Back in August 2011, I took on the responsibility of coaching a
middle school girls soccer (football) team here at MIS. I played soccer
since I was 7 years old until I graduated high school but didn't really
pursue it any further than that as I had bad knees and I wasn't quite
all-star material! When I was in high school, I coached a little league
team (the kids are all 19 or 20 now which is scary!) but taking on
middle school girls was a bit out of my depth...
I've
gotta be honest. Big kids freak me out. Well, anyone over 12 and into
their teens in a classroom setting, freaks me out! I'm not sure why, I
guess it's mostly the unknown of teaching them, but they've always been a
road less travelled (and even more less desired) for me and my teaching
career. So, diving into coaching I was obviously nervous because it was
something completely new for me.
I rocked up to my
first try-outs confident and having spent a couple of hours preparing
drills and activities for the practice. I struggled with names, as one
does when they're still trying to learn 120+ student names, and
overall, it wasn't so great. The girls didn't know me, I wasn't sure of
how to play my authoritative card with them and I just wasn't sure what I
was doing...despite my planning. It took me a couple of practices to
warm up to the girls (and for them to warm up to me) but then they
showed their true colours. We weren't a particularly strong team last
year but we did win a couple of games and we placed 4th out of 8 teams
at our SCIS tournament. The girls also won the sportsmanship award which
brought tears to my eyes because I was so proud of them. The 'big'ger
kids weren't so freaky anymore and I thought pretty highly of them. At
MIS, we also have a spring season of soccer and with that came a series
of losses for my girls and I couldn't help but feel defeated and a bit
down with our results, even though the girls were having fun.
This
fall, a number of my girls moved up to the junior varsity team at
school and this meant I'd have a number of new squad; this was my first
struggle. Unlike the year before where I had girls to pick from for our
7/side games, I had to try and recruit girls to play soccer.
Unsuccessful at doing this, and before going to our SCIS International
School Tournament, we ended up having to borrow a couple of girls from
the team a league lower than us. I couldn't understand why there was so
little interest in a sport that I adored since I was 7 years old! But,
as it turned out, the group of 8th grade kids coming through the middle
school were not the most athletic bunch and other sports struggled a bit
or had lower-than-usual numbers...it wasn't just me and my
coaching...or so I tell myself! :P
I started off with
an authoritative reign on the girls and tried to be strict in setting
high expectations on our team for the season and I began planning
practices that were still fun, but also involved having the girls work
hard. This didn't go over so well. The girls didn't come to all
practices, they would be a bit lazy when they did and I felt I had
nothing to motivate them with; because of low numbers, I couldn't even
say that if they didn't come to practice, they couldn't play in games
because I needed everybody I could get AT the games! What is one to do
in a predicament as such? I tried to rotate who was captain for our
games to pass on responsibility to the different girls but found this
wasn't working either. I had a really tough first season in the fall and
we were winless in all of our games except at SCIS where we tied and
won a game to finish in a tie for 7th place. Like at the end of our
spring season, I felt defeated and like a failure as a coach because I
wasn't getting any wins on the board for my girls...
Spring season rolled around again this year. I was determined. I bought a book called, "Coaching Girls Soccer Successfully" by Debra LaPrath
and I was determined to make this season our best yet. I had the girls
set goals, I began making files on the girls and their abilities and I
watched and made notes on them in practices. Then we had our first game.
We lost 0-7. Damnit! I made notes all over my game sheet of things to
work on and then set to planning a practice full of activities that
would help us improve on these things...but, the girls didn't seem to
care. My team has some talent and as individuals they're
coachable...just not so much as an entire group. I have one girl who is new to
the game and wants input into what she can improve and she's committed
to bettering herself as a player. There's another one in a similar boat
to her but she's been playing the game for a while and I've moved her to
a new position which she feels she shouldn't be playing. Somethings the
team needs to work on as a whole are cooperating and communicating as
one unit and building up physical endurance! We tried doing 3K runs at
the beginning of practices last season but with only a few of them
appreciating them and having others cheat their way through it, I
decided it wasn't the best route to continue. Then, I took notice of one
player, who started with me last spring, and saw potential in letting
her lead the pack as captain...I thought, 'maybe this is how I can get
through to the girls'.
This girl (J) is one of the only
girls who would pick-up a soccer ball outside of practice and kick it
around. She does this with her best friend who is also on the team but
because of an injury
cannot play this season. J loves the game,
she's a fan of premier league soccer and it just seems to be in her
blood. She's our team's goalie (she is great at it but is hard on
herself when she gets scored on) and she's always looking to better
herself. She's also decided she wants to play out of the net more and
probably spends more of her own time practising that, which is great,
because she's really becoming a standout in her non-goalie position as
well. She understands the game, it motivates her and she loves it. Could
I have a better captain? ...
