The last time I checked, there seemed to be about a thousand books out there on “How to Run a Youth Organization” and “How to Coach Kid’s Soccer” from people with fancy names that included lots of different letters after their names. And I doubt whether any of them is much good.
At its enthralling best, youth soccer is a miraculously balanced activity: half about being young, half about the sport of soccer. It’s a seductive mixture, way beyond the reach of the coaching manuals or the organizers.
I love going up to the fields and watching the young ones play. Full of excited noise and movement, high spirits are at play as they revel in the free-flowing form of soccer, not yet hampered by the deadly seriousness of being adults.
Nostalgia plays its part for me and colors my vision. I thoroughly enjoyed my time as a U-6, U-8 and U-10 coach. The young players would tell me the best jokes.
Q: Why do soccer players have so much trouble eating popcorn?
A: They think they can’t use their hands.
Q: Why are soccer players never asked to dinner?
A: Because they’re always dribbling.
Q: Why didn’t the dog want to play soccer?
A: Because he was a Boxer.
Q: Where do soccer players dance?
A: At a soccer ball.
As they got a little older, the jokes got more complicated, but maintained a “G” rating………..like……..”It was a boring Sunday afternoon in the jungle so the Elephants decided to challenge the Ants to a game of soccer. The game was going well with the Elephants beating the Ants ten goals to none, when the Ants gained possession. The Ants star player was dribbling the ball towards the Elephants goal when the Elephants left back came lumbering towards him. The elephant trod on the little ant, killing him instantly. The referee blew the whistle and stopped the game. ‘What do you think you’re doing? Do you call that sportsmanship, killing another player?’ The elephant replied, ‘Well, I didn’t mean to kill him – I was just trying to trip him up.’”
These are memories that stay with me to this day. Ones that can’t be purchased only absorbed. So I go up to watch the kids. Some of the kids with bodies barely bigger than the ball, and their eyes looking twice its size. The games a mess, of course…….but it’s a beautiful mess. I can watch those games forever. There’s the one with the baggy shorts and the smile of delight, the one who glides where the others labor and pant – he’ll be a star. Or will he? This mysterious kids’ world is a merciless crusher of adult hopes and ambitions. Within a few months the talent may be gone, the interest lost. It vanishes into air and settles surprisingly on a kid you’d never noticed before.
There are noisy intrusions – the yelling, demanding parents, the meddling coaches, the officious referees. They’re all adults, of course. I remember being at the field one time before my sons’ game. It was halftime of the game before mine. I noticed the coach of the U-11 visiting boys team pull one of his players aside, and I could hear their conversation. “Do you understand what cooperation is? What a team is?” the boy nodded. “Do you understand that what matters is how we play together as a team?” The boy nodded yes. “So,” the coach continued, “when off sides is called, or a handball is not called, you don’t argue or curse or attack the referee. Do you understand all that?” Again the boy nodded. “Good,” said the coach. “now go over there and explain it to your mother!”
Enough. Let him get on with his game. Let him dribble, let him run into the wrong positions, let him be selfish, let him make silly mistakes. Let him have his fun. And if you look close enough, you can see tiny soccer personalities beginning to form here: delicate, fragile, and as beautiful as the slowly unfolding wings of a butterfly. So miraculous to watch. And so easy to crush. But that’s another delusion probably – the kids are stronger than that.
So let them play. We all say it, we all mean it, but it doesn’t always happen that way. If the kids’ urge to anarchy is a force of nature, so too is the adults’ burden to teach. Teaching soccer is a riddle. Not the physical stuff, that’s straightforward enough. But how to teach the inner richness of the game – creativity, inventiveness, artistry, impishness, audacity. The jewels that sparkle on the crown. I think it likely that those elusive notions can’t be taught. Wondrously, they seem to be there already.
These are precious qualities that need to be coaxed rather than coached. Manuals, tactics, blood-curdling cries from the sideline won’t work: needed instead are patience, understanding and respect – for the kids, for the sport, and for our organization. These are the qualities that will steward our young players into the less forgiving world of adult soccer and beyond. And hopefully, in ten or twenty years, they will be the faces that are running this organization with the strength of character, morals and dedication we have instilled in them.