When they first appeared on the American youth soccer scene, the paid coaches were charged with creating competitive clubs and coaching teams for the ambitious, talented young players.
It's a hard thing to talk about pros and cons of the paid coach because the issue for me isn't that they shouldn't be paid, it's who's paying them. Once parents are paying them, that is when things get a little out of whack.
If they were able to get paid by an independent source, then I think there's not so much a salesman aspect to it and a lot of the problems go away from the standpoint of number of games, number of events and what you're doing developmentally in your training sessions and how you are approaching the games.
There are probably few easier ways to make money than by convincing parents they're investing in their kids' future. And the professional coaches, including the coaching companies that clubs hire to run their practices and tryouts, have been taking full advantage. They're making a killing by convincing parents that professional trainers are necessary even for tykes. Any child old enough to walk is a potential customer.
America took free play and transformed it into a business, an industry. Self-proclaimed experts sell false hopes and dreams and expectations to kids and their parents and the end result is burnout.
Indeed, when paid coaches encourage children as young as 7 to try out for their "elite" soccer teams, isn't it time to sound the alarm bells? It's certainly time to ask questions, like:
* Are they courting children at such young ages because it's good for the children or because it increases their incomes?
* Is the movement to send kids into competitive clubs at such a young age destroying the recreational leagues?
* Is it really a good idea to break up teams so early in a child's soccer experience?
* What message do tryouts send to the players who don't make the cut? Do they get discouraged and lose interest in the game? Are we chasing the late-bloomers away?
* And who do the coaches pick? The physically advanced kids? The "coachable" kids?
A volunteer coach gets a group of players and is charged with providing them all a good soccer experience. A paid coach hand-picks his team. Especially if these paid coaches come from one of the firms that are hired on a season-by-season basis, won't they be inclined to pick players who will make the team look good in the short term? Will they neglect the smaller kids or the free-spirited individualists who don't enjoy the regimented training sessions but could end up the best of them all?
And are these training sessions designed for the good of the players or to impress the parents?
The most common reason I hear from parents who send their children to paid coaches goes something like this, "Our coach is real nice but she's not really teaching them any skills."
That always reminds me of another thing: I don't believe skill was, or ever will be, the result of coaches. It is a result of a love affair between the child and the ball.
So what would happen if parents are paying a coach $100 per month and the coach implements the free-play kind of training that U.S. Soccer's coaching education and national team staff recommends?
I think they'll wonder why they're paying so much money for a coach who simply lets the kids play soccer and hardly gives instructions.
So the paid coaches bark at the players to prove to the parents that they're "teaching" and concoct training sessions that look more like dance rehearsals than soccer games.
And the children are denied the free play that, breeds imagination, enjoyment, passion and fun, and leads to the discovery of talent.
In conclusion, Soccer – which is a poor man’s sport throughout most of the world – has evolved into the sport of the upper-middle class in the U.S. Parents are paying $1,000 to $5,000 per season (PLUS additional fees for tournaments and personal training) to play “competitive” soccer where they train just 3 hours per week, because field space is limited. Rosters have too many kids on them and the kids AREN’T learning the game. Coaches, mandated by US Youth Soccer to have licenses are coaching multiple teams, so they never really understand their players’ needs or weaknesses. Meanwhile, the fees just keep increasing.
Youth soccer has become a money making scam on the middle class.
All you need is a ball to play – no equipment or special circumstances – so to control the market, public parks have been taken over by soccer clubs who “manage” the fields and lock them up when club management isn’t around.
It's a hard thing to talk about pros and cons of the paid coach because the issue for me isn't that they shouldn't be paid, it's who's paying them. Once parents are paying them, that is when things get a little out of whack.
If they were able to get paid by an independent source, then I think there's not so much a salesman aspect to it and a lot of the problems go away from the standpoint of number of games, number of events and what you're doing developmentally in your training sessions and how you are approaching the games.
There are probably few easier ways to make money than by convincing parents they're investing in their kids' future. And the professional coaches, including the coaching companies that clubs hire to run their practices and tryouts, have been taking full advantage. They're making a killing by convincing parents that professional trainers are necessary even for tykes. Any child old enough to walk is a potential customer.
America took free play and transformed it into a business, an industry. Self-proclaimed experts sell false hopes and dreams and expectations to kids and their parents and the end result is burnout.
Indeed, when paid coaches encourage children as young as 7 to try out for their "elite" soccer teams, isn't it time to sound the alarm bells? It's certainly time to ask questions, like:
* Are they courting children at such young ages because it's good for the children or because it increases their incomes?
* Is the movement to send kids into competitive clubs at such a young age destroying the recreational leagues?
* Is it really a good idea to break up teams so early in a child's soccer experience?
* What message do tryouts send to the players who don't make the cut? Do they get discouraged and lose interest in the game? Are we chasing the late-bloomers away?
* And who do the coaches pick? The physically advanced kids? The "coachable" kids?
A volunteer coach gets a group of players and is charged with providing them all a good soccer experience. A paid coach hand-picks his team. Especially if these paid coaches come from one of the firms that are hired on a season-by-season basis, won't they be inclined to pick players who will make the team look good in the short term? Will they neglect the smaller kids or the free-spirited individualists who don't enjoy the regimented training sessions but could end up the best of them all?
And are these training sessions designed for the good of the players or to impress the parents?
The most common reason I hear from parents who send their children to paid coaches goes something like this, "Our coach is real nice but she's not really teaching them any skills."
That always reminds me of another thing: I don't believe skill was, or ever will be, the result of coaches. It is a result of a love affair between the child and the ball.
So what would happen if parents are paying a coach $100 per month and the coach implements the free-play kind of training that U.S. Soccer's coaching education and national team staff recommends?
I think they'll wonder why they're paying so much money for a coach who simply lets the kids play soccer and hardly gives instructions.
So the paid coaches bark at the players to prove to the parents that they're "teaching" and concoct training sessions that look more like dance rehearsals than soccer games.
And the children are denied the free play that, breeds imagination, enjoyment, passion and fun, and leads to the discovery of talent.
In conclusion, Soccer – which is a poor man’s sport throughout most of the world – has evolved into the sport of the upper-middle class in the U.S. Parents are paying $1,000 to $5,000 per season (PLUS additional fees for tournaments and personal training) to play “competitive” soccer where they train just 3 hours per week, because field space is limited. Rosters have too many kids on them and the kids AREN’T learning the game. Coaches, mandated by US Youth Soccer to have licenses are coaching multiple teams, so they never really understand their players’ needs or weaknesses. Meanwhile, the fees just keep increasing.
Youth soccer has become a money making scam on the middle class.
All you need is a ball to play – no equipment or special circumstances – so to control the market, public parks have been taken over by soccer clubs who “manage” the fields and lock them up when club management isn’t around.
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