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Monthly Archives: October 2008

The Development Dilemia

22-Oct-08

Today I have added a few soccer links from well respected experts in their fields. First is Coach Karl who has had a major impact on youth soccer not only in the US but in other countries. His Soccer fundamental programs and books/DVDs are outstanding. Next is College Advisor’s, LLC headed by Charles Slany who is masterful in the art of preparing both your child and your financial services to enable your child to attend the college of their dreams. I use both their services in order to further educate myself regularly. Please check them out on the Soccer Links page.

Well, once again the ugly side of parents getting involved in youth sports has reared its ugly head this time close to home on my own son’s soccer team. I do not coach them as they have an outstanding coach who also is a teacher by profession, a good role model and due to the fact that I just want to be a good dad and watch him have the opportunity to grow on his own. In fact all I ever ask is that he plays hard and has fun. I then add the subliminal message, that when I played, working hard was the fun. I am also careful to ask him probing questions about his role in the game and how he thinks he played. We see too many parents who instead of using the car ride home as a chance to bond and use it as an educational experience say thinks like, “The coach should not have played Jimmy in that position”, “The goalkeeper cost us the game”, “You only played 30 minutes and Sam played 35″ , or my personal favorite “The coach cost us the game”. I recognize the my son’s team is not the top in the area but they have improved by leaps and bounds and the players are becoming proficient in the age-group appropriate techniques I believe in for long term development. So what is the problem? Obviously the team is not winning enough! So now emails have been flying around until I could not stand it anymore.

But there is an silver lining. Since I was observing my 24-48 hour rule of not responding to things that upset me in regards to coaching, player/parental behavior, etc. I was rewarded with an excellent download from US Youth Soccer regarding their vision toward the development of soccer in this country. Funny how things come out of nowhere when you need them most. Please download this document and feel free to pass it along:

http://www.usyouthsoccer.org/news/story.asp?story_id=3974

Anyway it was time to get involved and if you know me I did. In the following you will read my response. In the 26 minutes following my email I heard from over 95% of the team parents all saying thank you. I have learned in coaching and business over the past thirty years that most people allow that 5% to upset the apple cart… not on my watch! I have a saying on my office door…Illegitimus Non Corborundum…Don’t Let The Bastards Wear You Down! Live it!

Parents:

I am going to stick my nose into this situation after watching the emails fly back and forth. I am not sure what happened at the end of the season with regards to the end of the season in-house tournament but in regard to things I have read I am disappointed with the lack of respect you are showing in to Coach ___ _____ and team Administrator ___ ___who both have done an outstanding job for your child. I know in speaking with many of you, you have echoed my comments. maybe a mistake was made in terms of the end of season shielding but so what? The only people effected by this seem to be a few parents. Personally my son doesn’t care about such things and he is happy to get to play a few more games at the end of the season. Maybe that’s because his parents don’t try to live out out sports fantasies through him.

As a parent I am more than happy with what the club is doing to further educate my son. He will stay wih this team as long as he is able to make the grade. Coach ___ _____ spends more that the required time thinking and researching ways to become a better teacher and how to enhance the performance of your son. Team administrator ____ _____ has volunteered when many of us have not and she has made it easy for me as a parent to enjoy his games without a word of thanks from most of us.

As a person who is a professional soccer educator and makes my living from this sport I am completely satisfied with the progress this team has made this year. The are learning age-group appropriate techniques and things they would not learn at other clubs. But then I see the big picture, the road map in how you have to go A-B, B-C, etc. , until the player finally reaches Z in terms of physical, emotional, technical and tactical development. I like the quotes from the college coaches but they have no meaning in terms of relevance in terms of relevance to this situation nor this team. These are not collegiate nor professional athletes. I have trained many players who have gone on to win two FIFA World Championships, several Olympic Gold Medals, MLS and national club championships. The criteria we have always had was how did I perform today, regardless of the result of the game over which they may not have control. Their performance was measurement of themselves on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the highest. If the team won but they measured their performance as a 5 they were not performing up to their own standards yet were happy for the team win. Likewise when the team lost and they rated as a 8 they were happy with their own performance but nit with the team result.

I would like you to take the time to read an article I received from US Youth Soccer this morning, “Youth Soccer in America, How Do We Measure Success?”

http://www.usyouthsoccer.org/news/story.asp?story_id=3974

I would also encourage you if you are unhappy to “man up” as Coach ____ ______ tells the boys when teaching them to take responsibility and talk to Coach ____ personally rather than hide behind letters. Interesting in that one case one of the fathers writing letters has already arranged for a tryout with another team at season’s end. Remember that a have a good relationship with all the other club directors and have heard directly from him. If you want to leave KSA fine but leave the rest of us alone! Be careful in what you wish for because it just might come true!

Roby

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That Which Does Not Destroy Us…

07-Oct-08

This past weekend I had the pleasure of watching many youth games during a tournament my son was playing in. It was extremely enjoyable and it gave me the opportunity to speak with many parents both from my son’s team and from others. Many times parents and their sons/daughters get frustrated when their team moves up from one level to a higher level and the result are not favorable. As an example my son’s team won just one game out of the three even though in two games they were obviously good enough to have won both. Two of the teams they lost to have been together for a long time and play in the state’s top level league. Our team has never competed outside the local league even though they are in the top division. I am okay with this as my son is receiving good coaching and competing at the proper level to help him obtain long term success. I told many of parents that there is an old saying credited to German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche that says “That which does not destroy us makes us stronger”. Many to prefer to talk about the coaches, opponents, teammates, etc and avoid the real issue that some struggles are good for kids and make them develop. This why I advocate coaches using an empowerment approach to coaching centered on Teaching Games for Understanding (TGFU) concepts making them responsible for their own actions, accomplishments and failures.

