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The loyalty thing has been beat to semiconsciousness.
You can't be loyal to everyone/everything all the time, can you? When your coach and club go separate ways, you and/or your child must choose; you must be "loyal" to one, and "disloyal" to the other.
Certainly a good time to teach your child about the real world in general, loyalty being but one of many aspects involved.
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i knew this would provoke a response.
Actually, the loyalty issue can not be overstated. When you have a kid (and parent) who is essentially more loyal to a coach than to club or (most importantly) teammates, what you create is an adolescent free agent. I see it all too often in youth soccer ... kids jumping from club to club, in search of greener grass, with zero accountability to those they leave behind.
This is NOT to say that the coach/player interaction is irrelevant, or even unimportant. But the reality is, in soccer as in the "real world,' circumstances change all the time. The ability to handle that change in something other than a "me first" way is a major determinant of future happiness.
This is one reason why I always tell kids to choose a school where they can be happy and thrive WITHOUT soccer being exactly how they want it to be. Coaches change jobs. Knees blow up. Depth charts can be discouraging.
If your response is always to jump to a seemingly better situation, or a situation you're "comfortable" with, you sell yourself short in the long run.
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Quote:
i knew this would provoke a response.
Actually, the loyalty issue can not be overstated. When you have a kid (and parent) who is essentially more loyal to a coach than to club or (most importantly) teammates, what you create is an adolescent free agent. I see it all too often in youth soccer ... kids jumping from club to club, in search of greener grass, with zero accountability to those they leave behind.
This is NOT to say that the coach/player interaction is irrelevant, or even unimportant. But the reality is, in soccer as in the "real world,' circumstances change all the time. The ability to handle that change in something other than a "me first" way is a major determinant of future happiness.
This is one reason why I always tell kids to choose a school where they can be happy and thrive WITHOUT soccer being exactly how they want it to be. Coaches change jobs. Knees blow up. Depth charts can be discouraging.
If your response is always to jump to a seemingly better situation, or a situation you're "comfortable" with, you sell yourself short in the long run.
So what you are saying is that no matter what your situation is ( good or bad)then you should just accept it for others sake?
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No. What I'm saying is, it shouldn't be automatic. Occasionally, you have to show some leadership, grow and take on a challenge.
This is NOT to say that, if you know the "new" coach is not competent, you shouldn't CONSIDER moving along with your current coach. But how about if the new coach is nothing more frightening than "unknown"? Should you just bail?
And yes, in team sports, the collective, the "others sake," SHOULD be a gigantic consideration. Not always decisive. But, if you think about it, if you're not willing to play FOR others, why should THEY play for YOU?
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When youth sport becomes a coach-driven activity and/or a scholarship-driven activity, you might as well just call it a job.
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Quote:
Love it when parents hire their kids out to coaches. Teaches them a lot about loyalty.
Each year, a club coach makes a decision to continue or discontinue its loyalty/commitment to rostered players by holding tryouts. Players understand they can be cut at that time if the coach thinks he/she has found better players to replace them. College coaches annually make decisions to renew scholarships and/or cut players. (Regardless of the level of loyalty the player may provide his/her teammates during the year.)
Coach loyalty to a player is obviously renewed annually. I don't know why a player's decision to replace the coach at the end of a year should be considered less loyal than a coach's decision to replace the player. However, I would expect both the coaches and the players to honor their agreements and display some level of loyalty/commitment throughout the year.
That said, I'm trying to understand what a coach's decision (like the one regarding HH's daughter) made during the year would be designed to "teach" the players about loyalty.
Last edited by DeltaDog; 05/25/12 05:04 PM.
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Loyalty to club?
Loyalty to teammates?
Loyalty to friends?
Loyalty to college?
The question isn't about the coach's loyalty. Coaches are paid professionals, often with families of their own, who must regularly make unpopular decisions, often in THEIR best interest. We UNDERSTAND this. We PAY them to do this. YOU pay them to do this. You HOPE they do it well. That's not always the case.
My point is, and shall continue to be, if an adolescent athlete's reason to change affiliations is exclusively driven by who's coaching where -- even if the new coach is a credentialed professional -- then priorities are out of whack.
Adults and high-level athletes don't get to pick and choose EVERYTHING. Why not give thought to instilling that lesson now, decades before all the real-life decisions involving commitment kick in?
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Quote:
Coaches are paid professionals, often with families of their own, who must regularly make unpopular decisions, often in THEIR best interest.
Why not give thought to instilling that lesson now, decades before all the real-life decisions involving commitment kick in?
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Corner Kick
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Ohhh the "Loyalty" card.
When these parents and kids make the decision to leave a Club/Team/Teammates and join another Club, the lesson your kid just learned is-
"It's all about us".
Forget your teammates, forget your old team, get ready for some highway time.
The only loyalty I have seen in soccer, seems to be in High School Soccer.
Our experience with two kids was, these were the teams they cared about, the teammates they grew up with, a school they had pride to represent.
Club soccer is pretty good to teach your kid that there is no loyalty in this world. Which for the most part, sadly is true.
The Club is not loyal to you. You do not need to be loyal to it.
HH, your daughter was part of a CESA team. I am sure CESA loved it when they got her. They got one from another Club.
But now she is leaving, they don't need her.
Lesson learned. Life can be bitter.
Last edited by Bomber; 05/25/12 05:42 PM.
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And, maybe it shouldn't matter, but now that mine have moved to college I don't pay the coaches to allow them the opportunity to make decisions in THEIR best interest. They pay me for that opportunity. Not so at the club level where, as you say, I'm paying them.
BackScreen, I agree with you in part that during a year a coach may make unpopular decisions that a player wasn't expecting but should learn to accept. A recruited forward may actually have to spend the year on the back line... so be it. But, neither the coach nor the player should feel cheated if at the end of the year one or the other decides to move elsewhere.
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