Coaching kids; I have always loved it and I have some great stories to tell about my experiences doing it.
I think kids know immediately when a coach is full of crap and trying too hard to win. They instinctively move away and stop listening when they feel a coach trying too hard. Just to illustrate my point the following story will tell you how I did just that.
Back when my daughter, Kourtney, was seven I became the head coach of her travel soccer team. I think they had 3 teams, A, B, and C at her level and we were the “C” team.
We were supposed to only carry 12 kids on our “official” roster. However, I have never been one to “officially” do anything. I just wanted kids to play so we carried 14 kids (please don’t report me) on our roster ranging in age from 7 to 9. Actually, we also had a really cute, red-haired; left footed six year old because her dad was coaching her sister on one of the other teams..shssss.. don’t tell anyone!
I grew up playing “kick the can” and that is as close as I ever got to soccer. Like “kick the can”, my philosophy was that everyone played and hopefully no one felt left out.
As the season progressed the girls and their parents all seemed to be enjoying the season except that at the midway point we hadn’t won a game and we hadn’t scored a goal!
I understood that I was working with young girls and if they didn’t care I shouldn’t care, BUT I was a successful college athlete and one of my very close friends tells me that I, during my high testosterone youth, was one of the most competitive people he has ever known. In fact, I think he said I was THE most competitive person he has ever known.
So we’re half way through the season, we have a big tournament coming up and I can feel myself begin to channel Vince Lombardi. Yes, I know that Vince coached football but other than Pele’ I don’t know anyone even remotely “legendary” on the professional soccer side.
We start the first game of this illustrious youth soccer tournament in Buxton, Maine and all the girls come out of the game as I make the changes saying, “They are stepping on our toes!”
What?! How the hell can anyone step on your toes if you are actually running?! Now, I didn’t express myself that way. In a very politically correct way I said, “If you keep running they can’t step on your toes!”
At halftime we’re down 3-0 and I can’t take it anymore. I get down on my knees, with fourteen 6 through 9 year-old girls around me in a horseshoe and I begin THE SPEECH. I can feel my speech pattern accelerating and my volume increasing with each word that bloviates from my mouth. In fact, I actually had an out of body experience where I was looking down at myself and thinking, “Wow, you are simply an amazing coach.”
At the end of my life defining speech, as I begin to catch my bad and over excited breath, I ask the girls “So does anyone have any questions?” I scan the faces placed in the horseshoe around me from left to right and as I get to the end I see the hand of the one young woman who has been standing right next to my ear and really gets it!
“Yes, Hope”, I say, waiting for her reply that will instantly place me in the pantheon of great youth coaches, “What is your question?”
Every kid is waiting for her question and listening for my response as she says,” Mr. Bonsey, you have a lot of crud in your ear!”
I fell on the ground laughing, realizing that kids just want to participate. They don’t care about winning. It is just adult jerks like me that think they want to win.
Seeing me laugh made the girls laugh and relax and they went out and scored their first 3 goals of the season.
We still lost but I learned a big lesson. LET THE KIDS PLAY!
