C o a c h e s I n f o
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Message from the Club President |
 If this is your first experience as a coach, welcome. You may be afraid that you don't know much or enough about the game. Maybe you've never played soccer before, much less coached. You may be what is known as the "imposed volunteer syndrome." Due to a lack of volunteers, you have been pressed into coaching so that your own child can play. You realize that you don't know much more about soccer than other parents who are simply spectators.
Well, you are a very special person, and our hats are off to you! What sets you apart from the spectators is that you are willing to get involved and to give it a try. You are willing to take the risk of being thrown into a new situation without much background or training because you see the advantages that playing this game of soccer offers our children.
A word of advice: relax and have faith in your own abilities. Many youth soccer coaches didn't have the opportunity to play soccer when they were growing up. This doesn't limit their effectiveness as coaches. What really matters is not playing experience, not coaching experience, and not even knowledge of the game. What Matters is attitude. The priorities are love, imagination, patience and the desire to help young players have fun playing a great game. If you have this attitude, then you can pick up enough knowledge to give your players a firm base for their development in the sport of soccer.
Just remember that the early years of soccer should be filled with learning the skills and playing the game in an atmosphere of fun and good sportsmanship. Working with children up to the age of ten is entirely different from working with older players. As a coach of this age group you must be more of a play time director than anything else.
Relax, Enjoy, Have Fun!
Thanks Again For Volunteering!
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20012-13 PRACTICE SESSIONS: The session will be run by their competitive professional coaches of PA Rush.
The objectives of this training association are as follows:
1. Make practices fun and educational for the players.
2. Train our volunteer coaches. For age groups U5 through U8, provide training suggestions and ideas for club coaches in their practice sessions.
3. Provide consistent guidelines (rules) for games.
Younger Age Groups: The professional staff from "PA Rush" will continue their weekly involvement with the younger programs and will be in attendance at some of their midweek practice sessions.
Older Age Groups: In addition, they will attend at least one to two practices for every other team in the older age groups by training pairs of teams per the current agreement with Lenape Valley Soccer Club.
As this training program progresses each season it is hoped that a positive rapport can be established with players, parents and coaches. Like every community soccer club Lenape Valley Soccer Club could not exist without volunteer coaches and it is for this reason that the club has increased the professional coaching throughout the intramural division.
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TEAM MANAGEMENT
Age Group Start-Up Meeting: For all coaches and assistant coaches. Preceeding each season there are age group meeting for all coaches. This will include a mini "coaches clinic. Coaches and kids are formed into teams, practice and game schedules are determined and equipment is distributed.
Immediately following, please call your parents. Provide: night and time of practices, team name, practice location, your phone number. This is where any registration problems are discovered, such as missinterpreted birth dates, special needs, etc. Bring these issues to the attention of your Age Group Coordinator.
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Team Communications: Email technology has become the most effective communication tool. The Club has established guidelines where we will not distribute or divulge email addresses in any format. Therefor, when you make first contact with your team families, you will have to request all the email addresses they want you to use, there may be several for each family. Make sure they can recognize your email. Then it is recommended team coaches create "email groups" to mass email to their teams. For families that do not use email, request that they get a team "buddy" whom will relay messages. |
Educational Materials: Educational material is available. The Education Coordinator maintains a modest library of books and tapes. These materials can be borrowed. Visit our library. |
Game Play: All games are governed by the current FIFA Book of Laws.
For intramural, some exceptions to the Laws are made as appropriate for younger age groups. Those will be reviewed at coaches meetings.
To learn more about the Laws of the game go to the www.fifa.com website.
All games will have a "home" and "away" team, to be determined when scheduling. Teams should be on opposite sides of the field.
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Game Scores: Intramural is about sportsmanship. LVSC has a policy that no score differential shall be greater than 3 goals. Coaches shall take all measures necessary not to "run up" the score. Make sure players understand and respect this. Each age group is a family of friends. Next season, our current opponents will probably be our teammates. We are all in this together, season after season, year after year. |
Player Participation: Each intramural player will play at least half of each game, and half of each playing period. Again this is about sportsmanship and making this fun for the kids. It is not about winning the game! The real goal is that kids return next season because they enjoyed this one. There are intelligent exceptions:
(1) physical limitations
(2) frequent absences with out notification
(3) unsporting behavior
(4) exhaustion |
Player Positions: In intramural the focus is on individual player development, not team or game strategies. Help the kids understand this. It is intended that all players play all positions to develop a diversity of skill and game awareness. Coaches, do not give in to the player who only wants to play "striker" or "defense."
Goalies: This logic also applies to goalies. Our policy is that goalies must be changed after each "half" as a minimum. You can do more. We want all teams to develop a diversity of kids who enjoy the special challenges the goal position offers.
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Fields: Turf is a sacred commodity. The Club is dependent on others to provide fields. Thus we have a responsibility to protect and respect turf conditions.
DO NOT ACT INDEPENDENT OF THE CLUB!
DO NOT PLAY (practice or games) on closed fields, to check call 215-345-1815.
Check the website "bulletin board" for field updates.
If early games are cancelled, all games for that day are cancelled! |
Inclement Weather: Please visit the website's "Bulletin Board", or call the voice mail (215-345-1815) and your coach in case of any inclement weather.
Lightning: Turf conditions permitting, even though play may be allowed in drizzel or very light rain, whenever lightning is visible or on the horizon, all play stops immediately. Take shelter. Make sure parents are aware of this, because it may cause practice or games to end early. |
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