Webinars

Coaching · Webinars

Efficient Ways Of ‘Leading A Club’: Tim Schulz & Other Experts Debate

Chris P., Rush Soccer’s Developmental Director, hosted a fantastic Q&A with our club’s President and CEO Tim Schulz plus a Panel of experts on Leadership, including Rush Soccer’s Executive Director Nik Penn and Wisconsin Rush Technical Director Ben John.

There are thousands of books, webinars, stories, and articles that you can read about Leadership, and they are all valid and valuable, but a part of us wanted to be (just like we try to be on the field) as specific as possible to the environment that we observe every day. That’s why we wanted to get together some of the brightest minds on our network and ask them what they have learned about leading soccer organizations over the years and from a million battles. Ben John, Nik Penn, and Tim Schulz definitely fit in this mold.

REWATCH THE WEBINAR BELOW!

You could tell how their leaderships approach were not necessarily the same, but definitely complementary.

We found in Tim a leader that would highlight a selfless pursuit of a mission as the cornerstone of his leadership and role.

“I don’t want people to follow me and I wouldn’t want to follow someone, because when he’s gone or quits there’s nothing left. Follow the mission, follow the vision, and work and lead for it, selflessly, for something that is bigger than yourself. When you do so, people follow” – Tim Schulz

Ben John expressed similar approach to lead, complemented with the courage make tough decisions and understanding that you might not be always liked by everybody for them.

Nik Penn’s leadership cornerstone didn’t oppose any of the aforementioned comments, but put an emphasis on serving others. Lead to serve.

This and much more in this very interesting webinar. Don’t miss it.

January 21, 2021

Webinars

Webinar – Jonty Skinner: Leading Through A Holistic Approach

We kicked-off our Monthly Educational Campaign on Leadership with a new episode of our Webinar Series. Chris P., Rush Soccer’s Developmental Director, discussed Leading The Person with our guest, Jonty Skinner, four-decade experienced coach, having worked as USA Swimming’s Director of National Team Technical Support, and International Swimming Hall Of Fame member.

Leading The Person:

“You have to understand that things that you’ve learned from playing the game and training to get better, are things that will carry you through all your life. So, I think is really important for coaches to find ways of taking teaching moments in the training sessions, and helping kids understand that what they are doing on the pitch, helps them become a better person.”

One of the coaching aspects that Jonty highlights is the necessity of having a holistic approach:

“If you can improve the holistic side of your athletes on the field, they are going to perform better on the tactical and technical level. It doesn’t matter what sport you are in, if you focus a lot more on the holistic side, I think everyone gets better.” – Jonty Skinner.

What’s fundamental on a holistic coaching approach?

“You must have conversations with the athlete that have nothing to do with the sport. You have to know the athlete; you begin to understand him or her. Getting to know the athlete and letting the athlete know you as a human being, sets the groundwork to this relationship. You have to find time to interact with your athletes on a personal, one-on-one level. If you don’t create that foundation, everything that comes beyond isn’t as valuable for both of you.”

Missed it? Don’t worry, we recorded it!

January 4, 2021

Coaching · Webinars

Juan González Mendia On Performance & Athlete Centered Environments

Moving forward on our Monthly Campaign, Managing The Performance Environment, Coach & Player Development Director Pablo Toledo interviewed our guest Juan González Mendia from Sudamérica Coaching to discuss Performance and Athlete Centered Environments on an enriching new episode of our Webinar Series.

Juan, a world recognized professional in the field, who currently coaches at the Development Player Pathway at Northampton Saints, is a Divisional Coach for the Scotland Qualified Programme, and works as a Coach Developer for the RFU and is a World Rugby Mentor, walked us through his journey and left some interesting concepts.

Below, some Highlights from this amazing Webinar:

About contrasting a participant centered environment to a coach/teacher centered environment:

“Well, I would say that most of the environments in sports in the last 20 years have been related to education, and in the last 50 or 60 years (if not more) education has been related to somebody on a step, literally, telling the participants what they need to learn. If they were lucky, they would also hear ‘why’ they need to learn it. This is a real story that serves as an example. I started teaching at a school years ago, in 2008, and the classroom had a step, so in my first week I turned that step into a stage. I moved my desk to the back of the room, and we turned the step into a stage in which the student would perform, express himself/herself, or present”.

About evaluating the environment and the importance of making mistakes:

“I read once this definition of failure that I really liked: FAIL = First Attempt In Learning. If your practice looks perfect, and the players are not making mistakes, I would encourage you to reassess and possibly change that practice. If they are not making mistakes, I’m not sure they are developing”.