I bring this up because last week one of my Cincinnati Kings (PDL) players, Branden Stelmak, invited me for lunch down near the University of Cincinnati campus where he plays for the Bearcats soccer team. He is very frustrated because the Bearcats are having a season not up to par for their past accomplishments. He is feeling the pressure and feels he needs to carry the team on his back. Admirable traits but perhaps not realistic for the situation. You see UC has only one senior and 14 freshman, many of whom are starting, competing in the powerhouse Big East. Although all these players are very talented it is a big step up from playing high school and club soccer one month and then playing against players who are not only four years older but might have expectations to play in the MLS or even abroad the next.

Branden and I have a good relationship if in nothing more that we both grew up in Cleveland, Ohio on the same street and share many of the same high school/club experiences. He is a goalscorer and I always thought I was fairly useful around the goal and we both are hard workers. Probably has something to do with the fact that our area was ethnic blue-collar and you are expected to do a day’s work for a day’s pay. Branden is not one to shy out of putting his face in front of someone’s boot if it means scoring a goal for the team to win. In fact the picture on the front page of the web site in the upper right hand corner is one of him (#15) scoring an important goal for the Kings in which he collided with the opponent’s goalkeeper, sweeper and one of his teammates in a vicious collision leaving all four in heap and injured. We literally had to carry him off the field yet there he was at training the next day ready to continue. It was only after the season that he shared with me that he had a groin injury the entire season.

We talked about how he could best serve his team and coaching staff and reference was made to the above Nietzsche quote which he had never heard. We agreed he could adhere to it. Having to struggle this year will make him a stronger player, a more competent competitor and a better person. That would be easy for him. You see Branden is a survivor (well not technically for another year) of childhood Leukemia. He contacted it when he was seven years old and battled the treatments for three years. During that time he missed no school as his mother was determined that he would not miss being a normal child or use his illness as a crutch. He was so weak from the treatments that he was not able to play soccer but he used it as a motivation to get his strength back. When he had minimal strength but not enough to play in the field he became the goalkeeper so he could stay in the game he loved and be with his teammates. You see Brandon is a living example of “That which does not destroy us makes us stronger”! Think about him the next time your son/daughter says”It’s too hard” or the “Coach is not fair” or blame someone else for the team’s shortcomings! I think “that which we make excuses for makes us weaker!”

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welcome to the fitness blog

01-Oct-08

Greetings to all.

My name is Paul Cacolice and thanks to the good people at Soccer Learning Systems, I’ll be blogging my soccer fitness opinions in this space.

Roby Stahl posted how he has been involved with SLS, let me tell my story:

In 1996, I took a trip to Milton Keynes in England to present at an AFCAT coaches’ course. My roommate? Andrew from SLS ~ one of the few Americans there. He gives me a LA Galaxy hat that I have (and occasionally wear) to this day. I’ve stayed in touch with the SLS crew since then even if I haven’t fully supported the Galaxy ;-) .

OK, first, full disclosure:

All opinions are biased in some way, shape or form, so let me show you mine up front: I’m a certified athletic trainer (ATC) since 1986; a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) since 1991; and to a much lesser extent youth and teen coach since 1999 (ice hockey and soccer). My playing experience never got farther than as a U-19 travel team goalkeeper in Western Pennsylvania in the 1970’s and early 80’s. That is really saying even less than it seems. We were awful and never really developed technically or tactically. Basically, we played kick-around in matching jerseys. So, as far as being a high level soccer player? I can’t relate to that. At the time of this blog entry at 44 years of age, I am still a mid-distance trail racer here in the northeast US – so I do still train and compete at a pretty high level in 7-10 half-marathons and longer races over mountain ranges and in dense woods 8 months out of every year. There are some that would still classify this as an athlete.

Most times, my opinions arrive in that order ~ ATC, CSCS, Coach and Athlete. Sometimes, they do not. Rather than discordance, I look for areas of overlap and agreement within those viewpoints both in my own fitness practice (NoMagicBean.com) and in my work with Tony DiCicco’s SoccerPlus Camps.

The thoughts that are posted on this blog will typically follow these areas of overlap and how they benefit all athletes, coaches, sports medicine providers and fitness people.

The first point of discussion:

Every soccer player must take time off each training cycle ~ I won’t accept any answer outside of that and if you have argument with that, go read the significant body or research on overtraining, restoration and periodization. You’re already decades behind the current knowledge base.

For most of the players (hopefully), there are two training cycles in each calendar year. For a few, it is one. For the most misfortunate souls, they receive less than 4 weeks off from sport competition each year.

So, for discussion’s sake, let us hypothesize that your mid teen (14-17 year old) male or female is approaching their off-season of 4 weeks’ duration.

What would provide the greatest benefit to this young person’s overall long-term development as an athlete and a person: 4 weeks of an injury prevention program such as an ACL Prevention training; 4 weeks of speed, strength & fitness training; 4 weeks of soccer-specific technical training or 4 weeks of no training (i.e.: being a teen).

Or something else?

There may or may not be one answer for that.

I’ll blog on that shortly.

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