Solid Foundation

Today I par-took in a provincial pre-b license course in NWT, and it went relatively well. It was nice to work in a small group (there was myself and two other coach's who I coach with for the u13 boys group here), and it was ran by Huw Morris and Terrol Russell who came over from Saskatchewan. They provided me with some great feed back to help improve my coaching style, and the help optimize getting the most out of the players at training sessions. It was also nice to have a few of the u17 players come out to partake in the drills, but as they were doing so, it was another observation for me that the players here (no fault of their own) were not provided a proper foundation from a young age that would allow them to compete at a higher level in the long run.

In my last blog I had made mention that in Yellowknife, there is quite a divide in the soccer community and because of this doesn't provide the players here with a proper development pathway from a young age so that the basics of the game can be learned, and so that when they are put into an environment with a more demanding coach, they don't face quite a shock. After the two other coach's and myself ran our sessions, Terrol ran a couple of drills for the the players, and the other coach's and myself were able to see an immediate shock in the players expression on how a high intensity training session would be ran. When the other coach's and I talked to each other about this, and if we took the same approach to running our sessions, one of their responses was the players wouldn't show up again.

This got me thinking how important it is to get these players in Yellowknife who aspire to play at the next level (or even being able to compete with other provinces at things such as tournaments in Alberta or nationals) they need to be placed in a proper training environment from a young age. Having been involved with the North Mississauga Soccer Club for over 2 decades, Terrol reminded me a lot of their current assistant technical director Jhon Ardila (and the rest of the mentor coaches) and how he runs sessions for the players in the Center of Excellence program who range from u7-u12. There is a demand on the young players as they are in the competitive player pool, but it is nothing that is unrealistic. All of the players are able to train in such an environment, and over the season and years great strides can be seen in their game, both as individuals and as a team over all. 

The reason why I believe that it is important to start putting these players in such an environment at a young age is so that they develop a mindset from a young age that they need to work hard and at high intensity level from a young age, so that this way when they get older, a more demanding coach isn't a shock to them, and they don't have an attitude of quitting the game because a coach wants more out of them during training. If the players here in the NWT are able to learn this from the early ages (provided they are in the high performance program) they will see great strides being made in their individual and team games.

In order for this to happen though, there needs to become unity among all the clubs in Yellowknife so that they have a proper system to develop the players who would like to play at the high performance level. If there was 1 club for youth, they could have a houseleague program for the less serious and weaker players to play in and develop, while the players who have some talent and want to progress further with the game have somewhere to go with proper training and a bit more demand so that they are used to constantly working at a more intense rate. With this foundation, it will help them learn as they get older that when someone wants them to work harder (not just in soccer but all areas of life), quitting isn't the answer but instead giving it an honest effort will show them that they are capable of attaining much more than they believe they could.

"While some may think they didn't get the opportunity that life offers,often they miss it because it comes disguised as hard work, sleepless nights and sacrifice"