By Tim Bradbury, Director of Coaching Instruction, Eastern New York Youth Soccer Association
As I have penned about before, each January brings with it the National Soccer convention. The largest soccer convention in the world with representatives from ALL aspects of the game, youth, college, professional, coaches at all levels and from all corners of the globe attend the world’s largest soccer convention. The take-aways from such an event are enormous and it is easy to get carried away with how popular the beautiful game has become in the US.
With a little effort and focus on attending the right meetings, it is not too difficult to get a clear understanding of the more distressing facts.
Not one for hiding the truth, I thought it best to share them here. With written reports like "Project Play," “Designed to Move" and the US Olympic Committee documents on long-term athletic development, plus verbal reports from those privileged enough to see a copy of the sports industries in-depth annual report on consumer habits. many of the figures presented are very scary.
The place of sport and physical activity is under threat in America and beyond. Physical education is being slowly eroded in the traditional school curriculum. The ability to run around and create games at recess is similarly being diminished within the school setting.
Each and every youth sport from basketball through baseball and of course ours and the world’s game, soccer, are all losing players at an alarming rate. (Baseball fell from 5.3 million to 4.5 million from 2008 to 2013, in the same time frame basketball dropped from 5.7 million to 5.5 and soccer from 5.6 million to 5 million) The suggestion this year is the figure of 70% by 13 years of age that quit soccer is now a bigger number at a younger age.
The consequence of youth players ceasing to participate in sport is reflected naturally by the numbers of young people with health problems associated with gross levels of inactivity. For those not paying attention, unhealthy kids turn into unhealthy adults, they miss more days of school and work than others, they have more frequent and bigger health care bills and have lower self-esteem.
The good news is that it is a picture and trend that with real effort we can change. The reasons are kids leave soccer are clearly stated:
1. It stops being fun.
2. Parent pressure.
3. Dissatisfaction with quality of coach.
4. Cost of youth sports.
Let's deal with each of the above in order, or perhaps by grouping them two at a time.
How can sport be fun when our culture has lost complete track of when winning is vital and should be a priority? Surely there is a developmental time when the taking part and learning the skills and tactics of a game must come before winning. As I travel around New York, and watch game after game, it is insanely obvious that winning at all ages is now worshipped above all.
How can sport be fun when mom and dad shout instructions at their kid throughout the game, micro managing every thought successfully stifling any sense of creativity that may have been there? How can it be fun when the car ride home is a 30 minute post-mortem on what I should have done and if my team can't win then why are we doing this?
How can it be fun when after the game instead of going for breakfast as a family I have to dive in the car, grab a snickers and rush to the next lax game so mom and dad can give me some more orders? What a great day after lax I get a Gatorade and apple before basketball starts!
Kids want, expect and deserve a knowledgeable and qualified coach. They value learning the skills and tactics of a game and take great pride in learning new skills. This is a difficult process and is made more so when a coach with no training or education is asked to lead practices. If more parent coaches could provide the appropriate level of instruction then less teams and clubs would turn to professional coaches. This is a simple truth. It is not one aimed at premier level clubs––all youth players of all ages want to learn the game from someone who can teach it well.
What seems essential is that clubs find a way to either educate all their parent coaches or find a way to provide professionally run programs that are cost effective.
I will finish with some suggestions for all sports parents
1. Debate and decide how important it is that your child play sport for life.
2. Try to establish what a sensible sports diet is, one that has enough rest and allows time for balance with other activities.
3. Attempt to find an environment which you are certain is developmentally appropriate, and is suitably qualified to both teach the skills of the game and inspire a sport for life desire.
4. Focus time, effort and attention on becoming a good sports parent. One who understands that learning is a process, that kids learn by making decisions and mistakes and that they deserve the opportunity to learn without pressure from you that is based on win, win, win.
5. Decide the disposable income that you are prepared to use to ultimately attempt to ensure that your child stays active and involved in sports for years to come.
I am absolutely certain that all who love soccer are greatly concerned by the numbers that are being driven out of the game. I am equally certain that without continuous effort from parents, coaches and the game administrators, this trend will only continue. We may, one day, have empty fields with no one playing.