Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #616: Grassroots Pt. 2 — Jim Harte on how kids engage with organized soccer

Episode Date: August 7, 2025

Jim Harte is one of the people really fighting to grow soccer in America and he’s spent most of his life working with kids, working in the trenches of helping them learn to love the game. He's a six-time high school soccer state champion in Florida as a coach, and was simultaneously an elementary physical education teacher and club soccer coach for decades in the Tampa area. He’s also the founder of the high school champions league, and he’s the perfect bridge between Tom Byer and the third episode of this little series, which is going to be focused on practical tips for rec soccer coaches. (That third part is already available to paying subscribers on the Patron feed.)In a couple weeks we (Belz and at least a couple of the grassroots episodes guests) are going to record a 4th episode where we respond to questions and comments. You can send us a voicemail here: https://www.speakpipe.com/scuffedpodOr, if you don’t want to do that, send us a question here: https://forms.gle/YjdLExcqyyLn5KpK6 Skip the ads! Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon and get all episodes ad-free, plus any bonus episodes. Patrons at $5 a month or more also get access to Clip Notes, a video of key moments on the field we discuss on the show, plus all patrons get access to our private Discord server, live call-in shows, and the full catalog of historic recaps we've made: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedAlso, check out Boots on the Ground, our USWNT-focused spinoff podcast headed up by Tara and Vince. They are cooking over there, you can listen here: https://boots-on-the-ground.simplecast.comAnd check out our MERCH, baby. We have better stuff than you might think: https://www.scuffedhq.com/store Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to the SCuff podcast where we talk about U.S. soccer. Hello, everyone. We're on to part two of this series of interviews on youth soccer. We got to hear from Tom Beyer on Ball Mastery, its benefits for children as people and as soccer players, how important those early years are for developing skill and how central the parent-child relationship is to learning. For the second part, we're still going to be focused on what motivates little kids, but we're going to move into structured play and even practice, get into some pedagogy with a guy who's been working with kids for about as long as I've been alive. And hopefully with this conversation lay the foundation for the final episode, which is going to be a series of practical

tips for rec soccer coaches. Again, all three of these interviews are available to patrons right now. Part three will come out next Thursday on the public feed. If these conversations spark comment or question from you, please leave us a voicemail. I will put a link to where you can do that in the show notes. Now on to today's conversation. Our guest today is one of the people really fighting to grow soccer in America. He was an elementary school PE teacher, a high school soccer coach, and a club academy director in the Tampa area, all kind of at the same time for the better part of 40 years. He's the founder of the high school champions league. He's passionate about making soccer accessible and helping kids learn to love the game. He's the perfect bridge between

Tom Beyer and the third episode of this little series, which is going to be focused on practical tips for rec soccer coaches. We'll get some of those today to Jim Hart. Welcome back to scuffed. Thank you, Adam. Great to be here. So I think we can agree the home is where ball mastery starts and to a large degree happens. And the love between a parent and child is so crucial for learning and skill building. But some of the people listening to this show are coaches who cannot influence the parents of the kids on their rec soccer teams.

Can't reach into that home and change the way the parent's parent don't even really want. to, right? How should coaches approach this matter of the centrality of emotion in skill building? Great question. And I think that the most fundamental thing that coaches should do is not think that they are coaching a team, but that they are coaching individuals. And so the focus point of the individual is the way to approach things. And so like, you know, if an elementary school teacher isn't teaching a team of kids they're teaching individual kids each in their own you know on their own on their own pathway some are reading a little faster some are reading a little slower some are

getting quicker small slower maybe need extra help in math whatever the case may be but they are not they are not approaching the classroom like it's some kind of a team that has to do something as a as a group together so and and a coach at that at this age just has to get it out of their head that they're coaching a team and into their head that they're coaching individuals. And if they look at the process that way, then it's going to lead them to think differently about what they're trying to accomplish as a coach. Because if you're thinking about coaching individuals, then again, getting back to the example of the elementary school teacher. Okay. Before a kid can read, they have to learn the alphabet.

they have to know what the letters are, what the individual letters are, what there are 26 of them. You can kind of go through them. You got to, you know, sometimes they'll take a day or a couple weeks, or not a couple weeks, but a period of time to learn the letter A, to learn the letter B. And then, you know, how to say them properly, how to recognize that letter. And then, you know, and then eventually they do little sight words like it or and or whatever. And this is how the under six soccer coach has to approach their team. They're working with individuals who themselves are working with a ball and working to master the control of this ball. Everything is about the control of the ball for two reasons.

Number one, they can't do anything else without ball control. So from a practical purpose, you can't play soccer with. control of the ball, but also in an emotional way, the love of the game begins with the love of the ball, the love of the touch of the ball, the movement of the ball, and the control over the ball. So what the under six coach is trying to do is sort of encourage a romance between each of those individuals and their ball. That's really their job. it has nothing to do with anything else than their job. The other insight has to do with the idea of abstract versus concrete thinking.

And abstract thought can come at certain points in time in a kid's life. But it generally comes, you know, age six, seven, eight, six, not really. Seven, even, not really. maybe it begins at eight, nine. So what a coach does, an inexperienced coach does, is they rely on words to say things to people, like to give them directions verbally.

