by Coach Diane Boettcher
I met a solo mom who coached her daughter’s team so that she could multi-task. As the coach, she could schedule her daughter’s training sessions to match those of her son’s team. Games usually coincided, but because the weekday training sessions matched precisely, this soccer mom made the best use of her soccer time.
My cousin may be the ultimate soccer mom. She plays coed league soccer with her husband and loves the game. When the local high school went begging for a coach, she stepped up, never minding her own kids no longer play.
A famous soccer mom is world champion US team defender Joy Fawcett. While she is no longer frustrating Chinese and German attackers, she delights in coaching her daughters right here in California.
Perhaps my favorite soccer mom is Aliceann Wilber, coach of the multiple NCAA championship winners William Smith College. With her heavy duty soccer coaching career, she immerses herself in her own son’s and daughter’s non-soccer interests while annually treating 24 players as her own daughters.
Soccer coaching involves knowing two things- kids and soccer. Moms have the first covered quite well and the second comes from FUNdamental SOCCER coaching courses. Lots of soccer moms take the FUNdamental SOCCER parent coach courses. They find strength in numbers and have a lot of fun learning more about making soccer a great game for kids.
All too often moms contribute to soccer by managing the team phone list, bringing the oranges or coordinating the rides. The same moms can structure kids’ participation on the field by taking up the whistle after a few fun hours of learning from a FUNdamental SOCCER instructor. In the courses, all parent coaches learn fundamental soccer rules, games for training sessions, the basic skills kids need and how to structure the time given for practice. With a parent’s innate sense of fairness and concern for positive experiences for all kids, any soccer mom would make a good coach.
Searching the web for good sites with parent coaches in mind, I find several the soccer mom should bookmark. First, you probably already have this one, but it bears checking back often as the content is updated often https://fundamentalsoccer.com/ Coach Karl has helped thousands, maybe millions of soccer moms and dads all over the U.S. with his great desire to help kids in soccer.
An interesting article from Sports Illustrated Kids is reproduced on http://www.isoccermom.com/frame2.htm It gives ten tips for coaching your kid’s team from the survey of young players. A soccer mom reading it would certainly say to herself, “I knew that”. For example, the first tip is simply to care. Next are to act your age, be a teacher and don’t baby them. Then comes make it fun, get everyone into the game, don’t play favorites and simply listen. The tenth tip is to know the game, something easily accomplished through a FUNdamental course.
Another good website is Dr. Daniel Frankel’s Tips for Soccer Moms and Dads at http://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/dfrankl/soccer/soccer01.htm . His “Kids First Soccer” has some coaching ideas, information about kids’ development levels, positive parenting pointers and plenty of age-appropriate ideas for practices. As I often find, young players need the concepts of movement education incorporated into their first soccer experiences. Dr. Frankel gives examples of how to teach space, balance and movement skills.
Another good website is SoccerHelp http://www.soccerhelp.com/ This website has plenty of pages with ideas on teaching positioning (something new coaches want lots of help with, but veteran coaches find less important). It defines terms soccer coaches throw around glibly- attacking, third defender, through ball, goal side and plenty more. This website answers a lot of the questions new coaches want to ask in coaching school, but are afraid to ask.
Soccer for kids is fundamentally about being kids through the vehicle of playing soccer. Moms are eminently qualified to facilitate the experience. Further, the great hero worship young kids have for their sports role models extends to moms, dads, older siblings or anyone who coaches or plays with them. Never forget- for kids 10 years and younger, adults are still bigger, faster, stronger and more skilled. Any caring soccer mom can fill the hero role, not only for her own kids, but the whole team.
