Our philosophy centers on player development. Player development is a paradigm that focuses on developing each individual player to their full potential instead of focusing on team accolades.
This paradigm promotes the development of creative, skillful, and intrinsically motivated players. This approach provides a player the best opportunity to reach their goals whether
its earning more playing time, making the high school team, college team, etc.
Winning is important but development is more important. We want our players to not fear failure by taking risks and making mistakes in order to improve.
We want our players to strive for excellence and focus on task mastery. This approach may result in less wins but the players turn out more skillful in the long run compared to players in a win-first environment.
We impress upon our players the following on gameday.
1. Play the game the right way
2. Individual merit is rewarded
3. Exhibit good sportsmanship
4. Play to win but never at the expense of the first 3 items
At the youth level, the measurement of success is the improvement of players over time. Yes, winning games is great. We want our players to have a competitive
attitude and strong desire to win. However, winning in itself does not measure player improvement or if a coach is doing a good job.
If a team wins most of their games but the players dont improve, then the season is a disaster. This situation happens quite a bit in youth soccer.
