Coaching Not Boys

Scotty here (SFYS Executive Director). In my experience as a female player on girls' teams growing up, I found the coaching was different between rec and competitive, and more intense once regional and international travel factored in. But at that time (here I go showing my age), there weren't many girls' teams, and the folks that coached them (beginning with dads and moving on to imported English coaches) coached us "like boys", meaning they considered us to be committed players and trained/coached us as such. The discrepancies in coaching style - if they existed - were usually framed as whether the coach was a yeller, micro-manager, disciplinarian, punisher, etc. and whether or not "girls could handle it". Coaching has evolved much in the last few decades, and with renewed focus on making youth sports safe, fun and inclusive as well as more tactical and player development-based. As an international sport, soccer is at the forefront of this focus.

I recently connected with Karl Dewazien of FUNdamental Soccer who emailed the following, along with some questions for a coaching resource he's putting together. As you'll see below, I've broadened the scope of the original questions from just girls to any non-boy player, since at SF Youth Soccer, players play as they identify.

From Karl - Survey Context & Questions:

The questions result from a world-renown soccer player sending me the following anonymously… "After so many years on the female side, they [men] are still getting it wrong [when coaching girls]. Ugh. And I am tired of hearing from only the men [on how to coach girls} and from their perspective. We do need to solicit more female voices as they do know best [how to coach girls] and more of the perspective of females."

1. What methods have you found to be successful when coaching girls and non-binary players?

2. What methods have you found to be unsuccessful when coaching girls and non-binary players?

3. What can/should girls and/or non-boy players do, on-their-own, to improve themselves?

4. If you had a magic wand, what major changes would you make to improve youth soccer in the USA?

5. Do you have any other ‘words of wisdom’ you would like to share?

Please add your thoughts in the Comments section below or email koachkarl@fundamentalsoccer.com directly!

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Karl Dewazien, www.fundamentalsoccer.com

- Emeritus Director of Coaching - California Youth Soccer Assoc. 1979-2012

- Author - Internationally Published FUNdamental SOCCER Book Series

- Producer - highly acclaimed ‘FUNdamental SOCCER - Practice’ DVD

- Can be reached at: koachkarl@fundamentalsoccer.com