Making sense of the showcase scene
By Emily Wyffels
It seemed a short time since I had stood on the opposite side of the touchline from where I now was sitting. Five years earlier as a youth club soccer player, I waited for the starting whistle at a soccer recruiting showcase, feeling enormous pressure to perform for the hundreds of coaches watching me. Now, one Division I soccer career later, in my first season as an assistant coach at Cornell University, I would evaluate hundreds of players who surely felt the same way I had.
Coaching kept me in the game I loved so much, a game that had taught me a lot about myself, and I appreciated the opportunity to give back to an athletic program and university that had given so much to me. Still, I pondered the U-16 girls across the touchline, many of whose competitive careers would end with this recruiting process. I was troubled.
There was truth in the lament that my boss (formerly my college coach) shared -- that there would be "no soccer happening" at these recruiting events. By this, she meant that games would deteriorate into individual displays by players abandoning tactical awareness to show off their size, speed and strength.
And though the showcases serve to gather the country's top talent, parents hawk the sidelines with armfuls of player profiles and professionally made highlight DVD's.
Halves are often cut to 30 or 35 minutes so that more games can be fit into a tournament. Even ODP (Olympic Development Program) precludes players who lack the financial means to advance through the regional and national pools. It seemed "the beautiful game" had turned into a player promotion extravaganza.
I had questions:
* What is this youth soccer culture preparing players for?
* Is anyone actually enjoying this?
* As a recruiter, how would I discern who could bring more than just skill to my team?
Despite my concerns, I managed as best I could at that showcase, and a few months ago, I found the answers to my rhetorical questions as a new employee of Positive Coaching Alliance. What I had sought as a recruiter, I realized, were Triple-Impact Competitors. PCA's Triple-Impact model espouses:
* Improving oneself, focusing on mastery of the sport
* Improving one's teammates, seizing opportunities to encourage and support them, using the principle of filling "Emotional Tanks."
* Improving the sport as a whole, competing by a code of Honoring the Game.
"Triple-Impact Competitors" perfectly describes many of my former teammates and many of the players I coached. My most devoted teammates and players had adopted these principles and practiced them since their early youth soccer days. They needed little self-promotion because their value -- and values -- were obvious.
Our program was not immune to today's individualistic youth sports culture. Some players were more concerned with comparing their skill levels to their teammates' than with striving to reach their own potential. Some focused on individual accomplishment rather than team success.
Some had unfounded, unrealistic expectations and refused to accept their team roles. Unfortunately, these few individuals spent the majority of their time wanting to be the best instead of wanting to do their best.
Through my experience as a youth player, a college recruit, a recruiter and coach, and now in my role at PCA, I have come to realize that the challenge facing players, parents and coaches lost in the noise of promotional youth soccer is: Can you value, reward and cultivate Triple-Impact Competitors throughout their youth soccer experience?
(Emily Wyffels, Communications Associate for Positive Coaching Alliance (www.positivecoach.org), played and coached at Cornell University.)