Kid’s Corner Kicks eNews Magazine for Youth Soccer Players
INDIANA SOCCER November 1, 2011 Authored by: Steve Franklin
Kid’s Corner Kicks Official eNews Letter of Indiana Soccer Youth Players October, 2011
The purpose of this eNews Letter is to allow me, as your State Director of Coaching Education, to provide you with monthly tips on training; fitness; recruiting; cool videos; news about you (which you pass along to me) and other interesting tidbits. I hope you enjoy it.
Training Activity for ALL Ages: “Yard Dribble”-Around your yard, scatter cones, tin cans, towels, etc. throughout the yard. You will then dribble from cone-cone. Examples: a) Dribble to one cone with right foot, then to the next one with left. b) Dribble to a cone, then pull back, change direction; c) Dribble to a cone, and perform a turn, d) Dribble to a cone and then perform a move around the cone. Lots of variations can be used like timing to see how many cones they can dribble to in one minute, drag w/bottom of foot to one cone and then dribble fast to next, etc.
“Bottom of the Sea” A couple of players (friends) have a ball and lines up on the side of a square/rectangle. Each player will pass their ball and after they stay where they are. The objective is to pass the ball as close to the other line without it going over the line or “into the sea”. The player whose ball is the closest wins. Play until someone gets three. Players could go one at a time or all at once. Variations: 1) Vary the distance every time. Whoever wins the round decides what the new distance will be. 2) Alternate feet each time. 3) Ball must be chipped off ground but still can’t go past the line.
Thanksgiving Coloring for Youth Soccer Players
Simply color the Turkey and soccer ball to help celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday. Put the picture on the refrigerator once you finish for everyone to see.
Becoming Alex Morgan: Rising star reflects on youth game Interview by Emily Cohen
Alex Morgan, at age 22, was the youngest member of the USA’s runner-up squad at the 2011 Women’s World Cup, where she scored in the semifinal and final. Three years earlier, in the midst of her college career at Cal, she led the USA to the 2008 U-20 World Cup title. We asked the Southern California product to reflect on her youth soccer days and address some of the key issues facing young soccer players. SOCCER AMERICA: Your youth soccer background is really different from what most athletes are doing today, in which they start playing club soccer as early as 8 or 9 years old. You played AYSO until you were in high school, right? ALEX MORGAN: Yeah. I started to transition into the club scene after the AYSO season when I was 12 or 13. I tried out for a club but I wasn’t on the team. I was able to go to practice with them but the coach was just messing with me, so it was a bad first year of club. The next year, I found my team, Cypress Elite, when I was 14. That was my first club team. SA: So you played on your high school team and Cypress Elite? ALEX MORGAN: I did and then senior year I tore my ACL, so I didn’t play that year. But I intended on playing, so I would’ve played all four years. SA: That’s a tough injury. How long did it take you to recover? ALEX MORGAN: I think that 20 years ago ACL injuries were career ending injury but nowadays, not so much. I was back on the field in five months and feeling great. I wasn’t back to myself within five months but I was back playing with a brace and everything. SA: It seems so commonplace to hear of ACL tears these days. What do you attribute that to? Do you think young athletes are training too much? ALEX MORGAN: So many young girls and women have injured their ACL. It’s amazing how many we have on the national team and in college. I’m not sure what to attribute it to. There are some out there who say a lot of it is because our hips are wider than men, and I think a lot of times coaches don’t train their players, they don’t teach them injury prevention warm-ups. During college we started doing that, but I think if I would’ve started doing that when I was 14 years old, I could’ve possibly prevented something like that. SA: What about the fact that kids are specializing in one sport earlier than they used to? ALEX MORGAN: The early teens are a difficult age because definitely you want your kids to grow up and do whatever they want to do; you don’t want to push them too hard in one particular sport. My parents allowed me to play volleyball and softball and basketball and soccer at one time and I loved it. I was playing all these other sports so it wasn’t too much wear on the soccer field and it wasn’t too much wear on a repetitive exercise. SA: So you played on your club and school soccer teams, and you continued to play volleyball and run track throughout high school, right? ALEX MORGAN: Track was more something I did for fun; volleyball I was actually pretty committed to my freshman and sophomore year and after that time, my high school volleyball was in the same season as club soccer so I had to pretty much choose one sport from then on. I chose club soccer because I was missing either
high school volleyball practice or club soccer practice and I knew I needed to choose one. After sophomore year, I stuck with soccer. SA: So you think continuing to play multiple sports helped you in the long term? ALEX MORGAN: For me, it helped a little bit but since I think recruiting for colleges has transitioned to an earlier age group -- it used to be 15, 16, 17 and now it’s 13, 14, 15 -- so parents and coaches are put in a difficult position where they need to ask themselves if they should push their kids a little bit harder because if they don’t an opportunity will pass them by. It’s definitely a hard decision all around whether to create more practices, have more training for kids in that age group. SA: You hit on a really interesting point, that recruiting is happening earlier and then parents are put in this position. Do you have any advice for people on how to break the cycle? ALEX MORGAN: You know what? I wish someone would have told me when I was going through the process that if you believe in yourself and you think that you will continue improving, colleges will wait for you. I know the recruiting process starts earlier, but from age 14 through 18 a lot can happen. You can peak at 14 and not get any better or you can be at the bottom of your team at 14 and then be at the top by age 18. I think that happened with me; I had just started club soccer and coaches were already recruiting by then. I wasn’t even on their radar until I was 16 years old. I think you just need to believe in yourself and trust in yourself. Don’t always believe college coaches right away that you have the opportunity to get a scholarship and if you don’t take advantage of it, it’s going to go away forever. That’s not true. Coaches see you improving, see you doing well, and they’re going to go after you. They’re going to save financial scholarships for you and they’re going to keep their eye on you every year. I think it just comes down to recognizing how much pull college coaches really have. I think that a lot of times there’s that tradition where college coaches give players ultimatums and it’s completely false. I think players can go throughout their entire high school career without committing to a college until they’re ready. SOCCER AMERICA: You’ve talked about the pressures high-school soccer players are under to commit early to college. Did that happen to you? ALEX MORGAN: Yeah, I had to deal with making a decision; they were approaching me to try and make a decision fast because they have to balance how many financial scholarships they give to players and then once they have some players, they have fewer scholarships to find other players. I know what they’re thinking; it’s logical for them to try and recruit as early as possible, but I don’t believe that players need to commit and be pushed in a certain direction when there’s plenty of time to make the decision. SA: You went to the University of California at Berkeley. Was Cal your first choice? How did you end up at Cal and why did you go there? ALEX MORGAN: When the recruiting process started, I knew I wanted to stay in California so right away I bypassed the schools that weren’t in California. I was looking at USC, Pepperdine, Cal and Stanford and I went on recruiting visits to those schools. I think Cal fit my personality the best and it was completely different than where I grew up and I definitely wanted a change. It really came down to USC and Cal and I just felt that Cal was a better fit. I got along with the players well, and with the coaches, which is funny because my entire coaching staff changed by the time I got to Cal. It’s a very recognized public university and I wasn’t just looking at the rankings in soccer, I was looking at the academics. When you’re in soccer, you can’t count on making a living in soccer, so I definitely looked at that with USC and Cal, and I felt Cal was the right decision for me.