About good practices for clubs to create better environments:

“One of them would be to mix up the coaches. You wouldn’t send your children to a school in which they’re going to have the same teacher for 12 years, so why do we accept it in sports?”.

“Another would relate to playing time and the relative age effect. Imagine your child coming back from school and saying ‘Mom, today I was only allowed in Geography class for the last 10 minutes’. You wouldn’t accept it, you would be knocking on somebody’s door for an explanation. Yet again, why do we allow it in sports? We see often the early developers play almost the entire game and when we are winning 4-0 we play the others. Just because you were born earlier in the year it shouldn’t give you an automatic passport to play more minutes. Then, have a playing time policy. You can say ‘everybody plays equal time’. Why? Because we want to develop everybody’.

Juan also shared during his presentation some Ted Talks & Videos to help us understand a bit more how to develop these environments:

Takaharu Tezuka: The Best Kindergarten You’ve Ever Seen.
Simon Sinek: How Great Leaders Inspire Action.
Michael Moore: Why Finland Has The Best Education.

Missed the Webinar? Don’t worry, we recorded it!

CLICK BELOW OR VISIT OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL TO REWATCH!

December 17, 2020

Coaching · Webinars

Webinar Series: Richard Shorter On Managing The Performance Environment

We started December’s educational campaign on Managing the Performance Environment with an amazing new episode of our Webinar Series.

Chris P., Rush Soccer’s Developmental Director, interviewed our guest Richard Shorter of Non-Perfect Dad & author of ‘Questions For The Car Ride Home’. Richard shared with us his journey and his insights on how we can unite all stakeholders in youth sports.

“If we are going to get genuine unity, we need to create a safe space where everybody feels like we have an identity, and in which we are willing to explore the new together.” – Richard Shorter.

Webinar attendees appreciated Richard’s advices and expertise. “This was a fantastic Webinar. I absolutely loved it. I really connected with Richard with what he believes in and his passion for connecting parents, players, and coaches together“, stated Christy Kononiuk, Girls Director of Coaching at Southwest Missouri Rush.

A fantastic and enriching presentation, both for coaches and families. Click on the video to re-watch it!

December 9, 2020

Webinars

Kris Van Der Haegen & Pete Sturgess on What, Why and How To Teach U6-U8 Groups

Chris P., Rush Soccer’s Developmental Director, was joined by our stellar guests on a brand new Webinar to discuss the coaching path at this age and stage of a child’s development.

As part of November’s Educational Campaign, Coaching The Micro Division (U6-U8), Rush’s Webinar Series had an amazing new episode with two stellar guests.

Kris Van Der Haegen, Director of Coaching Education at the Royal Belgian FA, and Pete Sturgess, FA Foundation Phase leader & Advanced Youth Award’s designer, joined Chris P., Rush’s Developmental Director, to discuss the ways and content to teach at this age.

Our guests walked us through the priorities that coaches should have with U6-U8 kids -“sensitivity and personality are massive, as well as being very cognizant with what we have in front of us”- and self reflection concepts arised. Just to mention a few:

How important is the emotional connection at this stage of a child’s development?
When coaching the Micro Division, do we look at soccer through the 5 year-old eyes or with the adult eyes?
If the game is the teacher at this level, which is the coaches’ role?

A true master class given by two experts that left us many and very interesting reflections to take into account. Don’t miss the Webinar!

November 16, 2020

Coaching · Webinars

Using External Cues To Improve Your Coaching

Aubrey Watts, Coaching Education Coordinator at the United States Olympic Committee, joined Chris P., Rush’s Developmental Director, on an amazing Webinar in which she explained how to help our players improve by this method.

As we move forward on our Monthly Campaign, Coaching The Micro Division U6-U8, we focus on our webinar with Aubrey Watts, who works in the Coaching Education Department of the United States Olympic Committee, in which she explains viewers ideas on how to help players improve quicker by using cues.

In this amazing presentation, Aubrey starts by walking us through the difference between Performance & Learning, understanding the first as a temporary and measurable change in a skill, while the second relates to relatively permanent changes.

From there, the presenter deepens the analysis towards responding to the following questions:

What’s the impact and relationship between the level of expertise of an athlete and his/hers attentional focus?
How does that affect the process of cueing?
Why is it that research suggests that external cueing is more effective than internal cueing to improve performance?
How can external cueing protect the expert athlete from ‘mentally choking’?
What are the key components of an effective cue (what the author calls ‘the anatomy of a good cue’)?

