coachKidsSports.com

Losing a game is heartbreaking. Losing your sense of excellence or worth is a tragedy.  - Joe Paterno

I subscribe to a soccer coaching newsletter.  It comes out a couple times a week throughout the year and always contains good ideas and interesting drills.  If you’re a soccer coach, get yourself to FineSoccer.com and subscribe to at least one of their newsletters…  you’ll be glad you did when your struggling to figure out what drills to run at practice…

The  FineSoccer.com Kid’s Newsletter arrived in my inbox today and contained a  good article on the importance of keeping bench players mentally "in" the game.  That’s a hard thing to do.  If it’s a competitive league, the bench players may think they aren’t ever getting in the game, so why pay attention.  In a rec league, where playing time for all is required, many players still get distracted by friends, family, butterflies, clouds…

Too often, when a player isn’t one of the starting 11 in a game, they end up sitting on the bench (or in many cases, the ground) sulking, mad that they aren’t on the field.  Then, when it’s finally their turn to enter the game, they are mentally and physically unprepared.

Instead of sitting on the bench sulking, the players should be watching the game, looking for the strengths and weaknesses of the opposing team as well as for the players they are most likely to be matched up against.  This way, when it’s time to go on the field, the player is ready.

They are absolutely right, but the question is how??  It’s certainly true that with the right perspective a player can learn a lot about the game from the sidelines.  It’s easier to see what the other team is doing and how passing and movement works to create scoring opportunities.  But players are usually thinking about how long it is until they get back into the game and coaches are focused on the action on the field.  Besides, it’s almost impossible to coach the kids on the field and the ones on the bench without shortchanging either side.

Rather than trying to do two things at once, I’ve found it’s better to give the kids something they can do on their own, without intervention from a coach or parent.  Assigning the kids a job, or getting them to play a sideline game focused on the actual game provides a lot of benefits.  There are many things to do, but  my personal favorite is a team building tool I learned from the Positive Coaching Alliance called Positive Charting.  Positive Charting involves tracking the things kids do right during a game, then recounting them afterwards.  Some teams have specific actions they chart, others define   Sometimes it’s tough for a coach to see everything, so having a few extra eyes — and perspectives — is a big plus…

Getting the kids involved in positive charting not only keeps them in the game when they are on the sidelines, but it creates a better team atmosphere.  The kids are literally searching for the good things the other kids are doing — they want their teammates to succeed even when they are on the bench.  I like that better than "When am I getting back in coach?" every 13 seconds…

Give them something constructive to do on the sidelines and you’ll make bench time more productive.