By Tim Bradbury, Director of Coaching Instruction, Eastern New York Youth Soccer Association
2015 looks set to be a very active and interesting year in soccer education. Within our own state, we will be making great efforts to offer programs suitable and designed for entry level coaches and courses designed for coaches who wish to continue to enhance their coaching skills and coach at a higher level.
This year we will offer:
• US Youth NYL – this course will be taught over two weekends on Long Island and is really the “must do” course for anyone that wishes to become a quality youth coach. Although both USSF and NSCAA have borrowed bits of information from this great course, there is no substitute for taking the course in its entirety.
• US C license – this course will be taught over 9 days in early August out of Orangeburg NY. The C is a great course that deals with high level game evaluation, understanding the Principles of Play and being able to design an effective training session based upon at least 2 lines of a team built around a game observation.
• A number of E and D licenses throughout Eastern New York. Any club interested in hosting an E or D can e-mail me directly at directorofcoachinginstruction@enysoccer.com. All information on the 18 hour E and the 56 hour D can be found on ENYSOCCER.com
• We will continue to host NSCAA level 1-6 courses for any club or organization that wishes to hold any of these courses. All details can be found on our website, www.enysoccer.com
• A huge number of F license field practical’s throughout the entire state. This 90-minute field portion, which is the practical piece of the new online F course, will include practice suggestions suitable for all levels of players aged 5-12. Dribbling, control, short passing, two player combinations and some basic possession activities will all be addressed.
We remain convinced that to really affect change within the youth sports culture we must continue to make every effort to share some thoughts on parent education. Our online Parent education piece ( 22 minutes in total) can be viewed at any time by clicking http://my.brainshark.com/Soccer-Parent-ENY-version-45369814
In addition to the array of formal educational opportunities listed above, we will continue to provide FREE coaching seminars and clinics for any club that requests one by e-mailing me directly at directorofcoachinginstruction@enysoccer.com
One of my New Year’s resolutions was to try educate in some small way as many parents and coaches as I possibly can. With this aim in mind I have now started a twitter account and for those interested I can be found at @TimBDOCI. I will be using this account much like this newsletter to share thoughts on the game and soccer education in an easily digestible way.
I thought it worth sharing some important news from the world of soccer education to end this first newsletter of 2015. For a longtime the NSCAA and US Soccer have had an agreement on what has become known as equivalence. At the most basic level ,this simply meant that people who attended one level of course for example an NSCAA Advanced National could then begin their US Soccer Education at the B Level. Similarly obtaining an NSCAA national meant that a coach could then register for a US Soccer C course. As of Jan 2015 this agreement is no longer in place and all coaches wishing to enter the US license pathway will be asked to do so sequentially, obtaining a D before a C and F before E etc.
I am certain this change will become the cause of much debate over the next few months and wanted to share this information as soon as possible.