our new travel teams (U10 and above).
Stories of loud and obnoxious soccer parents are not hard to come by. We've all encountered
them, though in my experience they're not as widespread as the media would lead you to believe.
When you do encounter them, it's usually a couple of parents being loud and/or obnoxious while the
other parents behave (and often try to get as far away from the loud ones as possible).
