Coaching Girls Soccer...the Challenges and the Rewards

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.

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.

MIS MS Girls Soccer Team SCIS 2012 - Soaked but still smiling!