Where did you learn what it takes to be successful?
For me – outside of what my parents taught me – competitive sports had by far the biggest impact.  It’s funny, thinking back to the things I learned in high school, as an undergrad and in graduate school – not a lot of it has a daily impact on what I do. But the lessons I learned in sports – they matter every day.

Here are a few of the things being an athlete or coaching athletes taught me:

• The Ability To Handle Adversity – you can’t go very far as an athlete without having to overcome adversity and the most successful athletes are usually the ones who deal with adversity the most effectively.

• Work Ethic – I remember my freshman year of high school going to baseball practice at 3:15 after school and being done at 8. It was kind of a rude awakening for a 14 year old, but I quickly learned that to be successful you couldn’t do just enough to get by. I don’t know anyone who has ever become a real success just punching the clock and working 9-5.

• The Intangibles Matter As Much As The Tangibles – Many of the most talented athletes I’ve ever played with or coached were huge underachievers when it came to performance. They didn’t have the passion, drive or willingness to work hard. They couldn’t handle adversity. To this day – I’ll hire intangibles 10 times out of 10 over a great resume.

• To Keep Score – The beauty of sports is that you keep score. There is a tangible way to measure performance. I tracked everything when I coached because I was looking for an edge. We track our numbers for the same reasons now – if you don’t keep score you can’t measure how you’re performing and know where to focus your efforts on improvement.

• Sacrifice & A Team Attitude – If you compete in a team sport and want to succeed at a high level you quickly learn to work within the framework of a group, sacrifice some of your individual goals for the good of the team and understand that if you want to be a champion you need to get past selfishness and shortsightedness.

• You Can’t Hide – As a baseball player, if you step in the batter’s box it’s a moment of truth. You either put in the hours in practice or you didn’t. As a coach, when your team takes the field – you either recruited and did the job preparing your team – or you didn’t. Too many people make excuses. Sports teaches you that excuses don’t get you very far.

• Hustle Can Make Up For A Lot – As a player I got to play at a higher level than my talent probably would have taken me because I worked hard. As a coach we developed a nationally ranked program with some of the worst resources in the country. If you’re willing to outwork the competition you can overcome a lot of shortcomings – whether it is talent, resources or anything else.

That’s just a sample of the things being involved in competitive athletics taught me. If you were involved in sports – what did it teach you?

Pat Rigsby
 
Sincerely,

Roby Stahl
robystahl@aol.com
www.thestrikerschool.com

Last week I wrote about 10,000 hours of practice. Today I'm going to write about the power of positive practice
or the power of repetition - and how many to do if you want to move ahead.  

Now, let's say you're a martial artist and you want to know how 10,000 hours of practice applies to you. Well, in order to become legendary, you'll still need 10,000 hours. But in order to master a number of different skills along the way, you may be better off concentrating on overall repetitions.

In Chinese martial arts, for example, it's common for the old masters to say, "Do 1,000 repetitions of this movement everyday and you'll own it."  And if the student will commit to 1,000 reps a day, within a year he'll be a force to reckon with in that particular skill.  Why? Because the average person won't even commit to 100 reps a day, much less 10. If you're the person who'll do 1,000 - you'll be so smooth and quick that even if the person knows what you're going to do, he still won't  be able to stop it.

When I had my school in California it was common for me to teach a move that I had worked on for 10-20 years. It was also common for the non-champion student to go off and practice the move two or three times, then turn to me and say, "What's next boss?""What's next? WHAT'S NEXT??? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?"

I have a friend, Mitch, who was 0-13 as a martial artist. Then his coach took him aside and told him the secret to winning. "Practice everyday - more than anyone else." A month later a world champion told him, "1,000 kicks per day, per leg." Mitch followed what these champions told him. And within three months he wasn't just winning, he was destroying  everyone. His matches weren't even close. 270-straight wins later, Mitch knew the secret of his success wasn't positive thinking - it was positive doing.

It was Positive Practice.

Another martial arts friend, Jack, gave me a tool as a gift. And along with the tool the advice, "Practice your first move with it 200 times a day for 10 days." The first day I was clumsy with it. The second day  less clumsy. The third day, much better.  And after ten days and 2,000+ reps, I was incredibly fast compared
 to when I started. And I still have a long way to go if I'm going to master this tool.

