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0:01 well hello coaches again coach KW here hope you're all well hope you season if you're in their spring season while I'm recording this is going well uh here in
0:10 New England I've got one out of three games completed I finally had a practice where almost all my kids were able to show up after three weeks and wasn't
0:18 canceled so it's been an odd start to the season to say the least but today we're going to talk about something I also feel near and dear to my heart and
0:26 that's coaching education uh we expect our players to practice and get better there's no reason why they shouldn't have the same expectations of us we should be getting better at our craft if
0:37 we're expecting them to work at the aircraft so that's kind of where I'm coming at with this one and we're going to talk about some things we can do for
0:44 free and then some things that you can do to go to the next level uh through licenses and other methods so let's get into this right now okay so first what
0:53 are some free ways that we can do this All right so one of the easiest ways is to watch games uh we can watch games on TV um but what's even better is if you
1:02 can go watch live games in person so you can see what's going on and you can listen to what's going on now it doesn't matter whether it's a higher level or a
1:12 lower level the point is you want to go see other games to see how things are done looking for what's the coach doing what are the players doing what level of
1:21 play is it can you pick out what's going on on the field but the idea here is to get a sense as to what's going on especially if you can go and watch Games
1:30 Live of nonpr col that's great and all but we're coaching Grassroots kids we're so far away from the pro and college games that we can take generalities from those
1:42 venues but what our kids do and what they do are too different things right we hope someday our kids will get to that level but right now let's not
1:51 watching 7v7 9v9 11 v11 Town games Club games uh are a great way to see what's being focused on and how the coaches act there are some coaches out there that
2:02 are screamers and yellers and always talking there are others that are more Professor like and will give instructions and then there's some other great coaches that literally on game day
2:12 they sit with their hands on their lap and sit on the bench and talk to the subs on the bench because they feel that the game is where the kids need to go
2:22 out and figure it out on their own they've been taught what they need to do and away they go I tend to fall into that category a little bit I do also try
2:31 and give them some positive reinforcement I am not a yeller and a screamer and I'm certainly not a joystick coach and you shouldn't be either if you're out there trying to
2:39 joystick every player around the field telling them exactly where to go just bring your PS5 controller with you um if it makes you feel better you don't want
2:46 to be that coach you want to be able to give them hints give them positive reinforcement ask questions that will help them get to the things that they
2:55 should be doing but they need to at game time that game time is really the quiz or the test based on all the homework that we've done in practice if you can
3:03 go and watch some practice sessions go watch other coaches go watch other coaches in your town ones that you know and respect ones you don't know again
3:12 you can always get something out of it you can get things that you want to do conversely you can get things that you can clearly see that's not something you
3:20 ever want to do with your team and sometimes watching a bad example you'll learn more than from going to watch a good example if you can go and find a
3:28 local Club in your area and you can go and kind of drop in on practices there and just listen and watch to what they work on again not every Club coach is
3:37 great um some of them are not much better than any of us honestly as Town coaches volunteering our time but you know there are some good ones out there
3:49 again take the good with the bad learn what to do and also take away what you don't want to do it's a great way to do that watch YouTube you're watching this
3:58 video there are lot other good channels out there to recommend watch what they say not everybody has the same opinion of me and that's okay uh my opinion is
4:07 my own and it's generated from my years of experience and what I see in my neck of the woods but other people's are different try to absorb all of that if
4:16 you can read some books there are lots and lots of coaching books out there um they have some great value I'm going to include in the link a bunch of links to
4:26 books on Amazon that I found useful in interesting over the years some again are inspirational some are more technical but again you can take something from all that um I coached the
4:38 High School girls varsity team and honestly after seventh or eighth grade girls are different than boys even younger but there's a lot of things from just their psychology and makeup that
4:53 are different and if you've never coached girls before or you don't have girls I'm lucky enough I have two girls and two boys of my own but it's a
5:00 different animal uh it was a great little 40 50 page book that somebody turned me on to called coaching girls and it was just a fantastic resource and
5:08 I'll put a link into that and a bunch of other ones out there and lastly if you can try and find a way that you maybe you can learn a little child development
5:17 now I have a background I have a degree in education I had to take Child Development classes and they've been super helpful because they help you learn how children learn they are not
5:28 many adults they are complet completely different types of forms of humans they learn in a completely different way than you and I do as fully formed adults and
5:37 it's really important to understand that too many coaches just think well I did this in high school or in college and now I'm going to do that with my fourth
5:45 team it doesn't work that way they don't absorb information that way they don't have the neural processing that you do they don't have the spacal awareness there's lots of things both mentally and
5:57 physically and physiologically that are not the same with kids to adults seek out ways that you can learn those things one of the most interesting bits I
6:06 learned just a physiological thing if you've ever taken a ball and you've thrown it kind of fast at a young player second grade even third grade or younger
6:16 and they put their hands up it isn't because they're afraid of the ball it's because they're neuropath ways in their optic processing area after a certain speed they can't process