But what they have to think about is that the idea of, let's say, if I said to you, Adam, move to the left. well left is an abstract concept if you think about it yeah you know or move up or move down or move back or forward or whatever these are all abstract thoughts that you have to as an abstract thinker you can understand what I'm saying but if you're saying this to a concrete thinker they they can't process that command so so every so you just have to have an awareness that you're dealing with concrete thinkers who need to

concrete direction and and i think one of the mistakes that coaches uh of youngsters make is their their direction is there's too much verbal direction and there's too much abstraction in the verbal direction let's let's go through some of the let's go through some of those abstractions because um there's there are a lot of them not just go not just go left but like organized soccer presents a lot of abstract challenges. Yes. Maybe we should just go through some of them and talk about how kids can't. Sure.

I can't really get their heads around some of these things. Sure. So, you know, left, right, up, down. And the thing about soccer is there's not lines on the field to guide you. You know, like in a football game, there's a five yards, every five yards, there's a line. In a baseball game, there's the diamond and has the base paths and the bases, little, you signal points that help you know where you are. Soccer is just a big, wide open piece of grass, you know, with the goals at the end.

And yes, there's lines on the side. But anybody that's watched a six and under six soccer game knows that those lines are optional as far as those kids are concerned. They are making decisions based on the proximity of a line. They're going right across the line, not even knowing they're doing it. Yeah. And so these abstractions, there's lots of abstractions. And over, you know, if a coach says, move over. Okay, what does that mean?

Think about it. What does that mean? Move up, move back. You're too far here. They're giving hand signals, you know, like in their mind and the coach's mind, they're scooching the person over for, you know, some reason, maybe a defender sliding the defender closer to one side because the coach can sense that the play is going to come down that side, the defender will be better position.

But not only does the kid not know what you're waving about, but they don't understand why, because they don't know, they don't see ahead that a play is going to come down that side. They're not thinking like that. They're not thinking ahead like that. So you should just forget all that. Just don't even think like that. Don't even think that any of that stuff even matters because it's irrelevant. Eventually, and you might say, well, wait a minute, isn't the point of the game to kick the ball in the other team's goal and to keep them from kicking it in our goal.

Yes, that is the point of the game. And you can spend time during practice, you can spend time working on those abstractions. one abstraction sort of at a time. Like I think one thing a coach can do in practice, in addition to fostering a one player, one ball, a whole series of one player, one ball relationships is you can take an abstract concept like one a week maybe and you can attach a word like, you know,

whatever word you're going to say for moving up the field, up, or whatever word. And then you say, up means. this and then you you maybe can do something very concrete like like the like you can have the kids standing on a small field right maybe let's say you're playing you're coaching a 3 v 3 team or a 4 v4 team you have four of them standing there and then a little farther up the field you put four cones right and then you put the kids back farther and then you say up and then you tell the kids when I say the word up,

each of you run to one of those cones until you're standing next to one. Up, they all run to the cone. Great, get back here, let's do that again. Up, boom, they run to the cones. Up, they run to the cones. Up, they run to the cones. Now, take the cones away.

Up, they run up. There's no cones there, but they know the direction are moving. And then you can just say, great, we know what up means. let's get back to working with our balls. And then you can, in the games, you can try working with something like that. Up.

And then you can add back over. You know, you can add in these abstract ideas, maybe one per week. And then attach a single word to them. Yes, that makes sense. The less talking the better, right? Right, right, right. And the words matter.

and if it's a word that means that relates to an action that ultimately, eventually down the road in real soccer is going to mean something, then you can get them moving and where they need to go. Like when I was one, as you're talking, it's making me think about all the times I've used, you know, I think even more abstract language than up or back with little kids. and I'm cringing inside at some of that. But yeah. What about keeping, you know, one thing that I do feel like is important to teach and is possible to teach is, you know, keeping the ball in bounds. Yes. So like every exercise we do, I do in my little U6 practices,

has an out-of-bounds line pretty much. That's good. You've got to stay in bounds. And that is tricky for them at first, because like you said, they blow right over the line. But, you know, three, four practices in, people are starting to, you know, really try to keep the ball in bounds. And, man, that makes all the difference because those restarts, they just kill you six games.

Yes. You spend half, probably at least half of the time of the game is the ball is out of bounds and we're trying to figure out how to get it back in bounds and nobody knows how to do it. Nobody knows whose throw it is or anything. Anyway, just a thought in response to what you were saying. That's great. Well, can I also say this? The presence of a line helps develop skill because so now the ball's rolling and it's coming up to a line and the objective is to not let it go across the line.

Well, now you have to have a skill that allows that to happen. So the presence of a line can be a fantastic skill builder. and simply because it's a line is a very concrete thing and not letting the ball go over the line is a very concrete thing. I mean, people can understand that. Don't let it happen. How do you do that well? And then you as a coach can, you know, begin to apply things like put your foot on the ball and stop it or put your foot around the ball and, you know, chop it, you know, so it doesn't get over the line. And then you can just spend an entire practice rolling, you know, rolling the ball to the line, chop, bring it back, roll the ball.

Now you don't want kids to stand in lines while you're waiting. They're waiting for your turn to roll it toward a line. But the presence, but you can use parents, you know, you can use moms who don't know a thing about soccer. But they love the kids. They smile. They're happy. They laugh. And they can roll a ball toward a line.

