Roger That Sports

That career lasted about 10 more days and one game. There I was, playing center mid for the VFW team. The ball was coming at me, this big kid, I'm pretty sure he was 18 (we were in an under 10 league) kicked that ball square in my face. At that point I could have sworn he kicked me with his size 10 Nike, but either way, I had had enough and my career was over. I went back to legos....

Recently my enthusiasm for soccer changed drastically. It wasn't the three Spanish soccer jersey's my sister brought home from Barcelona, but my oldest boy's excitement at playing the under 10 league this spring. Yeah, I had a few flashbacks when he said that, but we won't go there.

After recently taking a different job, I was able to not only get my son to practice but his mother volunteered me to coach 13 little rascals in a game I had 10 days experience in 23 years ago. I was playing soccer when the biggest thing in town were the transformers. So, what did I know about soccer drills, a league, rules of a soccer game, or pretty much anything. So I went to a few website, and here are some good ones for any fathers who find themselves in this same predicament.

Soccer Drills
How to coach soccer

And you can't forget this site - FIFA FIFA has lots of resources available to you. It is also great to show the kids what the professionals are doing.

So after consulting the internet, I found out I had an assistant. A 15 year old high school kid who apparently knew soccer. This was a great start. I figured that I knew kids, having two little boys I was confident of that, and he knew soccer. My job was to keep the kids in line so that he could teach them the game. This worked out nicely.

The most difficult thing was making sure each kid brought their soccer ball to practice. You'd be surprised how hard it is to play the game without a ball. But everyone remembered their uniforms, even at practice. Hey they are ten, the uniforms are the most important part of the whole thing.

Coaching soccer turned out to be one of the highlights of all my time with my sons. My son is just turning 9 and at this age they really start to come into their own and show some promise athletically. I saw some kids that are going to be successful at any sport they chose to play. We'll see some of them on ESPN I just now it. I prefer the 10pm SportCenter in case you were wondering.

Our team won 3 games, tied 2 games and lost 2 games. I don't think anyone really counted, but it starts to become important at this age. The really amazing thing is being able to positively affect a kids life. You could tell which ones needed a father figure that they lacked at home. You could tell the ones that needed a little discipline and the ones that needed a little more leash. I tried to remember each of their names from day one and spend time with each one in instruction and just listening to them.

I learned a lot during my time coaching. I learned that a sweeper isn't a broom, the center mid is always the first to tire, and every kid wants to be goalie. I learned that parents want to see their kids score, kids take care of ball hogs themselves, and soccer is definitely not a "no contact" sport. I learned how to coach the game with these kids and learned that teaching them how to win and how to lose is as important as winning or losing. Most importantly, I learned that coaching kids under 10 soccer isn’t so much about soccer, soccer balls, shin guards, uniforms, drills, goals, wins or losses. Its about those kids, its about community, and things like this are really what life is all about.

So if someone says "hey, want to coach soccer?" Give it a shot, it may turn out to be the best three months you've had yet.