DC Stoddert Soccer’s commitment to high-quality youth soccer includes offering outstanding coaching education for area soccer coaches. The USSF ’E’ Coaching Course, which Director of Coaching Len Oliver has taught since 1989 to 3,645 coaches, is among the most popular--even with the instructor!
“It’s my favorite coaching course,” says Len.
In June, 36 area coaches attended his USSF E Coaching Course at the Jelleff Boys & Girls Club. The experience includes lots of feet-on learning. The point, explains Len, is to instill a sense of tactics along with skills:
“We go over the various ways to teach the kids techniques and turn their dribbling, passing, shooting, receiving, and heading into skills to be used during the pressure of a game. We try to move the coaches from just putting their young charges on the field to thinking about the game tactically—both attacking and defending principles--and application on the field.”
The course also covers Goalkeeping, Restarts, Care and Prevention of Injuries, Risk Management, and review of the Laws of the Game. Coaches engage in practice coaching with their peers, and have to complete a take-home exam which is then discussed in the class.
Len was disappointed that only about a third of the coaches in his June 22-24 ’E’ course were from DC Stoddert, since the Club requires each of its Open coaches to have a USSF license before stepping on the field.This policy, endorsed by the DC Stoddert Board, will be strongly enforced this fall.
Those who did attend can testify to the benefits. Ed Barber, coach of the U14 Hurricanes, took Len’s weekend course last month. "Now that my aches and pains have abated (I was running around out there with a lot of dudes 30-40 years younger), I can say that it was a hell of a lot of fun and I learned a lot," he reports. "I’ve warned my team that we will challenge DC United this fall!"
Though Barber "knew quite a bit of this stuff already in one way or another," he got a whole different view seeing all the pieces put together. "To see it all laid out systematically, and to have the intricacies of throw-ins, free-kick strategy, goalie play and the like explained from start to finish was a revelation," he says. " I recall there was quite a debate last year about whether to make this a requirement for Stoddert coaches, and all I can say after having done it is that I think every one of us could benefit."
The next E Certificate course will be in late November-early December. Flyers are on the Web site and available from Len Oliver.