When it comes to a major skill, you'll need 10,000 hours to achieve mastery. But you can master sub-skills - or small parts of the big puzzle by doing 50, 100, 200 or 1,000 repetitions per day.

My friend, Pete, told me the story of how he became a great pitcher. "My Dad had me throw 50 pitches a night  through a tire hanging from a tree in our back yard. And I didn't get my evening meal until all 50 pitches went through the tire. By the time I was 16 I could put the ball in the strike zone anywhere I wanted."

If you think in terms of hours, one hour of practice per day will get you to 10,000 hours in 27.39 years. 30  minutes a day will take you 54.79 years. But if you spend two hours per day - you'll get there in 13.69 years. Three hours per day will get you there in 9.13 years. Four hours per day will only take you 6.84 years. And if you put in eight hours per day you can reach mastery in 3.42 years.

Putting in an hour a day may seem impossible to you - especially over 27+ years. That's when a  gentle reminder about concentrating on the number of repetitions per day makes the whole ball game much easier to play.

 Most days I walk four miles at a pretty good clip, usually in less than an hour. 10,000 hours of walking will take me 27 years or so, unless I go to eight, 12 or 20 miles a day. 10,000 miles at 4 miles per day will take me 6.84 years. And if I concentrate on doing 1,000 miles - well, I can crank that out in 250 days.

Earl Nightingale once wrote that a half-hour per day of reading on a single subject would make you a world renowned authority on it within seven years. That's 1,277.50 hours. And just think what you'd know if you read ten times that amount. For those in search of mastery, for those who gain meaning from being on a journey, the power of positive practice is something to embrace.

Best,

 Matt Furey

P.S. Anything in life that you want to become good at can be done by following the Law of Practice - a cornerstone of The Unbeatable Man philosophy - http://theunbeatableman.com

Over 45, Mother, Wife, Coach, Teacher, Motivator. She has worked at every level of education in her more than three decades of teaching and coaching.

What makes up the heart and soul of a great athlete?

As a coach for over 3 decades I have coached thousands of children, my coaching techniques have evolved and I still know I have so much more to learn. I am forever trying to improve and fine tune my coaching skills and in a way the children are my "guinea pigs", but one constant remains - the traits of the great" athlete.

Athletes need to be honest with themselves and their coach, if they don't communicate with the coach, injuries can and will occur and the coach losses the ability to trust in the athlete to tell them the full story. The coach needs to be fully aware of the loads that the children are undertaking: other sports, school sports, illness, nutritional habits, study requirements, work requirements and even sleep habits. Only then can a coach moniter the training loads, recovery needs and competition schedules of each child.
They need to have self belief, self confidence, self awareness, and an appropriate level of maturity,

They must have passion for the sport, the fire in the belly,
They must have commitment, dedication, set goals and have an ethos of practice makes perfect,
They must have a balanced life: sport, family, friends, school, work, relaxation, hobbies, spiritual health all need to be addressed for an athletes life to be in harmony,
They must understand the opposition or competition,
They must get into the zone, block out distractions and everything flows,
They must accept criticism and learn from their mistakes,
They must have a touch of talent, and finally
Great athletes have an aura that exudes confidence with a dash of humbleness even when they are just warming up.

Put all these traits together and you have the makings of a great athlete.
Check back next time for another great article on coaching, parents and sports psychology.

Coaching youth soccer doesn't take knowledge of the sport in order to achieve the biggest goal: having fun. Let’s get one thing straight: I am NOT a soccer player. Save for two games in college playing on an intramural dorm team, I barely know the rules. My oldest son, however, IS one. He has some mad skills on the field – skills that he in no way inherited from me – and I am always in awe of how he handles the ball and understands exactly where to put it. I have watched him from the tender age of 5 (where a pack of six kids would follow a ball around a tiny field) to the present day, where he plays in two leagues, and I remain in awe of just how much game he has. Let me state again: I am NOT a soccer player.

