First of all, I get it—I’ve been there. Rushing straight from work to coach who knows how many players showing up at who knows what time. You’ve got the kid who moves like a cheetah and HAS to win every relay or 1v1 and the kid who hates recess and only smiles when you sub them off the field. There’s the kid with behavioral issues whose parents have run the numbers and figured out that recreational sports are a cost-effective form of childcare. There’s the kid who comes straggling up to the field five minutes after every game has kicked off, with the red-faced dad who sends angry emails to the league because his son has never been in the starting lineup. And there’s the kid with the polished first touch and passing skills who burned out on competitive soccer, and now it’s your responsibility to keep her from quitting the sport entirely.
These players are—or should be—the “grassroots” base of the developmental pyramid. There is no way of predicting at 7-8-9 years-old who will still be playing the game at 16-17-18, so that part of the base needs to be as wide and well-cared for as possible in order grow the game. But this crucial foundation tends to get forgotten when it comes to allocating time, coaching support, field space, equipment, and other resources. We consistently put the hardest coaching challenges in the hands of volunteers who have the best intentions but often limited experience.
Kicking off the fall season this year, I helped lead a coaching clinic for coaches who stepped up and volunteered on the recreational side of our club’s program. After a few weeks of watching the teams practicing out on our local fields, I realized that while I may have adequately demonstrated how to organize and execute a routine practice, I had failed to communicate a few crucial dos and don’ts that can really make a difference. With that end in mind, here are seven suggestions that will immediately improve a grassroots or recreational soccer practice (and like most things in life, I learned each of these by first doing them wrong myself).