Because girls quit sports 6x the rate of boys, we wrote a book!
Train With Me || Alison Foley Soccer Training || Episode 1
High intensity soccer training drills that you can do at home.
Train With Me || Alison Foley Soccer Training || Episode 2
More high intensity soccer training drills that you can do at home.
Train With Me || Alison Foley Soccer Training || Episode 3
High-intensity training drills for ankle stability.
Please welcome author and journalist Roberta Lunardo today, with an afterword to her book on her daughter’s soccer journey.
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“Soccer Girl, Interrupted” ― An Afterword by Roberta Lunardo *
I hope I can find the words to express how proud I am of my daughter’s overcoming the toxic environment she had to face as a very young girl. Two years ago, when Melissa was only nine years old, she had to go through the events chronicled in “Soccer Girl, Interrupted” and her confidence was shattered. After a long process of identifying the problem―bullying, soccer mom from hell, unprofessional coach, favoritism, and politics in the U.S. soccer club mentality―we removed her from that situation, regrouped, and got ready for her journey of recovery.
Today, as I sit here writing these lines, I can honestly say that those events have made her stronger. It still took some time for her to start to believe in herself again―it’s a never-ending process―and once in a while, she’ll make comments about the adults who have let her down.
You only stop to think about the effects of emotional abuse when it comes to the surface and your daughter says something like, “Could you change that workout alarm on your phone? That’s what my old coach used during drills, and I don’t want to think about him.” That one comment told me that it still hurt to remember what she went through but, nevertheless, she was now able to voice her feelings and look back at it with a little bit of detachment.
We are glad she didn’t decide to quit soccer altogether after her experience, especially because she has extremely talented friends, both boys and girls, who have given up club soccer after the unpleasant experiences they have gone through themselves. Instead, Melissa focused on clinics while making the transition to a new club, worked hard, and found her place on a new team―this time with a coach who is not only a teacher but had been a professional soccer player himself and has a strong background coaching high school soccer.
Above all, her new coach had the sensitivity to shift from a long career coaching teenage boys, to take over two all-girls teams for the first time (one with 10-year-olds and another with 12-year-olds) and make it a goal to develop individual players for the good of the collective in the long term. After all, as Mia Wenjen and Alison Foley tell us in “How to Coach Girls,” coaching isn’t a one-size-fits-all deal, and it takes a different approach when building the confidence of young female athletes.
Melissa has also been displaying her love for soccer in other ways: watching matches on TV, going to indoor soccer games to support a local professional team, and acting as Assistant Coach to Daddy as part of her own brother’s recreational soccer experience. The expression on her face when she is helping the little ones―ages six and seven, who inevitably look up to her―could only be described as joyfully proud.
Recently, her latest accomplishment in recovering from emotional trauma was her decision to go back to recreational indoor soccer, on top of her already busy soccer schedule. Watching her brother’s team play reminded her of how she started out playing indoor at age seven. She remembered how fun it was and asked us to sign her up for the upcoming season.
Today, she’s been acting as a team leader in the 10-12 age group indoor, considering her experience in competitive club soccer and assistant coaching. She helps organize the team from inside the field, reminds her players of positioning, encourages them to work hard while leading by example, and selfless passes to give others a chance to score, even if that means missing a scoring opportunity herself. Celebrating her teammate’s first goal ever in a game was just as meaningful to her (or even more) as celebrating a goal of her own.
And, since it’s a coed indoor soccer experience, she has gone back to being the battling beast we all knew from before she had adults tearing her down at her old club. When playing against boys, it seems that she believes in herself even more, because she knows that she can keep up with the most skilled and toughest players, because she is just as skilled and tough herself, and she is not “just a girl.”
Averaging a couple of goals a game, sometimes from foul kicks placed with strength and precision on the upper corners of the goal, she’s been playing her heart out as she hears opposing coaches yelling at their players, “Take her out! Block her! Don’t let her beat you to the ball!”