And when a kid stops it, they can jump up. up and down and be excited for that kid. And that kid will love that. The kid doesn't need to see a, quote, coach-looking figure, unquote, with a clipboard or whatever, do everything. They don't care about that. My practices, there are almost always more parents in lawn chairs

than there are kids on the field. Yes. So it's a great point. And they do, they love to help. They want to help. And if you don't let them help, okay, then inevitably one or two of them is going to become an armchair quarterback going, what is he doing that for?

Or why does, you know, that? So the more involved that you get them. And, you know, the parent meeting at the beginning of the year is super important in this regard because you have to let them know, this is how I'm coaching the kids. These are my objective. This is why we're doing it. And this is how you're going to help. And this is what I want you guys to do.

I'm not going to make anybody do it. but I want you to do it. The more of us that can do it, the better. And you just begin this whole collegial thing among you as a parent group, because that's what you are too. I mean, what rec coach isn't also a dad, one of the dads, just the one that happens to be the coach. Right. They work on the same boat. All the same.

And you're all just trying to, and you all want the same thing, which is the kids to be happy. And so if you approach it that way in getting the parents involved, They can be involved with a lot more than orange slices once every, you know, 10 weeks or whatever. They can do a lot and they should do a lot. That's sort of related to one of my other questions, which is, yes, the emotional connection between a parent and child. It seems very clear is important in building skills and learning of all kinds, but also soccer. ball mastery. How does a coach, can a coach kind of a, a coach is not the parent of all the players.

Can they, can a coach approximate that type of? Yes, I think they can. How so? Yeah. How can the coach make the emotional connection, you mean? Yeah, yeah. Talk about that a little bit. Yeah, because I think, if you think about a kid, okay, so their foundation,

unless they're from a broken home, is their parents, right? But then they have this extended foundation, which one of which is their teacher. And their teacher becomes a fundamental figure in their life. Well, so can the coach. The coach can be a fundamental figure in their life. A lot of, depending on where the kid lives, sometimes it's a next door neighbor's dad or something. I mean, there's this extended circle of caring adults, uncles, aunts that are a part of their world. So, you know, the parents are the core.

but the coach, and we're lucky because the term coach carries a certain magic to it. We all understand that. You know, you're the coach. Coach said this, coach, this, that, the other, whatever. Well, we can, if we think in our own coaching mind that, okay, coach means I have to know the game, I have to be smart about soccer. I have to have tactics, whatever. If that's how we approach coaching,

we're going in the exact opposite direction from making that emotional connection. Because the kids aren't, that's not emotional stuff. But if you recognize that a coach can be a key figure in a kid's life, just like a teacher and an uncle or an aunt, then that's what you should strive to be.

You're the coach. You're another person. And maybe if a kid rides the bus to school and there's a really cool bus driver, maybe that's one of the people. They have this circle of people around them. You are playing the role of this happy, comfortable person in this child's circle, but you're really there to help them become a better soccer player. But you don't have to act like a soccer coach to do that.

In fact, acting like a soccer coach hurts you from doing that. Because they don't understand that as much as they understand somebody who's just happy and, you know, excited for them and all that stuff. And I'm talking under six now, right? Yeah, yeah. The higher you get, the more they want you to be more like a soccer person. Sure, sure, yeah. So what, so like, so, yeah, being happy, being goofy, I assume is even encouraged, right? I think so.

I've had a lot of success with that, making a fool out of myself out there. No, no, no, I agree with that. And, you know, but the other thing that coaches are sometimes afraid to do is say no. The, the, you know, there's a whole lot that comes into that. Like people are afraid to say no to another child's kid. They say, that's not my job to tell that kid no. That's, I wouldn't want people telling my kid no. Oh, I love what.

I love one other people tell my kids no. Well, yeah. That's, that's, that's, that should. And there should be more people. people that feel that. And I actually think most people feel that way. Most people want that. I think that's usually something in the coaches head that is that they, that's an impediment that they put in their own head. So they, so they bite their tongue. But I think one of the, one of the things kids need is they need boundaries. They need to know when, what they're allowed to do,

what they're not allowed to do. If you ever watch sort of a bratty kid, it's because their parents will never say no, but you can't be that kind of a coach. Now, what what I found in teaching is that early in the year, there has to be this understanding with the kids that you're the boss and they're not and your word is the law. And there's no questioning about this, right? But once that is settled, then you never have to come back to it. Wait, how do you settle that with five years? You just directly, just very directly, no. You know, if somebody is goofing around, you come right up to them, look right in their face.

No, that's it. And, you know, and then if they do it again, no, I said no, all right, go sit with your mom. and then you tell the parents, you know, you tell the parents what's happening. Maybe you even tell the parents ahead of time, this is how I'm going to handle misbehavior. And I'm going to tell them no. And if they don't listen to me, I'm going to send them to you. Because you can't let that take over the practice. But then if you say to the parents, what I ask you to do is please just, you know, tell them to listen to me and send them back.

because I don't want them sitting out for a long period of time. I just want them to know that they can't do what they're doing. But I want them in practice. But they have to test the boundaries and find out where the limitations are. That's human nature. And so you have to play that game. You have to play it out. And very directly, not, again, thinking about this abstract concept,

so often as a way to cover for the fact that we do, don't want to be direct with kids. We'll talk about some flowery idea of being nice and whatever. And what they're hearing in their translated translation is, I'm a weakling, you can walk all over me. That's what they're hearing. No matter what you're saying, that's what they're hearing. And so you say, no.