Last fall, however, my daughter insisted that since Daddy had coached Ben, it was my duty to coach her kindergarten team. I asked my friend Christine, a veteran player and coach to both her son and daughter, if I had the chops. She assured me that, “with the 5-year-olds, there’s very little coaching and rules following – it’s mostly hugs and support.” So I gave in. I must tell you, it was awesome. I was lucky enough to have an “assistant coach,” who is not only a friend, a fellow kindergarten dad and (cue Hallelujah Chorus) a soccer coach at Roxbury Latin. Yes, it’s nuts that coach Pete was technically my assistant, but as luck would have it, I happened to sign up first.

I will never forget my first practice: I was petrified that these eight little girls would see through my facade and know that I was clueless. I mean, I had 4 years of watching the game from the sidelines, but I wasn’t sure of how to coach. My first order of business was to find a name for our team. We had been given yellow shirts so I thought that we should play off of the color: I suggested “The Lady Lemons” and “The Golden Bananas.” While thinking that I had missed my chance at an award winning-copywriting career, one of my 5-year old girls squealed, “The Dedham Golden Soccer Players!” As I was about to again suggest one of my million dollar mascot ideas, the girls all “oooooohed!” and the name was set. I spent many practices riding on the shoulders of coach Pete. Occasionally I had to go it alone, so I asked the Nobles girls soccer coach to suggest a few drills. We practiced agility while doing toe-touches with the ball. We ran give-and-go’s (thank you, high school lacrosse career) and dribbling around cones. We even took shots on goal while my 9-year old played a very lazy keeper. It was a group effort.

I loved those games. It took a while to figure out a system for who would sub in and when but by game four, we got it. During the first game, my voice went hoarse because I spent the whole time yelling, “No, kick it THAT way,” “Don’t pick each other up,” and “Girls, stop skipping, RUN!” By the end, my little Golden Soccer players were starting to move the ball down the field and had found their groove.

We didn’t win every game – far from it! – but by the end of the season, my girls had progressed. They had learned how to play as a team, to shrug off each goal scored against them and when to celebrate a great play. Although we really didn’t keep score (three-on-three with no goalie is not the most competitive atmosphere), the kids had a ball. The smiles on their faces warmed my heart. After our last game, I brought the team into one final huddle. Looking into those eight little sets of eyes, I had to choke back tears as I told them how proud I was! My little Golden Soccer players had shown me that sometimes, it’s not necessarily your throw-in technique or a stellar defense that matters most. It’s the spirit and the fun that they have while playing as a team that makes for a winning season.

 

Around ten years ago, when my eldest lad had just turned six years old, I decided to make use of the rather expensive football boots that I’d bought him for kickabouts in the back garden and ran him down to a Saturday morning fun session that I’d been hearing about from a few other Dads with boys of similar ages.

I walked away incredibly impressed. With one significant exception, the parents and helpers at the session seemed completely dedicated to one thing – the enjoyment of the game. I was issued with a code of conduct that explained the desire to install a love of football into the hearts of influential youngsters and that winning wasn’t the ‘be all and end all’ of providing organised football for a six year old child.

Fairly soon, I was encouraged to help out and eventually had the privilege of running an under 7’s team made up of boys and girls who wanted to experience the game at a team level. We worked on a principle of trying to provide organised football for as many children as possible and boasted a squad of over 35 players with varying abilities who all got a game on a Sunday morning.

I loved every moment of running that side and managed to build lasting friendships with a group of eager young players who continue to stop me in the street for a quick chat about their progress to the present day. Unfortunately, work commitments saw me move away for several years and I passed on the mantle of team manager to another parent who continued to look after the bulk of these young players until they turned 16.

A few years later, I arrived back home and managed to find another side to coach at Under 13’s level. We started from scratch and took on boys that, in all honesty, didn’t have the ability to earn regular places in teams that were already focused on winning titles, tournaments and cup competitions. We still had a great laugh in that first season even though we were getting hammered most weekends, and it was fantastic to see the steady improvement in several of the kids who’d never played at a competitive level before.

The following season, a new batch of boys turned up to pre-season training and the standard rose a little. We eased the new boys into the side but continued to give every registered player as much playing time as possible. Although results improved, we still lost the majority of our games. It didn’t matter. We were still having fun.