That's J in a nutshell on the soccer pitch. Academically,
she's also made quite a name for herself...but not a good one. J has
been at the school since she was 5 years old. I'm not sure when she
developed the reputation that she has, but she sure does have one. She's
a regular topic of discussion for staff members that have taught her
and those who haven't taught her know who she is because of this
reputation that follows her. She's not motivated to learn and she's got
an awful attitude with and towards some of her teachers. She's
out-spoken, opinionated and hot-tempered. She's the kid that doesn't see
the point of so much of what's taught in school. She's not afraid to
speak her mind and because of this, she's been in trouble/in
detention/visited the principal's office more times in a month than I've
ever been in my life. She
hates school.
So, how
could I pick a role model to represent a group of girls who is so
academically demotivated and every teacher's worst nightmare in the
classroom? Well, that's the beauty of sport.
Not every
kid is going to excel in the classroom. After years of dealing with J,
many must have given up on her; she's a bad egg and there's no hope for
her. Though I'm sure J wants her teachers to feel this way so she can
fuel her fire of hatred towards them (she is aware of what she's doing),
she still needs someone to back her up. I am so happy that I can be
that person. I am also glad that I do not teach her and that I get the
chance to see her from my perspective. Soccer is her outlet to shine and
she does just that. It motivates her and through continued praise and
leadership on my team, I only hope that she'll start to turn around her
negative attitude towards school...well, specifically school academics.
School is not just academics and J is not at the point in her life to
see that just yet...but she's getting there. A big (arguably the
biggest) aspect of learning at school comes from the social side of
things. Students learn how to interact with their peers, their teachers
(J needs to work on that! :P) and also how to take on different roles
within the school community. I'm not sure if J will ever take on a
leadership role within the classroom but she's getting to experience it
within a team. She's not even the oldest player on my team, but she has
fostered and flourished in her captain role this year. She rounds up the
troops, encourages the girls and has set goals and shared her
opinions/views of our games with me in one-on-one post game situations.
She leads the girls in warm-ups and has totally taken charge when she's
put in the position to step-up. Last week, we had an athletics
appreciation evening where we handed out Coach's Awards (or MIP) and
MVPs to student athletes from the spring athletic season and I had a
hard time trying to come up with a way to present this to J. Student
athletes
should ideally shine in both an academic and athletic
light, as they're required to uphold a certain GPA as they get older. J
probably wouldn't be eligible for such an award if stipulations for GPA
were in place at her level but since there aren't, J was my only choice
for not just a Coach's Award but MVP, too. I chose my one athlete who
was new to the game and who has improved immensely as my Coach's Award
recipient but felt the wording of it was most suitable for J as she's
been a dream in that role. I ended up choosing her as my team MVP and
gave a quick speech about why she was chosen - the emphasis of the
evening was on the importance of athletics despite the academic
pressures that students face, especially in high school (many grade 12
students don't play sports because of the strains of the IB Dip.
program). In my case, the importance of athletics in J's school life
could very well be the one thing saving her and inspiring her to carry
on in school...and hopefully that helps her to change things around and
erase the bad rapport she's so well-known for. She's shown her
potential, she's been respectful towards me, she's made me proud and
I'll go to bat for this kid in the future because she's proven to me
that she deserves to have someone in her corner.
When asked to write some words for our school's magazine, J replied with this unedited blurb:
Throughout
these two seasons, we had our ups and downs as a team, but most of the
time we got back up, we didn't stop and not a single player took a
“loss” as an answer what ever the score looked liked. And that is what
made us such a unique group of friends playing a sport we all love. And
as David Beckham said, Soccer is a Magical Game. And because this is
such a truly magical game for every single one of us, we will continue
giving our best and try even harder next season. Not only as a team have
we all grown, but also as individuals no matter how we came into our
first training, we all got better. And even though the scores sometimes
said otherwise, together as a team we had lots of fun and played great
games and it was another wonderful soccer year.
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| Ready for game time! |
Our
team remains winless this season and we still have two games to go,
with a heartbreaking loss to the top team in the league last Friday (0-1
because of a penalty shot on J in the last 10 minutes). But despite
what the results show, it's been a successful season. I'm no longer
focused on winning or losing so much as I know the girls will do what
they're going to do in the end. When we pull off a win, it'll be a sweet
victory but it's all in the hands of the girls. I've learned I can't
push them, despite what another coach in my position might do, and I've
put more focus on the relationships I've gained with these 'big'ger kids
and on the role I can play as an adult educator in their lives.
There'll be new girls next season that may adopt a different perspective
of the game, but like teaching, every group has a different way of
learning and doing and I'll adjust my coaching style to meet the needs
of that group. J may well be my biggest success in any/all my years of
coaching and I'll proudly take that over any number of trophies or
medals.
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| MIS MS Girls Soccer Team SCIS 2012 - Soaked but still smiling! |