That kind of recognition and the encouragement she gets from parents from opposing teams after a match is all she needs right now to remember that she is allowed to keep going and follow her dreams. When parents come to congratulate me and my husband, saying that our daughter is a very good player, we simply smile and thank them for their compliments. However, deep down, what we tell ourselves is, We already knew she was a good player, but now we know she is safe and knows her own value.
Roberta Lunardo is a journalist born in South America who has been living in the United States since the early 2000s. She is the author of “Soccer Girl, Interrupted,” which chronicles her then 9-year-old daughter’s struggles in a toxic club soccer environment.
Train With Me || Alison Foley Soccer Training
We are starting a new series of high-intensity soccer training drills that you can do at home.
This first one improves your first touch, your technical speed, and your agility: Tap, Tap, Tap, Roll.
I remember how nervous my daughter was when she moved up from the second to the first team at club soccer. She had worked hard all year to reach this goal, training every day between town soccer, club soccer, and a private coach.
After tryouts, her club played one final soccer tournament and the coach of the first team invited all the girls who were moving up to play on their team. Now, I want to note that my daughter and her second team friends knew the first team girls. The two teams had years of combined practices either when one coach could not make a practice or just for team building. There were strong bonds already, and the first team girls were uniformly welcoming.
Still, my daughter was worried about making a mistake in front of her new teammates. This tournament was hosted by her club soccer organization and was meant to bring all the different locations of the club together. In other words, no pressure. This was purely for fun!
At the end of the tournament, her new team gathered under a shady tree. The parent team manager was a kind man who always made an effort to make the new girls feel welcome. He and his daughter had prepared certificates for each player which was presented with a short, funny story and something from the drug store that best exemplified the award. For example, the Most Inclusive Player received a Kind bar.
My daughter was touched to be included in this informal ceremony. Even though, her new team didn’t know her that well, they created an award for her and told a story that made her feel like a valued part of the team.
To make it easy for parent volunteer coaches, we have free downloadable and editable award certificates on our website.
These 35 award certificates are for:
We hope, as the spring season winds down, this will help coaches end the season on a high note.
Mia Wenjen blogs on parenting, education, and diverse children’s books at PragmaticMom. For more information about HOW TO COACH GIRLS, please visit our website. It is available for purchase at Audrey Press.
Alison Foley is the head coach for women’s soccer at Boston College. In addition to co-authoring HOW TO COACH GIRLS, she created a winter training class, Soccer on the Mat, that combines Brazilian feet skills with yoga.
It was shocking to Alison and me that kids quit sports at a high rate: 70% of all kids quit organized sports by the age of 13, with girls quitting at 6x the rate of boys. We didn’t set out to write HOW TO COACH GIRLS because of this statistic, we just knew that our daughters had uneven experiences from team to team and sport to sport. We, as parents, would worry about getting them to finish out the season if they were really unhappy.
But there is an easy way to find out if your team wants to return next season. As a coach, isn’t that the most important goal? Kids will naturally get better if they simply show up. And they will show up if they are having fun.
Keeping kids in sports might not have been the motivator for parents who sign up as volunteer coaches, but it’s hard not to react with shock and dismay at this stat. It’s also not surprising that kids drop out of sports in middle school when bodies are changing because of puberty. Activities, friendships, and priorities all can change during this period of transition.
We have created a Coach Evaluation form on our HOW TO COACH GIRLS website. It’s free and downloadable. It can be used for girls or boys team.
The form includes:
Scale: 4 = Excellent, 3 = Very Good, 2 = Good, 1 = Needs Improvement
And most importantly, it asks:
Would you/your child like to play for this coach again? Yes/No
You can download the form here.
Mia Wenjen blogs on parenting, education, and diverse children’s books at PragmaticMom. For more information about HOW TO COACH GIRLS, please visit our website. It is available for purchase at Audrey Press.