Unfortunately, I didn’t realise that a few of the new parents on the sidelines didn’t quite understand what we were trying to achieve and eventually we had a cluster of parents at every game who felt obliged to shout a variety of different instructions to a gaggle of confused children above the voice of a manager who had completely different ideas on what junior football should be about.

I survived several heated arguments, one poorly-aimed bottle of isotonic drink and a weekly diet of shaking heads. By the end of the season, I’d already decided to move on and the club eventually appointed a friend of the resistant parents as my replacement. Strangely enough, it was the same gentleman who had been the significant exception at a meaningless fun session many years before.

The new manager managed to finish 3rd in the table the following season, but the team of kids that I’d nurtured had already been ripped apart by this stage and had been replaced with local lads that arrived with good footballing reputations. Because of their lack of natural ability, many of my old charges didn’t find another team to play for.

It’s a sad state of affairs when the pressures of megalomaniac parents ease willing volunteers out of the game but they tend to have a tendency to shout louder than most people. Worse still, they take away a source of pleasure from willing children who simply want to go about their business and enjoy themselves. Coaching kids is a labour of love and it still seems that most adults involved in the junior game consider themselves to be a few steps ahead of managerial greats such as Ferguson, Mourinho and Benitez.

Kids don’t have much time to enjoy football from a playing perspective anymore. The pressures heaped upon them to win at all costs from a very early age are still very much in force. The FA has done much to make the right noises about participation being the most important aspect of the junior game, but you get the impression that they rarely venture towards park pitches on a Sunday morning to see the continued howling of blood-thirsty parents who won’t take second-best as an option.
Check back next week for another great coaching article.

As being a coach is definitely a important position in sports. There are many different styles and methods of coaching. While you should set a method and method that is comfortable for you, it is equally important to consider enhanced comfort degree of your team. This is imperative should you coach children. Children should be encouraged to win, but there are many more essential aspects of the soccer game that should be considered with this particular age group. This includes working together, and having fun while participating in sporting events. Here, you will learn how to coach an enjoyable soccer training session.

The first thing that that you can do to coach an enjoyable soccer work out is to ensure that you are making it fun. With children as your team, you should create games and activities that all they members can take part in. Try to avoid participating in drills and similar things that mean that the children must stand in line and wait their turn. This can be a great time waster when it comes to the development of your players, and may make the soccer training session extremely boring for the kids.

The second thing that you ought to do in order to coach an enjoyable soccer work out will be completely prepared. Come up with a list of exciting games and drills that the children can take part in. Ensure that these activities develop the overall skill and technique of each player. It is necessary for the soccer work out to become interactive and challenging for the child. If you’re prepared, and know precisely what you need to pay attention to, the team will possess a wonderful some time and learn many something totally new.

The 3rd thing that you ought to do to guarantee that you are making your soccer training fun and exciting for the players would be to arrive before everyone else and setup the training area. This will allow you as well as your team to immediately start training once everyone has arrived. This avoids having to get the children to assist setup activities and be bored before they even start. You may decide to encourage early arrival by trying to explain to members that the last two individuals to arrive will need to pick up the cones and also the balls used during the work out. This makes prompt arrival a fun and challenging game, and will encourage those that arrive last to get there a little earlier next time. Furthermore, this will be a great help to you after an exhausting training session!

Although coaches might not consider “having fun” a key component of a soccer work out with children, you should understand that this Is the most important component. For those who have a team filled with happy players, their performance will improve. They could be more successful as a whole if they are having fun and therefore are not overwhelmed with negativity during soccer services.

Last week I wrote about 10,000 hours of practice. Today I'm going to write about the power of positive practice or the power of repetition - and how many to do if you want to move ahead.  Now, let's say you're a martial artist and you want to know how 10,000 hours of practice applies to you. Well, in order to become legendary, you'll still need 10,000 hours. But in order to master a number of different skills along the way, you may be better off concentrating on overall repetitions. In Chinese martial arts, for example, it's common for the old masters to say, "Do 1,000 repetitions of this movement everyday and you'll own it."

