Well done! Soccer is a beautiful game!
Wow, travel teams for 10 yr. olds? I assume that’s like 1-hour or less car trips, not overnighters?
Yeah just two counties. All within an hour drive.
When they get older and better, it can get longer. My daughter was one of the best goalies in our state playing in a highly competitive league about 5 years ago. She had games and tournaments from Alabama to Florida to Maryland. We are in NC. That, gets expensive!
Oh for sure. We’re just joining the lowest tier of travel in the fall, so it is still basically a recreational league except now we keep score and track standings.
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Well I’m stepping up my game now. Time to become a player. My brother (the one who coaches with me) plays in an over 40 men’s league and I’ve been invited to tryout as a goalkeeper (they allow people under 40 to play keeper but they’re restricted to no field play). I’ve got a “tryout” with the team on July 9th.
I played as a keeper for one season in my teens, but I wouldn’t consider myself good. However the regular keeper they have now is old enough that he is getting to the point where he isn’t performing. So I’m optimistic. I’m told as long as I’ll move and basically act as a sweeper, can do halfway decent goal kicks/punts, and can jump, I’m a shoe-in.
I’ve been training a bit this past week and oh boy…its gonna be a rough ride for a little bit. Diving, falling, and rolling on the ground aint like it was when I was a teenager 
Oh! I almost forgot, the club asked us to take on a third team as well. Incidentally, it is my nephew’s team, so I still have a family connection. We told them it would be too much to full-time coach a third team between the two of us, but that we would take on all of the practice/training for this team as long as someone else would commit to just coaching the games.
We think it’ll be a good system since we seem to thrive in the training sessions.
SuperSalad, I didn’t read every post so forgive me if you’ve answered this before. Why is there a shortage of coaches?
Well, there are several compounding reasons.
One is that our club is very small in comparison to a lot of the surrounding towns. That makes for two general problems. Lack of talent pool and lack of money. We can’t afford the level of professional trainers that other, nearby towns can, so that hurts our development. And the lack of kids in general means the teams are scrounging just to field teams most of the time, and can’t afford to turn kids away that would be better off playing at a lower level.
That all results in losses, which kids and parents tend not to enjoy and often end up with them leaving the club; either quitting the sport of going to one of the other towns with better programs.
One is that not a lot of parents in my generation know the sport. It seems strange to me because I grew up playing it and therefore a lot of my social circle also played. So it seemed to me like everyone was involved in soccer, when that wasn’t the case. So lots of parents don’t feel capable.
Another reason is that it is a volunteer gig and people simply don’t have the energy or time to commit to it. I get it and I feel the strain myself, but the rewards, so far, have been worth it.
The summer has been good so far too. We started a summer training camp midway through July for our teams and the kids have been great. We start serious full team practices with all three teams next week.
All of that makes sense. I grew up in a small town, with small everything. The larger towns had more resources, more volunteers, bigger teams, etc.
To me, it seems volunteerism is down but that’s just my myopic view.
I’m glad you are enjoying the investment in those young people. They will probably remember you for the rest of their lives. Keep up the great work!
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Seeing the kids grow and get better is a great motivation. Honestly though, my biggest motivator and what convinces me to keep going is the parents. They have all been so complimentary toward my brother and me and they all seem to really appreciate what we’ve done up to this point. Them voicing their appreciation and the validation in them recognizing the progress we’ve made is terrific for us as coaches.
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LOL
I don’t know how many hours I spent watching Ted Lasso but all I really had to do was follow your thread. Well done @SuperSalad!
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