And then you send them to their parents. And what they're hearing is, don't mess with that person. because they're serious. Okay, that's what they hear. That's what they get. It's a process for them. It's not anything they take emotionally. They're just figuring out what they can get away with.

They're being humans. And so you just have to set the boundaries. And then once you do that, once you set the boundaries, then you can go about being the goofiest person in the world. Or you can be goofy, but be ready. to win that little boundary battle because it's going to come up yeah it's going to come up pretty quickly and by the way if you stop practice and you're talking to a kid and all the other kids are stopped waiting okay then the kid has hijacked the practice and now that's power and the kid

has power and the other kids are powerless because they're they were doing what you asked And it didn't help them. They lost something because of it. Yeah, you can see there being kind of a toxic domino effect from all that. Yes. So what the technique is kind of called make an appointment. So it's like, okay, Adam, I'm coaching. You're the kid.

You're causing trouble. Right. Well, I am now going to make an appointment with you to deal with this trouble. Go over and stand by your mom. I'll get to you later. And so, and don't come back until you can behave, whatever the case may be.

You have to say it. You don't have to say it in a threatening tone of voice or scare them. That's not good. You just let them know that there's a consequence to this. And then the rest of the kids, they may not think of it like abstractly like, oh, this is a good teacher.

They're dealing with misbeye. behavior with good consequences and good experience. I'm really good. I don't think like that. They just learn that if you mess up, you're in trouble. Don't mess up. Yeah. They learn that.

They learn that without having, have it explained to them. But then you make an appointment, like if you were going to take a kid to the doctor's office, you don't just show up and cut in front of everybody and the doctor has to see the kid right then, you make an appointment and you come at the doctor's time and place. when the doctor's the coach has to be an appointment maker you will i will deal with you on my terms in my time we will make an appointment and i'll set the time of the appointment and then we'll talk about this got it i like that now you touched on this a little bit earlier when you know you said the coach the coach should want to talk as little as possible i i feel like i'm always

trying to make myself talk less in practice with limited success. But aside from direct coaching instruction, you know, the coach, from the coach's mouth to the, to the player's ear, which obviously has its limits. We've all seen Charlie Brown where the adults just are, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah. What are the other portals that kids learn through, you know? Because there are other ones, right? Yes, yes. Well, let's go back to the talking part for a second. So I said that, but I think it's actually not saying exactly the right thing. A coach that talks a lot can be an amazing coach of little kids. It's just what you're trying to say. That's the key thing, right? So the coach who's talking a lot because what they're trying to do is give a lot of instruction, like they're trying to give a lot of verbal instruction that the kids have to process and put into effect, that's a type of coaching that

maybe doesn't work as well. But a coach who talks a lot sort of with a running commentary of things that are just funny or that are back to the point that are focused that by the coach talking is how the coach lets the kids know who they are and about their personality. And so, Talking itself in itself isn't a bad thing. And I think some of the best coaches, you know, they talk a lot, but it's what they're trying to accomplish what they're talking. You're showing them that you love them, showing them that you're, you know, being funny,

responding to things that they do and say, like if I was listening to somebody say, don't talk much, then I would be standing there, biting my lip going, but I have to say something here. This requires. So talking a lot isn't the right way to say it. It's just giving soccer instruction verbally, is it? Now, the portals of learning are so many,

but one of the best is just copying the best players. The kids, again, going back to like an elementary school classroom, there's going to be one or two or three really sharp kids, and the others kind of copy them, and they copy their behaviors, they mimic their behaviors. There's always, of course, the outlier kid who's going to be going against things just because that's their nature. But most kids, they want to do well.

They want to please. Like when, you know, we talked about a child who passes because the coach is saying pass. They want to please. And they can recognize that there's two or three people that are pretty good at this. And so they're going to learn by watching them. and copying them. That's one of the best portals of learning, in my opinion, kid to kid. And it isn't kids talking to each other. It's just kids, you know, watching another kid behave. And then sort of reading the environment of what kind of feedback that kid gets,

what that kid accomplishes, you know, and in their mind, you know, I mean, we can all relate to this being a little kid thinking, oh, I want to be like that kid. Oh, I want to do that. Oh, I want to have that. that kind of a bike. Oh, I want to have this. Oh, that kid's got a turtle for a pet. I want one of those. Oh, you know. And so they just kind of copy each other. So encouraging the kids to, not that you're even going to encourage. Yeah, you wouldn't even need to encourage it, right? You don't need to say it. It just happens. But you need to allow for it. And then another one is being, on the lookout for a kid to do something good. And I found this to be a really useful technique to make everybody stop for a second and let one kid show something they did. You know, everybody, just stop for a minute. Watch this. Watch what, you know, this kid did.

And then have the kid do it. And then everybody that are not, don't do it for long, just 10 seconds. But individual recognition, like if I said to you, Adam, back when you were a kid, do you remember a moment of individual recognition? The first thing that will come to you is not, yes, it lasted 37 seconds, and all of these things were said, you won't remember those details. You'll just remember that you were recognized. And that moment will stick with you. So the individual recognition doesn't have to happen for a long. It just has to happen.