 And if the student will commit to 1,000 reps a day, within a year he'll be a force to reckon with in that particular skill.  Why? Because the average person won't even commit to 100 reps a day, much less 10. If you're the person who'll do 1,000 - you'll be so smooth and quick that even if the person knows what you're going to do, he still won't  be able to stop it.

When I had my school in California it was common for me to teach a move that I had worked on for 10-20 years. It was also common for the non-champion student to go off and practice the move two or three times, then turn to me and say, "What's next boss?" "What's next? WHAT'S NEXT??? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?"

Check back next week for the continuation of this great article about the power of repetition.

A Vision for Your League/Club/Team or Just Blah, Blah, Blah?
By Randy Hall
 

I was working with a league/club/team a while back, and as I facilitated a discussion with a group of coaches/admin. I asked several questions like: Do you know where the league/club/team wants to be in a few years?  Can you tell me what success looks like for this league/club/team in the future?  Can you describe the vision of the league/club/team?  It was evident from the discussion with these coaches/admin. that they had no idea what this league/club/team wanted to be when it grew up, and therefore, didn’t know how they could help get it there.

Unless you can achieve the vision all by yourself, it can’t be only yours.

When I met with senior leaders in the same league/club/team, I shared with them that the people in this league/club/team didn’t know what the future was supposed to look like and therefore, couldn’t be accountable for it, or help the league/club/team achieve it.  The response from the leaders was, “but we already told them.”  They went on to describe several meetings where they communicated (their word) what the vision was for the league/club/team.  They continued to show me how they defined it as reaching X number of players/coaches/wins within 5 years.

Here is the concept they were missing; that vision only becomes vision when the people in the league/club/team understand it and are compelled by it.  Until then, it’s just a leadership statement that puts a check in the “vision box.”  There’s been so much talk about mission and vision in the youth soccer community over the last several years that virtually every league/club/team has created a statement they use to make themselves feel good about having a vision.  For most leagues/clubs/teams, their investment in creating a vision statement is like me spending money on a top of the line set of golf clubs, it wouldn’t change my game much.

Vision isn’t about the statement; it’s about everyone in the league/club/team understanding how his or her role connects to the future.   It’s about everyone knowing at the end of the day, week, month, or year, if they moved any closer to what the vision represents.  It’s about everyone in the league/club/team not only being able to describe the vision in their own words, but actually being compelled by it and feeling like it’s something worth achieving.

For all of these reasons, communicating a vision can’t just be “we told them what it is.”  Each individual has to collaborate in the process.  People don’t buy into the vision of others until it becomes their own vision as well.  We keep forgetting this as leaders.  We often feel like after the statement is read to the team or the league/club/team that our job is done but that’s actually the beginning of our job.  We now need to listen.  We need to listen to how they feel about it, how they can contribute to it, what they think needs to be added, changed or deleted.

We have two choices as a league/club/team leader.  We can create our vision and watch it die, or help them build their vision and see it thrive.

That doesn’t mean that we have to give our vision up for something that is less successful.  It’s not about removing ours and replacing it with theirs.  It’s about letting them shape the initial vision to make it more compelling, more real and more tangible for them.  If we as leaders can’t cause that to happen, we will have to be content with framing our vision, admiring it, and hanging it on the wall somewhere because we will never actually get to achieve it.

If you’ve got a vision for your league/club/team, congratulations, you’ve taken the first step to moving your league/club/team towards it’s potential.  But now you must, share the vision, let go of it and let the people making it a reality on a day-to-day basis make it their own.  Otherwise, the first step really doesn’t matter, no matter how great it looks on the wall or the website

 

 

"Life is a journey, not a destination." Ralph Waldo Emerson

These wise words apply to many aspects of life, including youth soccer. Soccer is a long journey for children in the United States. Focusing too much on the destination will lead to regrets and lost time. There are many reasons why you should focus on soccer as a journey, not as a destination. Let kids enjoy soccer and their childhood.

Let your child enjoy soccer and childhood. Youth soccer starts at a young age. In my town, recreation soccer starts at age five. Travel soccer starts at age seven and continues through high school. The older kids get, the more time they spend on the soccer field. High school soccer players practice and play games six days a week. As you can see, soccer takes up a large part of childhood. That's why it's so important to make soccer enjoyable for them. If not, they will look back on their childhood with regrets. That's something no parent wants.

