Choose Soccer for Fun

Is your child the normal sort?  Does she or he like to run about, climb on the monkey bars, swing about the merry-go-round and loves a ball.  Which team sport are you going to sign him/her up for?  I recommend soccer.  Why soccer?  In the world of soccer there is room for everyone.  Everyone plays.  That is the great attribute of youth sports.  You don’t have to be good to play.  Skill level is not a factor.  Players are rotated in and out according to specific guidelines.  Each player gets at least half a game to get a foot on the ball. And when they do?  The whole family goes to CHUCK E CHEESE.

Soccer is an easy game to learn.  The young beginner can learn it easily, both by practicing the drills, and by observation.  Most of the younger teams play a version my husband and I like to call “swarm soccer.”  We are amused and delighted by the efforts these young players give to just getting the ball down the field, all together.  There is generally little or no passing, and the strategies and skills of the older player are still a few years off.   But the team does drive the ball down the field, and everyone is part of scoring a goal.

The health benefits of soccer are these:  increased fitness due to the nearly constant motion and activity required by running up and down the field.   I have heard it called a heart-healthy game.  Increased strength, flexibility and endurance are a few other benefits of this sport.  Playing outdoors is also a big plus.  Improved coordination results.

Soccer is a good team learning experience.  Learning how to be part of a team takes practice.   Making friends, practicing passing drills, being part of a team effort, the young player learns that life is not a solitary journey.  The young player will begin to appreciate the concept of sharing the ball and receiving help as a positive aspect of winning.

Soccer requires little more than a ball and a few friends.  It can be played one’s whole life.  In time, the game becomes more complex, the skill levels more advanced.  Enrolling your child in a program that is carefully managed, with the focus on the child’s enjoyment and development will yield long-term benefits, both physically and mentally.

The Mental Side of a Winning Athlete

The Mental Side Of Winning

The most forgotten side of coaching athletics is mental.  Yet the mental side of coaching will yield the most positive results of any coaching you will do.  It will give positive results quicker with less coaching than any other single set of techniques.   Despite its great value, it is forgotten, often disregarded, not to mention lost and hidden behind teaching physical skills.

At its very foundation the mental side of any sport is being and thinking positive.  A word of warning: Beware of this simplistic definition because the negative often camouflages the positive.  Here is an example: In shooting free throws the athlete often approaches the task saying to himself, “I gotta make this shot” and he or she’s very positive in this affirmation.  This is, however, a negative, and is counter productive.  The chances are increased that the shot will be missed.  Instead of relaxing and letting the shot just happen, the muscles will invariably tense up and the difficulty of the exercise will increase.  “I gotta, I have to, If I don’t make this shot I’ll just die . . . “, are all negatives and are to be avoided.

On the positive side, the athlete will approach the foul line, receive the ball from the referee, then begin his or her ritual, by bouncing the ball a proscribed number of times or none at all, eye the basket, indeed, eye a particular part of the basket.  During this ritual, he will be reviewing in his mind exactly how he makes this shot, remembering successful feelings of making the shot, mentally saying “this is how I take this shot.”   He should then release the ball to the basket without allowing another thought to enter the mind.   The statistical probability of making the shot will increase dramatically depending in part on the particular skill level of the athlete.  Note, the mental side is taught.  It doesn’t just happen.  It, like all muscle memory exercises, must be repeated as often as possible.

The same mental preparedness is true of a soccer player about to kick a penalty shot or a batsman about to address a sixty-mile-an-hour curve ball.  The simple mental preparation is accomplished as the athlete reviews how he performs the task successfully.  This mental preparation in conjunction with physical repetition, i.e., doing a task perfectly, yields fantastic results.

The second and equally important portion of mental preparedness comes directly from the coach himself.  Praise profusely and loudly and do it sincerely.   Your athletes need to know you approve of them.  Every athlete has something to praise, even if it is merely showing up.  Find it, praise it loudly, and reap the results.  Athletes tend to perform up to or down to the coach’s announced expectations.