And then every other kid who stops for five seconds and watches something in their mind, they're clocking, I want this to happen to me. I want this to happen to me. And so then they begin to pay attention to how it happens. It happens when that kid. And then you as a person who stops the action puts everybody's attention on the one kid, you can then say in that moment, because they're very much paying. attention now that's what I like that's what I want to see more of that's what I want to see you guys do and then boom the minute somebody does it you know not you can't do it all the time but you can do something a little short of that like uh you can without stopping everybody you can

walk past somebody and say I saw that or that was good or I see you another thing uh one of the ways that I was able to use parents, and this is even an under-eight, under-nine competitive. But during skill training, okay, when we would train with music, I told you about that. We would have all the kids up training with music. They would each be in their own five-by-five grid. So you'd have 50 kids, each in their own grid, music blaring. But then one of the things that I would have parents do, you know, not a whole lot of them, but about five or six of them, is just meander around.

throw out the squares and give affirmations. I saw that. Oh, that's good. Oh, that's good. Yeah. They don't have to know anything about soccer. But if they know something about soccer, all the better. And if you have, like, parents that have played soccer,

and most of the parents have played soccer now. And they know a little bit about, you know, not like, you know, two, three generations ago when nobody played soccer. that most of them have at least played youth soccer, you know, a little bit. And so then, so in the musical training, when we would have kids, all of them working in their own grid, all doing the same ball manipulation exercise. So these parents that would meander, maybe they would come across a kid who was really struggling. Okay, they could stop in that square and do one-on-one tutoring. and just suddenly that kid now has somebody paying attention to them and helping them.

And maybe the rest of the group has moved on because the song changed, but that's okay because there's a good little thing happening there between that individual person and that kid who was having trouble on that one thing. And you're going to, with that musical training, you're always going to come back and do the same thing every practice. So whatever they're learning that day, It's not like this is, you better learn it today because it's the only day we're going to do it. No, we're going to do the same thing every day.

Yeah. And if you're struggling with it today, maybe you won't be struggling with it tomorrow. Maybe we give you a little helping hand. But it's again another way to utilize the parents and get them active and involved. Always with, you know, the same loving, smiling, happiness, you know, that you expect, you don't want some jerk out there walking around yelling. kids. Yeah.

Right. Thinking that's a right way to do it. So you got to monitor that. So that's, those are portals. Go ahead. Okay. That's great.

Jim, you explained the musical training, I think, the last time you were on the podcast. Yes. But I think you should explain it again. What was the context for this? What did you do? What was the effect on ball mastery? Yeah. It was about ball mastery.

And it was taking individual, uh, repetitious ball exercises. Like Corver, like Corver stuff, right? Like Corver type stuff, yes. And so what we did was we would take one of those drills and couple it with a song, like some song. It could be any song. And I would just pick songs that were catchy that kids like to listen to. I wasn't always trying to go for modern songs. Was this in this wasn't in PE class?

This was at the club. This was at both PE and. at the club. Okay. At the club, we did it for soccer skills. In PE class, we did it for exercises. Okay. But in the club, we did it for soccer skills.

So then they would learn a ball repetitious exercise. Then I would play music, and they would do it. So I would, you know, play a song, do the exercise. Then add another one, add another exercise, add another song. So now you've got a two-song playlist that shows two exercises to do. Then add another song, add another exercise. And Adam, we had like 25 songs and 20, and all different right foot, left foot, touch, roll, pull back, drag, everything. And then what we would do is play this playlist, right?

So we'd have this speaker that everybody in the whole area could hear would start the playlist and everybody know, okay, that songs means we're doing this. and they would all start doing it. 50 kids. And then maybe you're using Bluetooth off your phone, right? So 30 seconds goes by, boom, you move to the next song. Maybe not even 30. So maybe 25, maybe 20, maybe 45, maybe 45 depends. Then boom, you move to the next song.

Boom, you move to the next song. And then I would always throw in there this one. do you remember the old song by Usher called Yeah? Remember that song? It was real catchy. We would hit that song. And when that one came on, it was free dribbling anywhere you want. You don't have to stay in your little grid.

Whenever that song hit, it was just free, wild, go anywhere, do anything. And that song was always followed by the Jeopardy. song. What did that one mean? Break time. Run over, get water, and I found a 30-second clip of that. So I would play it two times.

So they knew they had one minute to run over, get a drink of water, and get back in their square in one-minute time. I love it. It's fascinating to me because, because, you know, using getting kids to do repetitious ball mastery stuff is in my experience has been really tricky. If they learn to do it in the home, I think that obviously helps.

That's a totally different situation. But if they're not learning to do it in the home and you tell a kid, we're going to do like 20 toe taps, now we're going to do 20 TikToks, now we're going to do 20 dragbacks. They're like, I lose them real fast. So that's why I love this. I love what you're talking about because it's a. And the music, like our toe tap song was, thank God I'm a country boy. That was our toe tap song.

I love that. That's great. Clapping, you know, that starts at the beginning of that song, which mimics the toe tapping. And as soon as they hear it, boom, they start doing it. And then they get tired of it in 20 seconds. They're not going to do that. 30 seconds is a long time. Right?

But then as long as you're switching the music and then as a coach, during this, you are a total facilitator. You're not going to be doing any instruction during the playing of this music. The time you're doing the instruction is when you're teaching each new individual thing, right? But you're only adding about one of those per practice. You're building a playlist over time. But then this is where the value of having the people walk around does give feedback that as a coach, you would want to give.

