| Burnout Ahead? (November 2004) |
By Jay Martin
The headline in the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch read, “Top soccer players don’t have time to kick back.” The story documented the summer of a number of Central Ohio soccer players, both boys and girls. All told of the time commitment youth soccer requires.
- Brandon Lacko, a senior at Westerville South High School: “Soccer is definitely an all-year-round thing. I do get tired every now and then, more mentally than physically, but love doing it. Basically, when I am not playing soccer I am relaxing and getting ready for the next practice.”
- Steve Serr, coach with Premier adidas and Westerville South High School: “As soon as the high school season ends, the club season starts and runs through June.”
- Annette Bonasso, a player at Ohio Premier and Dublin Coffman High School: “My freshman year we won the state championship and had club practice the next day!”
- Maria Shipe of Bexley High School quit club as she entered high school to play softball. When she didn’t start on her club softball team, she quit softball, saying “I don’t see softball in my future, so I’m going to play soccer again. I see soccer as a way to advance into college!”
What’s wrong with this picture? Sure, soccer is a great game and it’s fun to play, but is this a healthy situation for our young soccer players? Ask any college coach about the number of soccer players recruited who left because of burnout. You’ll hear many horror stories. Why should a high school age girl have to quit softball to play soccer? The priorities of club coaches are way off. This country’s youth soccer situation is holding back the growth of the sport.
- Coaches have fostered the belief that playing on certain clubs will enhance college soccer scholarship chances. This simply is not true. Very little soccer scholarship money is available.
- The emphasis on wins creates a situation where kids are not prepared to play the game, but are coached to do what it takes to win. This leaves many young players at a disadvantage going to the next level. Many fast and strong players are never taught how to play in the clubs and are at a huge disadvantage in college.
- The emphasis on tournaments creates a situation where kids cannot possibly learn to play the game the way it should be played. Tournaments foster “underwater soccer” and a total disregard for learning how to prepare to play. Soccer is a game that cannot be played more than once a day or even a weekend. No one can prepare to play when there are three games in one day.
- The club system eliminates kids from playing. If kids cannot get into a club, they do not play “rec soccer” because it’s viewed as a lower level of the game; therefore, kids who need to play or who may be late bloomers are eliminated from the game.
- There is well-documented conflict between clubs and high schools. Like all adult conflicts, this puts the players right in the middle, and they often are the losers.
Let’s start making decisions that benefit the players and not coaches!
Age specific drills?
The discussion that will not go away continues. Here is another response to the Quinn/Carr article entitled “Age Specific Drills”:
What the heck was with that article in Soccer Journal? I got the magazine today, and boy did Coach (Karl) Dewazien get those guys mad or what? I must be missing something because I don’t understand their point. Maybe I am wrong, but I don’t think Coach Dewazien ever intended to imply that we run FUNdamental Nine-Step Program identically for each age group. Is that what these guys were thinking?
I said to Coach Dewazien after his tactics book came out that you clearly cannot teach tactics to U-6’s the same as U-12’s. He agreed and explained the subtle differences between age groups. Maybe the guys who wrote that article are too advanced or too far removed from youth soccer to understand.
The importance of Dewazien’s book is that it teaches a typical AYSO volunteer coach how to run a good practice. This assumes the coach has little or know soccer background – which is often still the case today. Coach Dewazien’s simple to teach program illustrates practices that are better than 95 percent of the practices out there. Okay, I’ll agree that Freddy Adu might need advanced practices at age 14 than are found on the FUNdamental DVD, but there are millions of kids out there who have coaches who lecture the kids for 25 percent of practice, have them run laps 25 percent of the time, etc.
A coach who implements the Nine-Step Program will help a child improve his/her skills in a manner in which they will have fun at the same time. If a child has sufficient ability, a child developed in the FUNdamental program will easily transition to a more competitive skill-driven environment. Is this what they argue is bad about the Nine-Step Program?
Let me finish with one example. I used the Nine-Step Program with my boys U-10 team two years ago. I had a boy who was very timid, didn’t like soccer very much, slight of stature but could run reasonably well. By the end of the year he had improved a great deal. Ball skills were better, his feel for the game was better, but, more importantly, he learned to love the game. He really enjoyed practice and games. Now he is on a U-12 select team and is a very good player. He is quick, fast, more aggressive to the ball and has good ball skills. I will argue that in another “skill driven” environment, this child would have quit the game at U-10.
Although I think the Nine-Step Program improves skill, the authors missed the point. The Nine-Step Program helps the kids learn to love the game. Once they love the game, the time necessary to improve is easy. If they don’t love it, they quit.
I don’t understand where these guys are coming from.
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