Alison Foley is the head coach for women’s soccer at Boston College. In addition to co-authoring HOW TO COACH GIRLS, she created a winter training class, Soccer on the Mat, that combines Brazilian feet skills with yoga.
To examine our print book more closely at Amazon, please click on image of book. Our ebook version with 3 bonus chapters is here.
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
In HOW TO COACH GIRLS, Alison talks about the need to give positive feedback on a constant and regular basis to her players. She gives different examples of how to recognize the achievement of her players, both on and off the pitch.
As the season winds down, I remember how validating it was for my daughter to get a verbal and written evaluation form. Her soccer coaches used the evaluation to recognize and celebrate her development. From the point of view of Growth Mindset, soccer can be used a real-world example that consistent effort is the reason for new skills like curving a shot into goal, or 1v1 evasive maneuvers. Natural ability, particularly in a skill-focused game like soccer, only goes so far.
To make it easy for parent volunteer coaches to give their players an assessment, we created a free, downloadable form that includes attributes such as:
You can get the form here.
Alison recommends that the written evaluation always be accompanied with a face-to-face private conversation. This can be done by simply doing short meetings in a corner of the soccer field. The idea is to go over the form, celebrating each player’s development, and recognizing where they were at the start of the season to how far they have progressed.
From this place of positive reinforcement, you can gently set with your player, goals for next season, even if you are not going to be coaching this team again. It is often illuminating just to ask the question to the player, “what do you want to work on for next season?” Girls are often their harshest critics so words of encouragement go a long way.
My daughter’s first evaluation with her coach on the first team was simply centered around his telling her that she’s a good soccer player. For him to believe in her went a long way in making her feel like she belonged on this new, higher level team. It bonded to her to him as her coach in a way that she would put forth her best effort both on the practice field and in a game. For a coach to believe in a player is a gift that will carry past soccer games and into life.
I have a 3-ring binder of my daughter’s evaluations. It includes her report cards, standardized test scores, and sports evaluations. It’s a keepsake that I think she will appreciate when she has children and can look back at how working hard has shaped her life. It’s part of precious memories she will carry forever, including how her soccer coach believed in her and made her a better player.
To examine our print book more closely at Amazon, please click on image of book. Our ebook version with 3 bonus chapters is here.
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Once nice way to build team chemistry is to do a service project together. Many players on the team are so overscheduled that they are too busy to do charity work so doing it as part of the season is a nice way to fit it in.
You can let the players decide what they want to do. It can be as simple as wearing pink during one game to raise awareness for breast cancer. Collecting used cleats, gear, and uniforms at the end of the season to donate is another easy way to get kids involved.
If you want to let your team do service work during a practice or even as the practice and want ideas, here are some charities to support:
GuideStar, CharityNavigator, and CharityWatch are a few websites that will give you an overview of an organization’s financial health and budget breakdown. GiveWell does in-depth research on programs that it determines have had the most impact on people’s lives and then suggests a handful of charities it deems best at delivering these programs.
We have our own list here:
To examine our print book more closely at Amazon, please click on image of book. Our ebook version with 3 bonus chapters is here.
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Is it surprising that girls and women regularly underestimate their abilities and intelligence? It’s the opposite for boys and men who overestimate theirs.
Katelyn Cooper, a doctoral candidate at Arizona State University, and her team asked 250 undergraduate biology students about their intelligence as compared to their colleagues.
“I would ask students about how their classes were going and I noticed a trend,” Cooper said. “Over and over again, women would tell me that they were afraid that other students thought that they were ‘stupid.’ I never heard this from the men in those same biology classes, so I wanted to study it.”
She found that men are 3.2 times more likely than women to believe they are smarter. On average, a man has a 61% chance of believing he is smarter than his colleagues, while a woman has only a 33% chance.
This confidence disparity by sex is not just true for biology students. Girls (and women) also underestimate their abilities across the board from academics to the workplace to sports. And, also notable, is that boys (and men) are the complete opposite, believing that they are better than they actually are.