Like you would see, oh, that kid needs help right there. But I've got to switch this music in 15 seconds. I can't walk over there and help them. But somebody else can.

And you're just the DJ at the roller rink, you know, playing the next song, you know, keeping the whole vibe going. Right. And then they always know

to listen for the usher song because then suddenly they can break out of this and just go do anything anywhere. and then they know to listen for the Jeopardy music because they can get water. And then it's like starting the cycle over again. And they're willing to go for another six or seven songs. And I would let about six or seven go by before I hit the Usher music.

And I wouldn't do the Usher, like the vocal version. I found an instrumental version of that catchy music. And it's perfect for just dribbling, dropping a shoulder, cutting, whatever, you know, it's great. It's great for that. So if we can agree that a kid who hasn't mastered the ball is going to have a difficult time enjoying soccer, what is it specifically that makes soccer enjoyable for a little kid? Outside of, you know, outside of the relationship with the adults that are involved in the

relationships with each other? I think it's, I think decisions are a big part of it. And if you think about baseball, right? So there's not that many decisions in baseball. It's your turn to go when we tell you to go up to bat. You stand in this one place and wait for the ball to come to you. Your decision, your main decision is whether to swing to bat or not. That's it.

There's nothing else. And then if you make contact, you run always to the same place, first base. You don't get to run anywhere. You just have to run that one place. And, you know, and, you know. What a totalitarian sport. Yeah, and you think about it. You know, it's, it's ironic because it's such an American sport, but it's such a totalitarian.

And, of course, Americans tend to think the communist sports soccer, which is actually the opposite of that. It's a total free market of ideas. You know, you get to do anything, go anywhere. And I liken it, Adam, too, a kid. playing a video game, imagine if there was somebody telling them what buttons to push and when, they wouldn't want to play. But the freedom to push the buttons, you know, have your figure, you know, run into the wall or whatever, and then you just start over again.

You just keep rolling. Mario can go forwards. He can go backwards. He can go up through the wall. And if you miss, if you mess up, if you mess up, you just. That's okay. Nobody cares. No kid cares about that. They just try to get better. And so I think the fun of the game of soccer is in decisions, but the skill makes decisions easier because you can't make decisions unless you're looking up and you can't look up unless you feel comfortable with the ball. So the ball is a threat.

when you don't have any skill. The ball's a threat. So what do you do with a threat? You keep your eye on the threat. You just watch it, you know, because it could hurt you. Not physically, but that ball could make you look silly. So you're watching it the whole time. So you're not watching the game.

You're watching the ball. And when you're watching the ball, you can't watch the game. Therefore, you can't make decisions that influence the game because you don't even know what's happening. You're just busy watching the ball. But the more that you are. able to feel comfortable with the ball. The ball is not a threat.

Then you can look around and see what's going on. And then you can begin the process of making decisions that influence a game. And I think that that's where the most fun of soccer is. Because of the, you know, we talked about the abstract nature of few lines on the field. But that then becomes a freeing thing, because there are so few lines on the field.

You can go anywhere. There's a half line. There's a sideline. There's an end line. But that's the rest of it. It's just kind of up to you. You go wherever you want. You'll figure out over time that was a dumb place to go or that was a smart place to go.

That's okay. You know? Yeah. I think this point about you can't really enjoy the decision-making part of soccer until you can take your eyes out of the ball. You can take your eyes off the ball until you can control it and feel comfortable with it. is so, so crucial because so many coaches of like little kids will try to, and I did this, I did this my first couple seasons too, we'll try to get the kids to play real soccer, you know,

like you move off the ball, you, you know, you hit this, hit the open player over there, spread out. And if you try to do that before the kids can actually control the ball, it's totally counterproductive. And I guess it's hard to understand that, I feel like, for even people who've played a lot of soccer in their life. Sure, it is. Yeah. But like if you think of it like this, you said, hit the open player spread out. So open, what is open? Like you and I can understand what that means. Like that flashes a picture in our mind of a player who's open, a defender's a little off of them. But that's an abstract concept. So you're saying hit the open player. I don't even know what. what that means. Right. Spread out. What are they, what are we like buttering toast?

Exactly. Or spread where? What do I? I can't spread myself. When am I? When am I? Coach. Or when am I far enough away that it's now now entered the realm of spread?

You know, am I to take a couple more steps? Do I go over my mom? Where am I supposed to be? Whereas, you know, so I think you just don't even try to say any of that stuff. And you don't even worry because all of that, if you think about it, all of that stuff is a person who is worried about the objective of scoring one more goal than the other team. And if that becomes the objective of the game, then we're going to apply all of these instructions that are going to help that objective come to reality. Well, forget that objective. Just not completely forget it, but the kids aren't going to.

they've got to, it's not like they're just blobs. They get that there's a game going on that they're supposed to try to kick it in the other goal, for the most part. They're not trying to kick it in their own net. When that does happen, it's an accident. It's not something they're trying to do. They get generally that the game is directional, you know, and so, you know, just, just work toward the objective of freeing their eyes from the ball. and have the confidence that there will come a day when this is going to pay off for them.

