By Mario Salinas – President, Parlier Youth Soccer League
The Pre-F course was very productive and successful. It was FUN, insightful, motivational and very tiring for us out of shape coaches 🙂
As coaches, we experienced firsthand how exhausting and difficult playing the game really is. The games you had us participate in brought a better understanding and perspective of what our kids go through at practices and games. It was a real eye-opener for our veterans and lots of fun for our ‘newbies’.
Coaches who ran players excessively in the past, realized that just by playing practice games properly will get their players soccer fit. Believe me, none of us realized how long one-minute of soccer running would take out of us 🙂
We learned that we need to build a good technical foundation for our young players and that is accomplished in the ‘FUNdamental Square”.
We also learned:
- To make children responsible at practice, have the players set up the field and clean up the field after practice.
- Stoop down or take a knee when talking to younger players;
- Use a whistle only when it is appropriate.
- And so, so, so much more…
- But, most importantly we learned that, “The outcome of our children is infinitely more important than the outcome of any game they’ll ever play!”
All the coaches that attended and I have now incorporated the ‘Nine-Step Practice Routine’ into our practices; which focuses more on ball touches rather than just having the kids run laps without a ball.
We will definitely bring you back in the future & ‘encourage’ all leagues in D-7 to offer the Pre-F course to their “newbie” coaches and even more so to their veteran coaches 🙂