SA: When did you commit to Cal? ALEX MORGAN: I actually committed quite early -- November of my junior year when I was 16 -- but I’m glad I made the right decision. That early, it’s hard to tell where you’ll fit in because it’s two years before you get to college and so much can change in that time. But I made the right decision. SA: Alex, you are tied for the third all-time scorer in Cal history with 45 goals, and if you hadn’t been called up to the U.S. women’s national team – the youngest player on the current team – in your senior year, you would probably be in first place. Did you always have that striker mentality? ALEX MORGAN: I know so many people who have played every single position and I wish I could say that, but I’ve been a forward my entire life. I’ve trained to play that position since I was 12 years old and I think it shows now in my playing. I’m not the most technical person but if you get me in front of the goal, I’m going to find the shot and I’m going to get that shot off. And I’m going to find the right angle to score; that’s been my mentality since I was growing up and playing that one position. SA: You mentioned that one of the reasons going to a university with a strong academic reputation like Cal was important to you, because it’s hard to make a living in women’s soccer. Do you think that will ever change? If so, what do you think it will take? ALEX MORGAN: I hope so. I think it comes down to keeping this league (the WPS) alive and making it more stable and having more games broadcasted. If people can’t watch you on TV, they’re not going to go search you on the Internet. Most of our games in the WPS aren’t on TV or the Internet; last season, you couldn’t find them anywhere but Twitter. The WPS has something like 40 players who represented multiple countries in the World Cup and a lot of people have no idea that these athletes were playing in their backyard. We need to put a lot more effort into the WPS and I definitely have a role in that. As players, I think we have a role in promoting women’s soccer with young girls and parents, showing that there is a league with a lot of quality players. SA: What about the impact on all those young girls who cheered you on in the World Cup and now see you as their role model? ALEX MORGAN: If there is no women’s professional league in the U.S. for those young girls to look up to, other than the U.S. women’s national team, what about their future playing professional soccer? What about taking those small steps and then possibly getting yourself into the pool of the national team? There are a few girls on the U.S. team that made the World Cup roster, and we would have never been given that shot, that opportunity, if there were no WPS. So I definitely hope that the WPS stays alive and becomes a little more stable than it is now. I think that’s the biggest key to having a successful and improving women’s soccer in the U.S. and having those little girls look up to us and see that you can make a living. I think it all starts with keeping it professionally alive in the U.S.
The Instant Guide to Time Management for Kids Below are favorite activities to teach kids how to keep track of their own time and refine their organizational skills. Each project emphasizes fun and success, so your child will mistake these “homework” exercises for playtime. Body beautiful: Create a chart for your preschooler or kindergartener to be hung on the bathroom wall and call it “Body Beautiful.” Use words or images to illustrate the tasks she needs to complete to maintain her hygiene, be it brushing her teeth or putting her dirty clothes in the hamper. This teaches your child how to efficiently finish a set of tasks on her own. A family timeline: Use a long strip of paper to create a timeline for the entire family. Allow each child to mark a salient experience of every year of his or her life (let children dictate if they’re not yet writing). This exercise will help kids get a clear sense of time over the years. Leaner screen time: Television is one of the biggest time sucks for kids (and, admit it, for adults too). Decide with your child how many hours of television she’ll watch a week. Read the TV guide aloud with her and ask what programs she wants to watch, have her circle the shows, and then keep the marked-up guide next to the television. If she’s watching too much TV, have her cut back the first week, then more the following week. This raises awareness of how much time is spent in front of the tube, teaches her to take responsibility for screen time, and might even open up her schedule for other leisure activities. Excuses don’t count: This is an especially good exercise for older children (7 to 12 years old) learning to manage their own after-school time. Have your child create a chart and fill in all of his responsibilities, be it setting the table at 5:30 p.m. or doing homework at 7:30 p.m. Then have him check off each task when he’s done. This teaches personal organizational skills and learning to watch the clock. Homework helper: Have your child make a homework chart and list assignments for Monday through Friday. After she’s finished each assignment, she can put a satisfying check mark next to it. This teaches children how to keep track of deadlines and duties.
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