Calling All Volunteers

The first games are in the books, and we survived.  In fact, the boys had great games in both their house and Matty's premier travel game.

One of my favorite parts about game day is the chance to catch up on the sidelines with friends and parents who I haven't seen in a while. When I was coaching both rec league teams, it was hard to do. I would talk mostly with my co-coach and get the kids warmed up; then it was game time. And when I'm coaching, I can barely keep track of the subs, let along carry on a conversation.

This year, for the first time, I'm coaching without a co-coach, just not enough parents offered to coach (more on that later), but I actually found it easier than working with a co-coach. I didn't have to worry about whether he and I agreed on subs, or formations or anything. It was a lot more efficient. And that made it a lot easier for me to be relaxed.

I'm trying to give a lot less instruction when I'm on the sidelines. Instruct at practice; encourage at games. I'm doing a lot better following that maxim. In the past, I've had games where me and my co-coach were constantly shouting directions to the kids. Add to that whatever they're hearing from their parents on the sidelines, and it's a lot for them to process. Too much. Again, another reason why it's good to have only one coach.

My directions today were almost exclusively trying to get out-of-position into position -- mainly my defense. Watch a lot of U9 and U10 games and you'll see this: defenders hanging out in the penalty box talking to their goalkeeper while the action is about 30 yards away from them, and an opposing player is barely in earshot.

But the thing that I'm left with from today is a conversation I had with a parent about the lack of volunteers, not just in soccer but in all youth activities. We have six U10 teams. That's at least 60 sets of parents and yet the league had to send out repeated emails  begging for coaches. Beyond soccer, there are no second-grade girl scout troops in the entire town because no one would step up to be a troop leader or whatever it is scout volunteer parents are called.

I get that parents are busy with multiple kids in multiple sports; and I know that not every parent knows or likes soccer. But our organization -- for all its board member egos and pettiness -- does a really good job of giving coaches the help they need to run a team. Over the years and the 20+ teams that I've coached, I've had tons of help from many parents. And many others help and support the organization in ways off the field. But if we're going to ask our kids to join a team, and we're going to ask them to honor that commitment by going to practices and games; then we shouldn't have a hard time finding 12 people out of 120 parents or so to commit to 2-3 hours a week for two months.

--michael