First Soccer Practice Down

Meg's first soccer practice was yesterday. The coach chose to practice all the way across the field from where the parents sit, so we could not here anything she was saying. It was an interesting choice to say the least.

She coaches two teams. A girls under twelve and a girls under ten. She has the practices at the same time with an assistant coach for each team. The scrimmaged for ninety percent of the practice. I did not see much skills practice at all. At one point, I guess the girls were not listening and she had them do push-ups. That did not make much sense to me. Why not make them run while dribbling the ball?

My first impression of the coach at the parents meeting was that this was going to be a bad year. I can't complain since she is a volunteer, but I can still not be happy. I really hope that our assistant coach gets involved. His daughter is a really good player and I hope that he has taught her what she knows and he can share some of that with Meg.

Having the teams practice together is also an issue for me. Of course the older girls will dominate the skills competitions that you usually have at practice. They will also intimidate the younger girls in the scrimmage portion of the practice. The coach already had to tell them to watch their kicks because they were hitting the younger girls in the face. Meg got hit in the face, but she was OK.

During the scrimmage, the older girls dominated. The coach mixed the older and younger girls on the same team, but the older girls still dominated at each position. I think this will affect team chemistry if she keeps doing this. The girls need to learn to play with each other and that will not happen as long as this continues.

I will keep an open mind, but it doesn't seem like this is going to be a good year.