What does this mean for coaches of girls? The key to coaching girls is to establish a trust relationship with each member on your team. Only when this exists — and this means getting to know the whole person not just the athlete — will that player be able to accept feedback.
Coach Alison Foley recommends finding opportunities to give positive feedback to each player during practice. She says that it doesn’t always have to be skill based. Recognize players who shown empathy on the field. Praise teammates who have contributed off the field by doing service work. Celebrate teammates’ extracurricular achievements in performing arts by supporting their events.
She advises that girls can never be in the unknown. “Girls needs constant positive feedback because if they are not receiving it, they assume that either they are not doing well or that the coach doesn’t like them,” counsels Coach Foley.
Field Hockey Coach Ainslee Lamb, who contributed to HOW TO COACH GIRLS, recalls asking her college players what they thought they do well. Even players on the national team were hesitant to acknowledge anything they do well. It’s not false modesty; it’s this same phenomenon that girls and women truly underestimate their own abilities.
It’s the small things that matter. Taking the time to connect with each player on an individual level will keep her in the game. She might not have the best shot. She might not be the fastest on the field. But if coach take the time to compliment a cool pair of cleats or thank her for doing something thoughtful or recognize her improvement, she’ll keep coming back. And one day, she might be even be the best on the team.
Did you know that 70% of all kids quit organized sports by the age of 13, with girls quitting at 6x the rate of boys?
Alison Foley, Boston College’s Women’s Head Soccer Coach, and Mia Wenjen, parenting blogger at PragmaticMom.com, help coaches — both parent volunteer and professional — crack the code of how to keep girls in sports.
Twenty-two chapters cover major issues, including how to pick captains, the importance of growth mindset, issues around body image and puberty, as well as the challenges of coaching your own daughter. This is a hands-on manual to help coaches keep girls in sports!
To examine our print book more closely at Amazon, please click on image of book. Our ebook version with 3 bonus chapters is here.
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Did you know that 70% of all kids quit organized sports by the age of 13, with girls quitting at 6x the rate of boys?
Alison Foley, Boston College’s Women’s Head Soccer Coach, and Mia Wenjen, parenting blogger at PragmaticMom.com, help coaches — both parent volunteer and professional — were motivated to write a book about coaching girls because Mia had always turned to Alison for advice when her daughters experienced “drama” on their soccer teams.
Alison’s advice, gained from coaching young women professionally for more than two decades, also comes from the point of view of a mother. She is a mother of a young female athlete who plays soccer at a high level.
Mia’s husband, a volunteer parent coach for their two daughters and son, helped to make a list of all the topics they faced, from picking captains, the importance of growth mindset, issues around body image and puberty, as well as the challenges of coaching your own daughter.
Alison and Mia also enlisted the help of fifteen professional coaches from a range of sports, including former Olympian athletes, to share their advice on what girls need from a coach to allow them to flourish in sports, and most importantly, have fun.
Mia and Alison will be contributing to AYSO weekly to share advice to help coaches keep girls in sports. They hope that readers will add to this conversation with questions about topics they would like advice on. Please email pragmaticmomblog@gmail.com. We look forward to working together to keep girls in sports.
Mia Wenjen blogs on parenting, education, and diverse children’s books at PragmaticMom. For more information about HOW TO COACH GIRLS, please visit our website. It is available for purchase at Audrey Press.
Alison Foley is the head coach for women’s soccer at Boston College. In addition to co-authoring HOW TO COACH GIRLS, she created a winter training class, Soccer on the Mat, that combines Brazilian feet skills with yoga.
To examine our print book more closely at Amazon, please click on image of book. Our ebook version with 3 bonus chapters is here.
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
At the beginning of a season, why not discuss goals with your team?
Alison Foley on developing team grit and overcoming adversity. Alison is presenting for Arlington Soccer Club.
More How To Coach Girls videos here.
To examine our print book more closely at Amazon, please click on image of book. Our ebook version with 3 bonus chapters is here.
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