Like the kids on this team that I train with music on some of them, they're all in the high school champions league now. They're all doing great for their high school teams. They're loving it. They're loving life. But that's where the payoff has to come. But the immediate payoff, the immediate payoff, is in the happiness that the kids come to practice with.

and that's where I think music helps a lot. It's not the only way to do it. A coach who has this great, goofy way with them and can get them to smile, that can be part of it. I like to try to do both those things. And also, you know, a coach who has the kids listening because they've said no at the beginning. That thing we talked about earlier on of saying no, if it's done effectively, it only

has to be done for a short period of time. and then occasionally reminders. But if you have the techniques down, if you're not afraid to have them to go sit by their mom, and if it's not done out of spite or you're so frustrated, get off and go sit by your parents. The tone of voice is telling them something. You know, not, you know, you can't let that stuff be a part of it.

But if you do all that, effectively at the beginning, then you won't have those problems. And we used to have a program at my school for recess supervision. We called it the clipboard and the list. And basically what that meant was this. We told the kids, don't mess up or you're going to be on the clipboard. You don't want to be on the clipboard. And that was it.

Don't mess up. But if you do something that you're not expected to do, but you go above and beyond what was expected of you, you might get on the list or you might not but so the goal of a lot of behavior modification techniques is to get back up to zero like don't do this but there's not the balancing thing of but you could do this extra thing you know and uh so you know thinking about that with the kids you know a couple times i've used like i've invested in little patches uh tiny little patches they're real cheap that you can some one one uh some of them have numbers on them some of them

are just like a lightning bolt or this or that but they're little trinkets that you can invest in and then you can give out for certain behaviors that works it it i didn't do it a lot but when i did it it was useful. So like if you have something you're trying to get the kids to do and a lightning bolt is what gets it or a star or something, you know, then when a kid does it, you can give them a lightning bolt. Well, if the kid's mom puts a lightning bolt

on their little backpack, every other kid's gonna wanna lightening bolt on their backpack and gonna figure out how they got that lighting bolt. So they can all do it and I can all get that lighting bolt and then they can all have the star and the little soccer ball and the little things that you get. Those things might be useful for certain people to use as techniques.

Kids love stuff like that. Yeah, I do like the trinkets idea. I've never really done it. You know, just to respond to something you said earlier, even if your objective was to win the game, the use as a coach was, even if your primary objective is we're going to win all our U6 games this season. And it still would be a bad idea to tell everybody to spread out and not focus on ball mastery.

Because, I mean, I've seen this so like over and over, I'm sure you have. If you have a bunch of kids who want the ball and are comfortable with the ball, then they fight for the ball. And they go get the ball. And they're engaged and they're active out there as opposed to picking daisies or not really knowing what's going on. So I feel like it shouldn't be the objective. But even if it were, you still wouldn't want to try to like make them play adult soccer, you know? Yes. No, and you can't.

And again, there's another thing. It, of course, is the objective. And when I say it shouldn't be the objective. What I guess I mean to say is it shouldn't be what drives the coach's verbal feedback. The objective is, of course, to where. in the game is to kick in one more goal than the other team. You know, you're not trying to teach the kids to kick it in your own net. You're trying to teach them to kick it in the other teams net for a reason because that's

how you win. And so it's like tricky to say things like don't talk too much because actually that could be misconstrued. And it's tricky to say things like don't worry about winning because, of course, we are wanting to win. We are trying to win. The way to say it is don't make. winning drive all of your feedback.

Because then you're going to miss the teaching opportunities. You're going to miss the bonding opportunities. You're going to miss the little short steps of building into a player that, you know, you're going to miss the opportunity to connect with them as a person between you and them. Because they're going to, if all of your feedback is down to winning, winning and losing, then they're going to ultimately somebody's going to, you're going to lose some games, and some kids are going to be the reason for it. And those things are never forgotten by kids.

I mean, you're just going to damage your relationship with them. So you're trying to win. But the ironic thing is the best way for them to win is what you said, get them all good enough to want to go fight for the ball, and then they will win because they'll win, they'll get the ball more often than the other team. They'll kick it in any other goal more. more often than the other team, you'll end up winning more games because you've taken this one player,

one ball approach. I mean, I feel like we could talk for a long time, keep going. But any other sort of general principles for rec coaches? I mean, that's kind of what I'm focused on, people volunteering to help at their local rec. Yes. No, I mean, we've covered so much. Yeah. Yeah.

I don't know that there's an outlying hanging thing. out there. Just, you know, don't worry about, you know, you're trying to win, but you might get dealt a horrible hand and you might not be able to. Okay, you know, but, but, but I bet any person that becomes a good soccer player, probably every single team they played on was not undefeated. They probably had some rough moments in there, if not rough seasons. It's not going to derail a kid if you've taken the time to establish that relationship between them and the ball and the game. The game, the ball comes first. The fact that before there's ever a goal on the field or lines or anything, it's them at a ball that they're trying to control inside their house.

They're just trying to make the ball do what they want. and then later it becomes them and the pageantry of the game when everybody jumps up and down because a goal is scored and all of that stuff and that becomes intoxicating for kids. And so the relationship between them don't do things to damage that process. That's what I would say. Yeah. Okay. Before we go, Jim, can you just give us an update on the Champions League, the High School Champions League? Oh, yes.

Thank you for asking. Yes, it's going great. So right now, as you know, we started in Tampa in 2018. Polk County, Florida, which is adjacent to Tampa Bay, started in 2019. In 2024, South Florida, in other words, Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, they've had their first Champions League already, boys only, they haven't started the girls yet. In 2024, also St. Louis started boys and girls. St. Louis's second Champions League is about to start this coming fall.

