Coaching The C Team
When I first got back into Club coaching (Select, Travel, etc.) in 2011, I was handed the only team in a 4,000 person club that didn’t have an assigned coach. No offense to anyone, I was handed a “C” team, meaning I got the kids that were left after the A team coach took the cream of the crop, the B team coach took the best of the rest, and I was given 9 kids for 8v8 (U11) play.
I ran a few post-tryout practices immediately (June), showing the kids what to work on over the summer. I had ZERO kids with Travel/Select experience.
I had been warned by my Director of Coaching, a younger man that I had mentored over 20 years earlier, that the culture had changed: parents were a problem. During games, after games, before practices, parents were a problem. On the spot, I reacted and made up a rule: No Coaching From The Sidelines.
It worked. What I meant was, No coaching BY PARENTS during games. After a couple of practices per week, I am perfectly content (well, almost perfectly) to sit on the bench with some kids, watch the game, try to figure out what we can do differently, think about what we need to work on for next practice, etc. Since part of the beauty of soccer as a developer of character is that every kid on the field LEARNS to make decisions, with and without the ball, I as a coach am perfectly content to let the game in progress develop the kids’ decision-making abilities. We can fix any “bad” (poorly-informed?) decisions at the next practice, maybe even at halftime. But if I get involved in correcting kids during a game, they get distracted and their play goes downhill.
What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. If the “A” License coach with experience and credentials is not yelling and screaming instructions, why are parents yelling and screaming instructions?
It is real simple: No Coaching From the Sidelines. This is an example of where your kids will have more fun and develop faster without you than with you. Stand on the sidelines and enjoy and, when led to, applaud and cheer and even encourage. But No Coaching. None.
Not Exactly A Bunch of All-Stars
This team was NOT comprised of a bunch of soccer all-stars, even though we entered a league for select competition. Some of the teams we played against were the ONLY team from a town or area, and we were frequently overmatched.
However, because of the demographics (Rochester, MI, and the club was the Rochester Soccer Club), we had a bunch of kids – very Americanized – whose parents’ backgrounds made us look like a United Nations team. As I recall, I had a Croatian, Assyrian (Iraq), African, a kid with a German mother and a South African father, and a kid born in Mexico but whose parents were born in Spain. Every kid was smart – no kidding. And every kid was doing well in school and I had no problem children.
Some of the parents thought they knew a lot about soccer, it does go with being born outside of the United States. But BECAUSE of the diversity, because of the known intelligence of their kids, and because they trusted the club to hire a competent coach, they abided by my No Coaching Rule. In retrospect, they were a wonderful group of parents.
I was told by the club we would not win a game until the spring, and that we would only win one game in the spring, and it would be LATE spring.
We went .400 in the fall season, and I attribute it to the kids being allowed to learn to make decisions on their own and that the parents did their best NOT to interfere. As a result, the kids got better much faster than on a normal first-year team. We went indoor (you do that in Michigan) for the winter, intentionally played in a higher division, and asked to be moved up a division for the Spring outdoor season. The League honored our request and we moved up and, lo and behold, went over .500. We did not win the championship but the kids and the parents knew we were getting better.
WE moved up another division for the fall, won the division, and a lot of those kids went on to play Varsity soccer at their high schools.
If you talked to any of those parents – or even the kids – and said “Why were you so successful so early in your careers,” a lot might attribute it to coaching, and of course I would appreciate that. But my response would be that was the best group of parents I ever had in one respect: they honored my request about “No Coaching From the Sidelines.” No exceptions.
What happens when parents won’t obey the coach’s rules?
True story (of course). U-9 boys in Lake Orion, MI. Select Team playing in the top Division in sthe Michigan Youth Soccer League and after I had found out what a brilliant rule “No Coaching From the Sideline” is for parents… Kids learn the game faster!
We went into a game against the Studs – bigger, stronger, faster. We had already lost to them, and badly, in a tournament, but this was a fresh start, a new game, so I developed a game plan (yes, even for 8-year old little boys), showed them during warm-up how to play it, and they nodded their heads.
Two twenty-five minute halves, and for the first ten minutes I could see the veins popping on the other side of the field. “Star” players were playing in the back, we had the wrong kid in goal (according to his own dad), and etc. No one yelled across the field at me, but I could see the red in their faces. The good news? They didn’t say ANYTHING for 10 minutes, and my kids held the Studs at bay and continued to do so for the next 5 minutes as well. Then, I think, the parents figured out what I was doing and decided to help the kids on their side of the field and started yelling instructions. This is ridiculous! Don’t the parents realize that their own kids have learned something about “change,” being prepared, doing what the team needs you to do, etc., and are being rewarded on the field immediately? The kids actually started getting some offensive efforts, even shot or two, so the dads who know everything REALLY took over and started telling their sons where to run. I could hear it, I could see it, and it made me sick.
At halftime we were down 3-0 and it was 100% attributable to BAD COACHING… from the Parents’ sideline.
At halftime I told the kids something I hate telling them: “Stop listening to your parents.” (Parents: I ONLY say this during a soccer game. When they get back in the car, kids can resume listening to their parents and SHOULD obey them.) I asked them if the game plan had been working and, if we started the second half the way we STARTED the first, we might be able to get a couple or three goals? They were 100% behind my game plan (“their” game plan, if you will) and they went on the field with resolve.
I also need to tell you I went ½ way across the field toward the parents and yelled “We are down 3-0 because of YOU; SHUT UP!” I got in trouble with the club, but it worked.
Sure enough, we got back in the game, scored a goal, then scored another goal, and, as the clock ran out, we took a shot and the very young referee decided to blow his whistle about 1 second before the ball crossed the line.
My set of parents wanted to crucify the ref. My kids were in tears. The parents were blaming the ref for the 3-2 loss.
In my heart, I will always blame the 3-goals-down on the parents, not on something the ref did in the final minute. There is no question that the “soccer-knowledgeable dads” RUINED this game for their own kids.
No Coaching From the Sidelines.