Through this process, we invite you to not only reflect of the questions posted above but also practice and adapt to the Micro Division U6-U8 context.

How would you adapt the lessons learned about cueing towards coaching a U6-U8? Give us practical, on the field examples.

CLICK HERE TO FILL UP THE QUIZ!

Haven’t seen the Webinar yet? Want to Rewatch it? Enjoy!

November 13, 2020

Coaching · Webinars

Player Evaluation With Marieke Laurens – USSF Talent ID Manager

Evaluating players and (trying at least) to identify talent is an incredibly difficult task we have as coaches, as well as it is a fascinating one.

Along the course of October 2020, we got together with some of the industry’s top specialists in the subject to try to learn, debate, and challenge concepts related to this topic.

One of the highlights of this month happened when Megan McCormick, Rush Soccer’s Coach Education Consultant, offered a three meetings course on the topic and was joined by Marieke Laurens, U.S. Soccer Talent ID Manager.

Find below the three day course and some of the most important learnings we extracted from it.

Start by thinking of the destination.

Megan McCormick, Rush’s Coach Development Consultant formulated this question during the first meeting of the workshop. We evaluate players based on what we want them to be able to do, so how do we determine we they need to be able to perform? The answer relies in projecting the future game of soccer. Based on how we induce it will be, we’ll be able to derive the skills needed to perform at it. Marieke Laurens, seconded this approach during her presentation:

“If we are evaluating a player’s key qualities and potential, that player won’t be part of the current game’s environment but will be part of the future game’s environment. We are not evaluating if they would be successful today, we are evaluating if they would be successful in the future. What is the game going to be like in ten years? Which skills are the players going to need?”

“You must use your resources to project and predict the future game– Megan added – and there are many nowadays. Video is a very big one. Technical reports is another. What are the trends we are seeing in the game?”

WANT TO LEARN MORE? REVIEW OTHER EVENTS FROM THE PLAYER EVALUATION EDUCATIONAL CAMPAIGN:

Chris P., Rush’s Developmental Director, was joined by Tim Bradbury, an extensively experienced coach instructor from the US Soccer Federation, on a very enriching interview, available on The Rush Podcast Network, about Evidence Based Evaluations, Individual Development Plans & Feedback Delivering. LISTEN TO THE FULL PODCAST HERE.
Raoul Voss, Rush’s Global Sporting Director, spoke with Pablo Toledo, Coach Development Director, to discuss the differences between evaluating players at the professional and youth levels, the use of data, & what escapes the evaluation sheets, for The Rush Podcast Network. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW.
The Rush e-Learning Center contributed with a fantastic Player Evaluation piece as well, “The Gold Mine Effect – How To Find Undervalued Talent“, in which the author, Rasmus Ankersen, shares an animated presentation on his research about Performance vs Potential, based on his learnings from spending six months travelling around the world to crack the secrets of the world’s best performance hotbeds. FIND IT HERE.

October 1, 2020

Webinars

Webinar: ‘The Future Coach’, With Tom Bates

Tom Bates, writer of The Future Coach, joined us for a wonderful webinar. We discussed how to engage players, parents and coaches in these uncertain times. REWATCH BELOW!

January 12, 2019

Webinars

Webinar: Rachel Lindvall & Erin McLeod From The Mindful Project

We were joined for this webinar by Dr. Rachel Lindvall (Doctorate in Mindfulness Research, University Professor, Soccer Coach) and Erin McLeod (Olympian, Canadian National Team Veteran, Professional Athlete) who are the founders of The Mindful Project.

We discussed empowering students and athletes to reach their potential. Rachel is a university professor and women’s soccer coach with a Doctorate in Mindfulness Research and a master’s degree in Exercise Science with an emphasis in Sport Psychology.

CLICK HERE OR BELOW TO REWATCH!

January 11, 2019

Webinars

Webinar: Mutanda Kwesele On Coaching For Social Justice

We were joined by Mutanda Kwesele, who currently serves as the head coach of the U14 squad in the MLS Academy of the Columbus Crew SC.

In light of everything going on in our country and world today, Mutanda challenges us all to reflect on how we can fulfill our potential and become transformation as coaches for social justice.

We discussed how soccer can help teach about solidarity and character, as well as how we can empower today’s young athletes to become agents of positive change.

CLICK HERE OR BELOW TO REWATCH!