Have realistic expectations for your child. I looked at a 2001 team photo of the first soccer team I ever coached. The kids were just five years old. There were twelve players on the team. Only three of them are still playing soccer. When kids are young, they are still figuring out if soccer is for them. Let them discover the game and enjoy it. It may turn out that they don't enjoy the game as much as you want them too. Even if they continue to play soccer through high school, don't expect it to continue in college. Less than 6% of high school senior boys who play soccer for their school go on to play in college. That equates to about one or two players on the high school varsity team.

Remember the valuable life lessons soccer can teach. There are many lessons to be learned during this long soccer journey. Players learn about commitment and discipline. They learn that achievements only come after hard work. They develop relationships with other players, coaches and trainers. They learn time management skills; juggling soccer, schoolwork and a social life is no small task. Don't underestimate the importance of these lessons. These teachings will help with not only soccer but also life.

If all you want from soccer is a college scholarship for your child, you are setting yourself up for failure. Chances are your child won't even play in college. Remember that there's more to soccer than reaching the highest levels. Let them enjoy their childhood. Give them a chance to develop a love for the game. Allow them to learn valuable life lessons. This is what you want from soccer. If they make it to the college level, great! If not, they still had the journey of their lives.

Check back next week for another great article.

Clubs can help develop coaches in many ways, for example: (i) using younger coaches as assistants with more experienced coaches; (ii) having senior coaches regularly observe and assess sessions run by younger coaches; or (iii) having a required continuing education program for all coaches within the club.

* A “Program” Structure: The model for building a successful soccer club in the 1990s involved having one coach for one team, where, within this team, the coach was king and almost entirely independent. This model has become outdated.

Now, the most enlightened clubs are structuring their teams and staff into “programs” that cover multiple age groups. This structure means that one staff of coaches is responsible for several teams over multiple age groups (U12-U14, U15-U18, etc.). This structure: (i) ensures developmental continuity over time; (ii) allows coaches to specialize in coaching different age groups; (iii) provides multiple coaching perspectives at each age group; and (iv) allows for more roster flexibility and movement of players between teams.

* Training and Roster Flexibility: The clubs that are most serious about player development have a player-centered, not a team-centered, approach when it comes to where players train and play. This is most obvious by looking at the number of players who are playing or training with older players within the club.

The opportunity to train with older players, and for the most special players the ability to regularly “play-up,” is a key factor in individual development. In the best environments, this means that there is regular movement of players between various age groups and levels in training and in games. (Of course the leagues that the teams participate in must have rules allowing this type of roster flexibility in competition in order to allow playing-up.)

* A Developmental Base and History: There are some very “successful” clubs in this country that are very good at recruiting entire teams from other clubs at older age groups, putting them in the same jersey, and then winning games. This “recruitment” model is very different than a “developmental” model.

While it is a reality that the best clubs will attract better players over time, and that this attraction tends to occur more at older age groups (U14 and up) when the disparity in development between clubs begins to show, the core of any successful youth team should consist of “homegrown” players.

A club with (i) a vibrant youth program, potentially even a recreational base at U6-U10, and (ii) a history of successful players with 8-plus years in the club, is typically better at developing players than those without these elements. (On a similar note, clubs with competitive adult or U20/U23 teams provide good opportunities for “senior” youth players — U17 and U18 — to be challenged by training or competing with men and women.)

* A Professional Management Approach: Successful businesses are led by individuals who are hired for their expertise in a particular field and then are given the freedom to make decisions.

Successful soccer clubs are led by coaches hired for their developmental expertise, and then given the freedom to make developmental decisions without undue outside influence. While the involvement of parental expertise can be very positive in certain aspects of club management (financial management and controls, facility development, etc.), when untrained parents or parental boards become involved in decisions regarding team structure, roster selection, and league/competition participation and scheduling, bad decisions from a developmental perspective are almost always eventually made.

At the best clubs, the governing body of the organization hires the Director of Coaching, allows him or her to structure the program based on their own expertise, and then holds him or her accountable for the developmental outcomes of players and coaches.

Check back next week for another great coaching article.