February 25, 2004

US Youth Soccer Adidas Workshop & Coaches Convention
February 19-21 2004
Boston, Massachusetts

Bruce C. Cuppett
Director of Development
UYSA

Departed Salt Lake City on Wednesday 18 February 2004 at 8:30 AM and traveled back to Boston with part of the Utah contingent. Travel to Boston went with out problems, arrived on time; everyone had their luggage and took the shuttle to the Sheraton Boston Hotel.

Started out Thursday morning with a meeting with Gale Heubach who is the US Youth Soccer Events Manager and is the main person from the National staff prior to and during the workshops, we spent a few minutes talking about the 2005 Adidas National workshop in February 2005; that Utah Youth Soccer will be hosting. Gale introduced me to Skip Gorman who is the Vice-President for Massachusetts Youth Soccer and is the point person for the 2004 workshops.

Skip and I spent some time talking about the National Staff involvement and where the majority of Massachusetts volunteers were needed to run the program under the direction of himself and Gale. Received some excellent advice with a promise to e-mail the Massachusetts checklist and the pro's and con's of the workshop.

Spent the afternoon in the Region IV breakout and covered the briefing for the Region IV workshops that will be hosted by UYSA during October 15-17 2004. Scott Harward and staff did an excellent job of putting together the packages that were given to the Region IV State Presidents and Region IV Staff. After the Region IV meeting was adjourned I spent time off line with Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Washington, Oregon and a few other states going over the Director Cup. We want to offer Division 1 teams that do not win State Cup and had the goal to advance to Regionals the ability to continue to play in to the month of June and July for another title. Play dates would be ether June 5/6 or June 11/12. Location could be Boise, ID, Grand Junction, CO or Las Vegas, NV. Play three to four games and the winner would advance to the Region IV finals in Las Vegas on the 4th of July weekend. Winners from Las Vegas would advance to the National Finals. Play the weekend of July 31st against the other three Regions. Went to dinner that night with the Idaho Youth Soccer folks, talked about the new soccer complex that was build by Capitol Youth Soccer, Far West Regionals hosted by Idaho in 2006 and the Directors Cup. Good evening, nice dinner and fun for all.

Friday 20 February 2004 started off the morning with Sam Snow USYSA and his session was on Model soccer clubs. The session addressed the development of youth soccer clubs and what does the future hold for soccer clubs in America. Some of the key points that were brought out are why do we measure our success on win - loss records - why not on player development. Second point was soccer coaches train for a match - players play the match - not the coaches or parents. The last point was that we are asking our players to compete before they know how to play.

Next session was on possession games by Tom Goodman. Great session on the awesome responsibilities that our youth coaches have in development of our younger players for today game. Not only is this true in the sport of soccer, but even more important in life.

The afternoon sessions were U10/U12 Goalkeeping with Peter Mellor and Defending games with Sam Snow. The goal keeping session was on footwork and handling of the ball, and how this should be developed between the ages of 10 -12. In the Defending games session he showed how the games will aid players in learning skills, tactics and mentality needed to play the game when the other team has the ball.

The evening was finished with the Adidas Coach of the Year Dinner. Nice setting, great keynote speaker, and a perfect way to finish a long but enjoyable day.

Saturday 21 February, had two sessions in the morning U6 3v3 Model with Dr. Tom Fleck's and Functional training of fullbacks by Bobby Howe. Dr Tom Fleck session was missing the magic that Tom always presents. You can tell he has been sick and his world is upside down. He handles the kids ok, but no real input to the coaches and Dr. Ron Quinn had to come to the rescue a few times. Bobby Howe's session was old school, stopped play way to many times, and did not allow the players to get into a rhythm. Space was too small for what needed to be trained. Walked away from both sessions with a lot of disappointment over what should have been some great training at the National workshop.

Afternoon sessions where Leadership in coaching by Dr. Tom Turner and U12 8v8 Model by Gordon Miller. Tom Turner's session focused on the leadership characteristics and styles necessary to fulfill the responsibilities of a youth coach. Good session, to bad more did not attend this one and wished a few from the state that need this class could have attended. Gordon Miller's session on U12 8v8 was in trouble from the start to the finish of the session. The team that was given to Gordon did not have the skills necessary to make the session work, but Gordon stayed with the girls and slowly they started to show what Gordon was after. It is so important that the right level of skill is in a team and there for a coach to bring out the points during a coaches training session.

That finished off the workshops for the year and the Utah staff held a meeting at 4 PM chaired by Paul Burke that afternoon to recap what was seen by all.

The evening was finished off with a great diner by Score and the Adidas Party. Most of us just stayed at the Score dinner. Trip back to Salt lake was a little different when in Chicago they backed our plane away from the gate and ran into a another plane. The Boston workshop was a little different then in the past. Now that US Youth Soccer has head Coach in Tom Goodman and a great assistant in Sam Snow we are starting to see a change in the level of Topics on the coaching side. This is a good change to take the direction back toward our youth and what it takes to develop them. Also a high effort is being directed towards Parent Education which is the focus of parent role in player development.

I also feel this was a great start for our focus and efforts to host the Regional IV workshop in October 2004 and the National Adidas workshop in February 2005. We will need a lot of volunteers to insure that we show the soccer world that Utah will have the best workshops in the coming future.