The St. Louis Champions League, fabulously successful. The final brought back memories of the old days of the 70s, St. Louis soccer people standing around the side. The final was... Were you there for it? 500 person stands, 1,500 people, some say 2,000, attended the game. So it was a standing room only by a mile. Got lots of good media coverage to Tampa Bay Rowdies, our big backers of ours. Right now, the Tampa Bay Rowdies and Tampa Bay Sun, our women's professional team in the USL,

are working together to listen to this, Adam, to co-promote the high school champions league in the Tampa Bay Area. And the way we're headed now is each year we're going to have the boys and girls final either at Alang Stadium, where the Rowdies play, and the following year it's going to be at Riverfront Stadium where the Sun plays. And so they're going to alternate hosting the final, but the two teams are going to co-promote the game together in their social media channels and in their networking. So I think this provides an amazing opportunity, a template for metro areas around the country to have a way for a women's and men's professional team. to work together, getting behind this one simple idea of promote the Champions League and host the final in your stadium. I think what those guys are doing at the Rowdies and Sun are going to be replicated as time goes on. Right now we're looking at these metro areas we're talking with

coaches actively in. And I would say by 26, 27, some of these areas will be. having a Champions League. So Pittsburgh is far along the road. Dallas, we've had a meeting with new USL expansion franchise in Dallas, which wants to make the Champions League part of their thing that they do. Kansas City. We're talking also in Memphis, Columbus. These are the areas that are the closest are the farthest along. We've also had conversations with people. Oh, Charlotte is another one. Charlotte's coming strong.

There's a guy named Kevin Sims out that way, who is past president of United Soccer Coaches, and he's retired now, but he's still helping with the FC Charlotte team with their Special Olympics initiative, and he also is a volunteer high school soccer coach. And he loves this idea and he's getting all of those folks behind it. Where else? Omaha, Detroit, Des Moines, Denver is another one coming.

These are all metro areas. And the beauty of it is there's no, as you know, Perry Vanderbeck is our national ambassador. And we have sort of a working leadership group of about six people. and we host a Zoom meeting once every two months, which I know you know about. You've been on it before. But that's it. We don't own this thing.

We don't make money off it. Everybody's a volunteer. Anybody can do it. The five principles of our movement are, number one, there's no entry fee to get in the Champions League. If you earn your way in, you get to play for free. There's no money making. It's the district champions, basically, plus a couple of that much.

And it's whatever each metro area sets. up as their as their barrier to entry. The local coaches have to decide that. Okay. Okay. So free entry, merit-based entry. So this is what

we're just talking about. The local coaches have to decide what are the, what is the bar teams have to get over to get in the Champions League? They have to figure it out and they have to make sure everybody knows what it is. And then just let me just jump in before you give the third principle. Just so people understand, it's like the real Champions League in that it's a midweek,

nighttime fixture, and it's got a group stage format just like the Champions League and then the knockout round format just like the Champions League, right? Yes, exactly. And all of these games are regular season games. They're part of the team's regular season schedule. So we figure out who's in the Champions League a year ahead of time. Like just at the end of the season is when the Champions League is pitch. so that the following season, when teams make their schedule,

they already know who their group opponents are, and they make them part of their regular season schedule. What this does is it keeps, you know, you from having to rent a field somewhere, and everybody goes to the same place on one weekend or something like that, like youth soccer tournaments. It's not like that. Champions League games are regular season games

on the regular season schedule. The only time that they come together is for the semifinal and the final. But the teams that get through their group. And it also takes place early in the season or midway through the season so as not to threaten the state tournament. So the Champions League is not an attempt to supersede the state tournament. And the third principle is it's a metro-based competition. So it is not a statewide competition.

And in some places, the metro area goes across the state line. Like in Kansas City, for example. The Kansas City Metro involves Kansas and Missouri. And in Memphis, there's Mississippi and Arkansas and Tennessee right there in the corner of Memphis there. So it is metro-based. So to review the principles, free to play, merit-based, metro-based. The fourth principle is coach collaboration. So the coaches have to get together and play nice with each other and make this work, even rivals.

And if they can't do that, they probably won't be able to do the Champions League. And then the fifth one is student athlete empowerment. And again, Adam, I know this is a big thing for you. It is for me too. And I think of those kids in Dalton when I think of this. What about kids who can't afford expensive clubs? You know, they should have a platform. So the Champions League can give them a platform.

You know, I'd love to see a Chattanooga. Oh, Chattanooga is another one. We've been talking with the guy that you put me in touch with Chris Cushenberry there at Macaulay. And I think there'll be a Champions League in the Chattanooga metro area. Fantastic. Before too long, maybe we can do a scuffed live show from there. Let's do it.

Let's do it. Cush is the guy. Cush is the guy to help us get it done. He's fantastic. He's amazing. So that's the update on the Champions League. I appreciate that, man. It sounds- Oh, Select Sport America is a national ball sponsor now. Okay.

All right. Hey, that's really exciting about all the cities. contemplating it or moving towards adopting something like that. We better head out. Thanks to you, Adam, and that last time I was unscuffed with you, a lot of people reached out after that show to find out about the Champions League. So thank you for that. Yeah, thank you.

My pleasure. And thanks for this today. What a treasury of good ideas you are. And thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.