Of Winning and Development

One wonders if the deafening noise about “winning” to the exclusion of “development” may be just that, of empty barrels rattling! How it is that an athlete or a team can win without developing the necessary building blocks of a sport is often left unanswered. One of the obvious confounding observations in youth soccer is that many teams without good sound basics are observed to win and so the uninitiated might conclude that what is needed is to figure out how such teams win and then try to find or promote athletes with those qualities and then you win. Problem solved? Not quite!

It still bears some examination what those approaches are in order to see what role development of basic skills should have in youth training. One of the basic approaches is that at the youngest levels one must select players primarily on the basis of size and speed. This has guaranteed many a team instantaneous success by applying athletic superiority to overpower opponents. Especially in cases where the opponents are also not playing with better concepts, this has proven quite successful. In an environment where there are few standards and where most of the relevant evaluation is being made by parents who pay the bills and whose understanding of the game does not stray much further than wins and losses and/or the playing time of their offspring; the misconceptions are cemented even more permanently. How often one hears the theoretical notion, “Everything else being equal, you want athletes with speed and power.” Yeah! The speaker never bothers to cite when everything in sport has ever been equal. The building pillars of soccer may be stated in many ways but essentially they are skill development (Technique), awareness of options and decision making (Tactics), athletic development (Physical Dimension) and the Mental Game (Insight). Over-reliance on one or two may be useful in the short term but it would still be incomplete, unbalanced and as such limiting.

One of the more confusing approaches is practiced by people who actually have decent familiarity with the game but are not quite sure how to help players develop or choose to go the low road. In such cases, robust recruiting is the main tool applied. The tools of recruiting are different from those of teaching and often the interpretation of success does not take into consideration whether the integrity of the process. Some of the habits that often seem to go with this approach are those of hoarding players which is recruiting beyond need in order to deprive opponents of quality players; negative recruiting which downplays or debases the work of others; and outright disinformation and rumor-mongering. Opposition to the process of developing the skills and awareness of players is not sufficiently supported by such base practices even though they may pay short-term dividends.

The obvious alternative to such practices is first based on genuine passion and enjoyment of the sport. In such cases the fundamental issue is more profound than winning and losing games in the short-term. The process of learning to play the game is enjoyable! Learning and practicing the nuances and intricacies of the game is enjoyable! Of course when one can put these elements together and WIN, it is the ultimate joy! But even in losing one can achieve a great deal and learn things that will maximize the chances of winning in the future. In those cases lessons learned become tools for further work on developing the required fundamentals and shoring up of deficiencies.

A more productive discussion then should be to examine some of the practical ways one can help young players to develop the basic tools of the game. Working on the fundamentals namely “Development” will enhance the competence of individual players so that they can play the game effectively and acquire the skills and mentality that enables them to compete well. The inevitable conclusion is that acquiring higher skills and the ability to compete well will enhance the chance of winning games. Whether one chooses to accept that playing well and winning is preferable to winning by any means including destructive football, does not allow the conclusion that development of good fundamental skills and tactics are inimical to winning or that the two are mutually exclusive. If we are to split hairs it may be said that winning by any means is winning. Even if we grant that, we are still left with the greater realization that winning by constructive means is more lasting, reliable and enjoyable. But one must concede as stated above that if the goal is a short-term one, by definition the patience and foresight to develop skilled players is absent from the equation.

Two of the most important tasks, as Tad Bobak (the coach of the U15 Girls National Team) puts it, are playing as many unstructured (playground) games as possible and watching as many top quality games as possible. Since we are a coaching oriented society it is suggested that in our practices that we try to simulated playground games as much as we can. Additionally we must remain cognizant of the fact that not everyone learns equally by the same methods as some are predominantly visual learners, some auditory, many learn by doing and still others need to imitate coaches and teammates while others need to understand a task before they can learn to perform it. So the challenge to coaches is to strive to provide all those learning opportunities within our practice sessions. This will give all of our players a chance to develop the skills of the beautiful game and developing the skills will enhance their enjoyment and chances of winning!

As we enter the 2007/08 season, we are very excited to see the growth and improvement of our young ones in the Youth Academy. Tryouts will conclude this weekend on March the 4th. The Academy will conduct skills clinics and Ice Cream Socials beginning April 9th and into late June.

Two a-day training will not start until the 3rd week of July and payments for the Youth Academy are not required until June, so players will receive training from our quality coaching staff for free during April and May. We would like to congratulate the Boca 97’ Boys and the Boca 96’ Girls for a successful run of indoor soccer at Off the Wall Soccer Arena. Both teams won their championship matches in Boca Fashion, with skill, creativity, and teamwork.

Way to go Boca!!!!!!!!!!!

When it comes to leadership it is very clear that the Boca Jrs. 88 may have more than fair share.