6:29 tracking that ball as a single object and to them it looks like many balls coming at them at the same time if anybody's ever thrown more than one ball
6:37 at you you'll know the reaction you have too you put your hands up because you can't track them all that's why you know us soccer and others don't have
6:45 goalkeepers at 4v4 is because honestly they can't track their ball once it's get hits hard enough at them and it becomes a danger so things like that
6:54 become very enlightening once you learn some of those differences cuz it starts to explain things that you've seen happen over time and makes more sense to you so now let's go look at what you can
7:07 do for getting a license you the licensing pathways are available to us here in the US in other parts of the world it may be different you have UEA
7:15 the fa we'll talk a little bit about that but they're roughly the same concept um so here in the US uh US soccer Federation ussf they have a
7:26 Grassroots coaching license pathway now um they've had other Pathways and here on the slide next to me you can see the full pathway they have the Grassroots
7:35 and then it kind of migrates into the adult slpro we're really only concerning ourselves up to perhaps the D license that we'll talk about here but to do the
7:44 intro to do the Grassroots coaching they offer a free online intro to Grassroots coaching session you can find it at the URL that I have here on the page um you
7:54 take that course it's free then they have both inperson and online courses for all four of the formats that happen in the US 4v4 up to u8 7v7 for U10 9v9
8:08 for u12 and 11 v11 for U14 and older you can find these courses both online and in person and I would highly recommend taking at least one of them in person
8:20 because you just get a lot out of doing it with other adults other humans in the room and on the field what's fun about these courses is you get to go you get
8:29 to pretend you're the players while you're going through some of these exercises and you as coaches then lead exercises go it's a lot of fun a lot of
8:38 camaraderie it's a good time um but you learn a lot that way if you ever want to go ahead and go for your D or your C
8:44 license perhaps then it's really important you have to take the 11 v11 and another one of the courses in person in addition to another one online so if
8:55 you ever want to go forward so you can take them online all of them just to get a feel and honestly one is very much like the other they do
9:01 talk about some differences but if you really ever think about that you want to go forward you have to remember that prerequisite that you have to take the
9:08 11 v11 and another one in person you can usually find the inperson courses either from your state directory like your state like here in Massachusetts math you soccer will run sessions for some of
9:21 these in-person ones and you can find them locally that way sometimes you can find them through the US soccer one but a lot of times it's a little bit more
9:28 reliable to go look at your state agency or your Regional agency and see who's running these programs I'll mention really briefly if you've been around for a while like myself they used to offer
9:38 some other licenses way back they used to have an F license they even had a g I understand a long time ago um f license was really the original Grassroots
9:48 Grassroots and then the next step up was the E so if you already have your F license then there is a restriction in place that you have to take the online
9:57 intro course you have to take the 11 11 in person and you could take one other course in person or online if you already have the E license like I do
10:07 because that was offered a while ago that used to be a two-day weekend course then you can skip right ahead and if you want and can go straight to the D
10:14 license the D license takes a little bit longer it's about a three or four month process where you have some online you have some in person you go away you do
10:22 some work with your team and then you come back and you get your assessment you do your field assessment um it's a little more I'm hoping to do that this
10:29 far fall um I couldn't do it this spring they also offer it always during the season so no matter what you're always missing a game weekend or two which is a
10:37 little annoying but it is what it is so if you have those licenses there are Pathways to get to the D if you ever want to go to that level it's a little
10:45 bit more of a commitment for sure um but some people they really like that um and that's perfectly okay in addition to the licensing Pathways US soccer has a bunch
10:56 of online course modules that are special interest they're online only they're not part of the licensing pathway but there courses they have have out there many of them are free some are
11:08 minimum cost and you can see the list here it's kind of interesting effectively coaching Generation z um doing uh coaching considerations of working with players with a disability
11:18 that's really important honestly because more and more of the players that are coming to you are coming to you they have supports in school whether they have special PS special education or 504
11:31 plans I work in school districts those mean different things but these kids may need supports in learning they may have behavioral issues they may have senty issues or or learning issues those kids
11:43 will show up on the soccer field too and it's really important to find a way to get through to them to help them enjoy and benefit from the game as well it's a
11:52 great playing team sports it's a great way to develop mentally as well as physically so some of these courses might be super use to you check them out
12:01 they're free they're on the site okay the second big body that's in the United States US soccer obviously they run the men's and women's programs and they're
12:10 the national program but there's actually another um group out there United Soccer Coaches it's the largest collection or special interest group um I don't know what to call it
12:22 but this organization's been around a long time that the largest one of coaches from Grassroots all the way to professional they have a ton of Education they have a full range of
12:31 online and in person you really should consider joining becoming a member there's a membership fee yearly I think it's $85 $125 but with that you get a million
12:43 doll insurance policy that covers you for anything soccer related you get some free Publications including their preseason guide every year they put out this little book I've got a whole
