The speech I’d prepared was equal parts rah-rah and duty to warn, but standing in front of 15 hungry, multisport soccer players on a misty, May-Gray evening I knew I’d have to crank through an abridged version to keep them sitting still. When the kids start pulling their sweatshirts down over their knees? The clock’s ticking.
And by hungry, I mean literally—we had just blitzed through a fast-paced workout and, as the girls sat to discuss our season outline, team goals, and the culture and training environment we wanted to maintain as they enter their freshman and sophomore years of high school, they had pizza, watermelon, and our right back’s famous homemade brookies waiting on a buffet table.
But hungry also in the sense of ambition. Collectively, the team had achieved their goal of earning qualification into a promotion- and relegation-based regional league for the coming 2024 fall season. At the same time, individually, the players are transitioning into the phase where they now want game film and advice on how to create highlight clips; they’re setting up scouting and social media profiles; they have ID camps and showcases on their calendars. In addition to college considerations and wanting to stay on track for roster spots down the road on very competitive high school varsity soccer teams, over ¾ of the players also intend to play at least one if not two other varsity sports.
Over the previous four years, this group of players have been able to develop one scarce asset (all-around athleticism) that serves them well. Over the next 3-4 years, the question becomes how well they manage another pair of other assets which—while boundless back in elementary school—have a diminishing availability with each passing year: time and energy.