Seven of the seventeen players on the Boca Jrs. 88 squad are captains of their seven respective high school varsity soccer teams. Here’s the list:

• Amy Baer (Junior) – Folsom High
• Michaela Buschow (Senior) – El Camino High
• Meghan Butler (Senior) – St. Francis High
• Tiernan Cutler (Senior) – Country Day School
• Carolyn James (Senior) – Ponderosa High
• Sabel Maguire (Senior) – Oak Ridge High
• Maryanne Sayles – Rio Americano High

And while they may be great leaders – they are all also great followers for their Boca 88 team captains – Heather Overholt and Tiernan Cutler.

Just another reason to be proud of this Capital Athletic team!

Special Academic Recognition for our youngest players:

Andrew Encinas, Justin Gregg, Mitchell Johonston, Michael Mellor, Jake Randle, Zak Sievers, Matthew Glass

GPA RECOGNITIONS:

3.5 Chris LaGrassa, Brooke Harrison, Myia Williams, Elle Porter, Crystal Romero, Alexia Poon, Julie Irwin, Grace Gardner, Maryanne Sayles, Evan Glass, Carter Giroux, Alex Larivee, Carlos Murillo, Baron Smith, Toni Fragosa, Brandon Briggs, Ade Akinsanya, Amy Baer

3.6 Ricardo Ramirez, Jennie Marshall, Taylor Giroux, Michaela Buschow, Sabel Maguire, Taylor Morrison, Brianna Levinson

3.7 Lindsay Matlock, Alexis Lovely, Brittani Lum, Molly Klier, Taylor Chamberlain, Jourdan Huffstutler, Dara Karnofsky, Ashely John, Stephanie Jones, Sarah Cheever, Alex Martin, Reed Zaiss, Michael Zubach,Michale Strobel, Samuel Chen, Cameron Chin, Mitch Carnefix

3.8 Hannah Keane, Frank Martinez, Domingo Ramirez, Sasha Lucyga, Justine Velasquez, Ryann Burns, Chase Strombeck, Erin Rost, Alex Van Dyke

3.9 Lara Nasseri, Tiernan Cutler, Kirby Stancheck, CJ Hoversten, Kenechi Agha

4.0 Caitlin Clark, Abigail Williams, Matt LaGrassa, Tyler Perez, Katie Kinney, Kelsey Costan, Ayana Young, Rachel Norris, Arriana Fragoso, Elena Alvarez, Natalie Hanson, Madison Jaworski, Jennifer Tapping, Karli Kridler, Courtney McKenna, Danny Castillo, Ian Kinn, Logan Cone, Marissa Ballou, Rachel Mercik, Timery Mueller, Rachel Rodman, Courtney Strombeck, Nicole Wilson, Jeffrey Rose, Nate Curry, Mustafa Chopin, Kevin Beyer, Scott McCuen, Steven Pye, Corrine Friend

4.2 Nickie Fung, Emily Padilla, Cole Hikutini, Alex Acosta, Navid Torabian

4.3 Elena Davert, Lizzy Mayes, Carolyn James

4.5 Meghan Butler

District: Haley Hatfield, Hannah Keane, Caitlin Clark, Alicia Segura, Logan Cone, Reed Zaiss, Cole Hikutini, Jeffrey Rose, Kenechi Agha, Marcus White, Antonio Victor

State: Haley Hatfield, Daniel Garza, Matt LaGrassa, Tiernan Cutler, CJ Hoversten, Courtney Strombeck, Jennifer Ericson, Alex DelAqua, Michael Zubach

Regional: Abigail Williams, Rachel Mercik, Ade Akinsanya, Fernando DeAlba

Id2 ODP National Camp: Adriane Bates, Caitlin Clark, Katelynn Furtado, Brynne Konkle, Brittani Lum, Sasha Lucyga, Laura Nasseri, Brianna Scales, Molly Klier, Brooke Harrison,Toni Fragosa, Danielle Lovato, Mallory Creamer, Jennifer Ericson, Courtney Strombeck

Id2ODP Select Team: Alli Kelly, Courtney Strombeck, Rachel Mercik, Mykell Bates, Brooke Harrison

Nor-Cal Premier id2 Player Development Program: Lindsay Matlock

College Commitments:

• Maryanne Sayles: California State University Stanislaus
• Heather Overholt: California State University Stanislaus
• Sabel Maguire: California State University Stanislaus
• Tiernan Cutler: Bowdoin College
• Navid Torabain: University of California Irvine
• Fernando DeAlba: San Jose State University or UCLA

• Darlene Biederer
• Shirla Carnefix
• Patrick McCuen
• John and Astrid Kinn
• Gene Cheever
• Norm Cone
• Teri Lagrasse
• Paul Zubach
• Matt Morehead
• Jim Merrill
• Dawn Hutchinson
• Joey Lum
• Judy Matlock
• Dave Hanson
• Paula Ericson
• Krista Mayes
• Norma Fung
• Gina Alvarez
• Margaret Padilla