Little Hawks

A new coach once looked at a Blackhawks program, seeing the players perform fimiliar step overs they commented dismissively "well, the moves are generic aren't they?" In a way that is true, there is nothing new under the sun and for Blackhawks or Coerver to claim a movement or special skill is missing the point. The movement is an external manifestation of what is going on in the brain. Once the movement is completed the player then assesses how it went. It was cool! It was fun! I did it! The important thing is not the physical movement, it's what happens in the hearts and minds of the young kids as they recognize that they are in control. If you don't understand that you will simply force feed kids something you want--not what they want. What is important thing is building an early love of learning and enjoyment with the ball. Feelings are important to learning. This is why Little hawks and Blackhawk programs are successful: They prioritize the person as they build the player from the inside out.

This is priority one with our youngest players. Next, we set about designing a curriculum that provides opportunities for growth. Dr. Marianne Torbert of Temple University has identified three interrelated concepts that when applied to play activities enhance and increase the growth and development of children. I teach these concepts to our developmental and Little Hawk coaches to consider in developing and executing training sessions:

1. Expansion --anything that increases the number of potential growth experiences.

Reduce lines, lectures, waiting. Provide many opportunities to work and learn with the ball. For little Hawks this means as much time with the ball as possible.

2. Equalization --equal opportunity for kids of all experience, gender, size and level. Children have the right to participate in activities at their own ability level.

Allow for different levels of challenge to match the different abilities. How do we do this? All our games provide repetitive opportunities without exclusion. If we play knock out for instance, we allow the players to come back into the game with a special skill activity. It means no exclusionary games.

3. Interactive Challenges. Players participating at their personal level contribute to the growth of other players who may be a level above or a level below.

This is very important and rarely understood correctly. . Almost everyone understands part of the getting something out of it by playing "up" players see a faster level, they are nudged to speed up and grow their game. The misunderstanding is that only you cannot learn anything by "playing down." Perhaps the greatest dribbler of all time, Garincha, integral in the world cups of '58 and '62 for Brazil would take his ball to the school yard to practice with children! Of course he was probably keeping the ball in the face of 100 kids making the task complex, but he must have gotten something important from those kids.

Playing at a level below is the most misunderstood and perhaps the most integral piece of player development. Think street. As a youngster you must at some point step on the field for the first time. Someone on that pitch is a level or two (or three!) above you. They accept you on the field. They act as mentor, leader, keeper of the game. If they are playing against you they will beat you off the dribble. They will practice the most difficult tasks against the lowest level players, learning what they can do and taking risks.

Kids who understand this get more practice, create a larger repertoire of movements, recognize the recurring situations and tend to rise to the highest level. Unfortunately the opposite is true. Often kids will drop out of games with younger kids, to them it's lame, it's not their fault, they lack the capacity to create and only enjoy competing, because they have nothing to learn they are bored and the game is not fun. These players often struggle when they get older as ball comfort and creativity becomes more important.

The Achievement of this concept is a critical element for successful youth coaching. All teams have players with a wide range of abilities, and it's the responsibility of the educator to stimulate growth of each player. Providing activities that pose interactive challenges enables each player to participate at their own level while stimulating the growth of other players with whom they interact.

How do we do this? The game of Crab soccer is a good example. As the game progresses, players of lesser ability become the first additional crab while the players of greater ability find the dribbling challenge increase as more and more players become crabs. They get a more complex challenge to match their current ability level.

Build the player from the inside out then provide a healthy, safe and nurturing environment with plenty of opportunities to learn and grow. The hard part is the execution. It's not easy to make this all happen and it's taken me many years striving to get it right. As a wise old Swedish coach once told me about teaching kids:"it's good work, but it's hard work."

To read more on the topic of youth development follow my Blog called "Joy of the People," at joyofthe people.blogspot.com