12:54 collection of them upstairs and every year about August it comes and it's got 16200 session plans in it for all different ages and abilities and everything else it's a great
13:06 resource um they there's a quarterly publication plus an online one just a ton of things and also you get discounts for all the courses if you're going to take one
13:16 course if you're not going to go get your licenses um I would highly recommend their foundations of Co coaching online course it is probably best summary course that you can find
13:29 because it when I took it at least and I've looked at the outline recently they not only go through the modules and the pieces of soccer the phases of play but
13:39 they also touch on that psychology and Child Development pieces of it that helps really get an understanding of what's before you and why they aren't manyi adults I can't recommend it highly
13:52 enough if you only take one thing take that even if you do the ussf soccer stuff and you can get license still take that course one way
14:01 or another they also have a similar pathway like the C and the D and the e but they're not recognized officially in terms of like a license that you might
14:10 see for a club coach um but they parallel the US D CBA a and they parallel the UEFA ones too um and honestly I find their courses to be more
14:22 practical than the US soccer ones to be honest they're a little bit more focused on they talk about not just the bigger picture of how to play practice play and
14:35 everything else they really do talk about phases of the game practicalities with working with young kids all those sorts of things I find it very very helpful they break down their courses
14:46 into four real areas they do their foundations diplomas which are basically like the foundational the Grassroots they have a 4v4 they combine 7b7 and 9v9 and do the 11 v11 you can find these in
15:00 person and I believe there hybrid online ones I've taken the 7v7 9v9 one a long time ago and again it was a weekend course and it was great and it was run
15:09 by my State Association so they the state associations Don't just run the US soccer ones a lot of times the same guys will teach these courses as well they
15:18 then have those Advanced diplomas which again correspond with the DCB and a licenses and they have prerequisites to do that and again those are more intense and a longer in commitment to do they
15:30 have special topics diplomas and a lot of times you'll see see these offered during like here in Mass youth um they have a yearly conference and during the
15:40 conference they'll offer one of these special topics as a diploma session where you go and sit for your four hours or six hours and you basically take that
15:49 course in person but they have some really interesting ones some different ones they're very specific and narrow focused and then lastly they have a whole Bank of e-learning on their
15:59 website that you can do and as a member you get discounts for all those courses as well which is one of the perks and they have all sorts they're again more
16:07 narrowly narrowly focused so they have one that's just on defending principles and then they have another just on attacking principles and they have another on working with disabilities and
16:17 they have another with goalkeeping level one and they have level two three and four so I can't recommend them again highly enough if you're really serious about it pay for the membership for a
16:27 year get the information get the periodicals and really take a look at some of the courses online it's again super helpful to look at some of those
16:36 stuff now there's some other places you can get courses online for free or minimal dollars and the first place is the fa the literally the football association in England they obviously
16:49 Drive their courses for those who are in Great Britain and England obviously because that's what they do but they have a whole bunch of what they call CPD
16:58 so that anybody can take them you sign up you create your account with them they have some really interesting courses and it's really interesting to get a different take us soccer has one
17:08 model of how they do things and they break it up into four components the fa has a similar one but they call it something different and they call it the
17:17 quadrants and it's just a different way of thinking about it and again it's a very interesting exercise to take some of those courses and compare and contrast because sometimes maybe one of
17:28 those roaches will be more to your liking or your understanding so it's a great way and then FIFA has a bunch of resources at their FIFA Training Center
17:38 a lot of this stuff is a little bit higher level but they also have a lot of international stuff they talk about places where underresourced and how you
17:47 can run a program so it's really interesting because if you work perhaps in an inner city or someplace else that's less economically developed than quote unquote the suburbs and you
17:57 struggle to find ways to do things things they deal with that on a global basis and they have a lot of information there it might be worth it to go visit
18:04 that and see what they have out there for you so there you have it there's a bunch of ways that you can work on getting better yourself as a coach again
18:13 if you're expecting your players to practice and get better on their own free time I think the players can ask the same of you the coach to get better
18:21 on your free time so I'm hoping that you'll try and go off and at least watch some games from some other Coes but really look at the licensing some
18:31 organizations require it especially if you're going to be a travel coach they want you to get one of those licenses uh the Grassroots ones and it's easy to do
18:39 even if it's the online version but again it gives you some educational background into how kids work how kids think again they're not many adults not even close um that's why there's a whole
18:51 profession spend spend a half a day in a teacher's classroom you'll see what they're dealing with and then you get a flavor of that when you have 10 or 12
18:58 them on a soccer field imagine 25 of them in a classroom indoors it's a struggle to say the least so I hope this content is useful for you I really hope
19:08 that I can inspire you to go out and better yourself by looking at some of these resources getting yourself some licenses and getting yourself some educations because it just means you'll
19:17 be a better Coach you're already interested in watching this sort of stuff for me God knows why but clearly you're hoping to get a little bit better
19:25 here's one more way to do it so until next time have a great time out in the fields I hope you and your teams are doing well until uh the next video we'll
19:33 see you soon bye
