This spring, the Legends FC SD-Del Mar Director of Coaching challenged the coaching staff to answer a series of defining questions as part of each coach’s personal development plan.
While chewing over those answers is crucial for each coach in honing in on their personal WHY and provides useful insight for the club to make sure everyone is rowing in the same direction…those answers have even more value for a few other groups.
- Your current players and their families.
- New players considering whether to join your team.
What is this coach, what is this team really about?
So, here are my responses, which ultimately form a mission-vision-values statement.
Mission Statement/Personal Philosophy
Define your overall coaching philosophy and what do you aim to achieve as a coach.
I want to develop athletes who have the physical, mental, technical, and tactical tools to rise to their future challenges, whether that is our next game, the next level of play in the sport, or succeeding in another sport entirely. Within that, my goal is to build teams that are greater than the sum of their parts while encouraging the values of teamwork, bravery, accountability, and leadership.
As a coach, at the end of each year I want every player to feel that they and the team are better than they were when the year began, and every player should be motivated to return to play again the following year. Over time, I want my athletes to look back on the time they spent on each team as one of the more important, positive elements of their development as a person and an athlete.
Core Values
Outline the fundamental principles that guide your coaching and interactions with players, staff, and parents.
3 fundamental pillars create the foundation of my coaching principles:
- “Make practice the best part of a kid’s day.” (Tony Holler)
- “In a competitive environment, to stay the same is to regress.” (Bill Parcels)
- “I think that the good and the great are only separated by the willingness to sacrifice. Great players are willing to sacrifice and give up their own personal achievement for the achievement of the group, and in doing that it enhances everybody. It makes other people better and they in turn can make you better.” (Kareem Abdul Jabbar)
If you create a training environment that players LOOK FORWARD to coming to, that they are enthusiastic to participate in, you can build on that infectious energy to set your culture as a team…and that energy will make you want to show up and match that energy as a coach, creating a repeating feedback loop that makes the experience rewarding for everyone involved.
But this is also a competitive environment. We are here to get better every day and we are here to win. If you are not committed to getting better and are complacent & content with where you are at…someone will be doing the extra that you are not and soon enough, they will take what you once had.
While we are competitive internally, the end goal is to be part of something bigger than yourself, which requires a willingness to sacrifice and be selfless. Great teams are filled with players who, when faced with a decision between what may be wrong for them individually but is right for the team, will choose to do that hard thing that is right for the team.
When all of the pillars work in sync—joy, competition, teamwork—anything is possible.
Non-Negotiables /Personal and Team Disciplines
Outline the fundamental principles that guide your coaching and interactions with players, staff, and parents.
“I think that champions are made through character. You can’t have a championship mentality and not tell the truth, not be on time, not dress appropriately, not have integrity. Champions are on time. Champions are honest, because you have to be honest with what your weaknesses are in order to improve them.” (Caryl Smith Gilbert)
I add this quote to my team goal-setting exercises every year & these are expected standards. I then tell my players and parents I have two simple promises:
“I will never lie to you and I will never waste your time.”
Those two qualities go a long way to building trust & buy-in, covering most issues that may arise.
- Honesty
- Preparation/Development
I keep continual open lines of communication with my players + parents via weekly emails & availability to connect via in-person before/after training, via text, phone, etc. And those interactions are based on honesty: future planning, evaluations, assessments, issues, whatever will get a straight answer.
The second promise is that there will be a plan, there will be a design, there will be purpose—everyone is busy with competition for their time & money, so I take care not to waste either. From there, we can discuss what may or may not be working, since players & parents can trust that nothing we do is random or filler.
Team Identity
Describe the desired culture and playing style of your team. What makes Your team Your team?
Play fast, play hard, play together.
We attack & defend as a team and compete with relentless pace & competitive will. We don’t care who scores, we just care that we score—with a fluid 4-1-4-1 we’ll overload centrally with double 10s & a false 9, we’ll create mismatches in wide channels with overlapping runs from the 2 & 3. We seek to disorganize the opposing defense with our movement; we love the cutback cross. In transition, we break fast in the attack; defensively, get numbers behind the ball & immediately work to win the ball back.
We believe soccer is a game where you PREVENT the other team from scoring while creating scoring chances of our own. Ideally, we will press high and put the opposing team under constant stress; if playing a superior opponent, we will set a deeper line of confrontation, stay disciplined & compact, and be stubbornly hard to break down and beat.
Constant Game KPIs:
- Be the team that’s winning the majority of 50-50 balls & retaining possession out of those balls won.
- Be the team out-communicating the opposing team.
- Be the team maintaining possession—the team that owns the ball gets to play however they want.
- Every player outworks & covers more total ground than their opposite number in the same space.
- Make passes that break lines and eliminate defenders—the easiest pass is rarely the best pass.
Repetition, Repetition, Repetition
How do you instill these values day-in and day-out and actually execute your mission and vision? Consistency, continuity, and repetition.
Kids may LIKE something they’ve heard one time…but they probably won’t REMEMBER it. So, repeat the things that matter over and over and over until they no longer need to be said, those values are simply UNDERSTOOD as who you are.