Lean In

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With a combination of enthusiasm, curiosity and the resources below – utilized by Missy herself – anyone can become a great youth soccer coach. The first two resources offer great general and strategic advice about how to approach coaching youth; they are applicable to any sport.

A Coaching and Philosophical Starting Point
If you can avoid the three L’s–lines, laps and lectures–outlined in this one-page guide, you are well on your way to being an excellent youth sports coach.

Piaget for Soccer Coaches
A good one-page resource about appropriate developmental skills for each age.

Soccerhelp.com
Don’t be intimated by this text-heavy site! Soccerhelp.com is a great resource for first-time, parent-coaches of young players, U-11 and below, There is a free version which is enough to get you started, but the paid version is well worth the money. We also use their patch program to incent kits to set and achieve goals.

Bettersoccercoaching.com
If you can wade through the pop-ups and ads, there is very good information on all aspects of coaching the game of soccer. Their weekly newsletter has valuable drills and practice planning tips that are particularly valuable for kids U-12 and up.

YouTube
This seems obvious, but YouTube is a treasure trove of technique tips. Pretty much any move you need to teach or want your team to master, you can find a great instructional breakdown on YouTube.

Baffled Parent’s Guide to Coaching Youth Soccer and Baffled Parent’s Guide to Great Soccer Drills
Prefer something in print on paper? These two classic books can probably get you through U-6, U-8 and perhaps U-10 soccer. If you follow Bobby Clark’s advice, you will be well ahead of most parent-coaches.

Share with us your great coaching tips, and for this fall season, let’s all lean in and help!

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Just Leap: Life and Learning How to Surf

Growing up, my walls were covered not with the teen idols my friends adored, but will surf posters. Kelly Slater. Brock Little. Laird Hamilton.

I loved the sport surfing and often dreamed of being on the water inside a wave. But despite being able to boast I’d been surfing in three oceans, I’d never actually gotten up on the board, or been out more than a handful of days.

And by “surfing,” I mean I paddled a surfboard into the water of the Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, and the Tasman Sea, but never really got the hang of it.

The reality was that the waves scared me. I was much more comfortable diving under them and playing in them without a board. And without a mentor to help me learn the ropes, I was pretty clueless about how to get out; how to get through them; how to pick the right spot; and how to paddle into them. (Not to mention how to pop up, balance and keep my feet on the board before tumbling off.)

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