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Just thought I would get a discussion going on the following quote from Klinsmann. I personally have enjoyed and learned a great deal from my license courses (USSF “C” so far), but have heard some horror stories from others. The 3four3 crowd seems to like to go their own way, but there’s something to be said for credibility in order to get your foot in the door or be in a position of power to actually enact change…
In your opinion, how important is it for coaches, particularly at the youth level, to obtain their coaching license?
JK: “I think it’s the highest priority for every coach to get his licenses upgraded, one step at a time but as quickly as possible, because it’s the highest sign of credibility. If you do not have your coaching license you do not have credibility. If parents send their boy or their girl to school, and the teacher doesn’t have the highest teaching license, they would question the school. They would probably change schools and take action right away. It’s the same with soccer. You don’t want your kid being coached by a coach that doesn’t have the highest credibility and doesn’t have the knowledge because he never went to those licensing courses and got his degree. We want to upgrade that as soon as possible. We want to send out a timeline for every coach involved in our programs to get his or her license to the highest level because then you have the knowledge and the capability to educate our players at the highest level.
“It’s also important because information flow changes. Today’s information is different than a license course held ten years ago. It’s a completely different ball game today than ten years ago. It’s a global game. We have to know what they do in Germany and Spain and Brazil in youth development. I want to encourage every coach to sign up for a licensing course for your next level. This is something that we badly need and if we don’t do it, we don’t have credibility. Therefore please coaches, get started.”
See more at: http://www.ussoccer.com/news/coaching-education/2013/12/131219-klinsmann-qa-coaching-education.aspx#sthash.9vwbpZWK.dpuf
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This topic was modified 10 years, 10 months ago by
Justin Almquist. Reason: removing html formatting
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This topic was modified 10 years, 10 months ago by
I agree that all coaches should have the desire and motivation to never stop learning and attending USSF courses can fit into they; however, Ive never come away from a USSF course thinking I gained a huge amount of knowledge. I can literally think if two valuable things I took out of the B course. Plus, grinding out a course in eight days of heat just encourages coaches to simply survive rather than learn.
Likewise with teaching, I have a Masters in Education, but the overwhelming amount of my true learning came from my teaching mentor and experience in the profession.
I’m an economist by trade. In economics we have something called “signaling” which is basically one person simply conveying to another person that they have some quality. Licenses are merely a method of letting parents/DOCs know that the license holder knows at least a little bit a bout soccer. The higher up the classification, the more a person is supposed to know. This is supposed to indicate some level of higher understanding relative to the general population, but we all know that there are ridiculous amount of coaches with high licenses that don’t know anything more than to pick the biggest, strongest, fastest kids to play jungleball.
That said, license classes are an absolute joke for anyone with a certain level of understanding. The USSF D and E licenses were all well below my level of understanding of the game and an absolute waste of my time and money. There was a glaring lack of discussion about style of play, and the instructors here in Oregon seemed to completely brush off any questions about it. The curriculum in them are geared for people who didn’t play soccer growing up, yet they no longer allow people to skip the early licenses if they played at a high level. Ridiculous.
The best thing I can say about them is that it allowed me to network with other coaches and I was lucky enough to find two others involved with the possession philosophy (one a member here and the other at the same club as a member here). I’m taking my NSCAA National class next month but only because my club agreed to pay for it and it is the easiest way for me to signal to potential future employers that I know what I’m doing and it meets the minimum qualification of many university coaching positions.
Personally, I feel the USSF licenses are a very good thing. For the person that is shifting into coaching soccer, whether they have played soccer before or not, it is a shift in mindset and the courses give you the tools needed to teach soccer. Are they teaching possession style soccer? No, but they are not teaching jungle ball either. What you train your respective teams upon is still entirely up to you or any candidate that attends these courses.
My perspective is probably entirely different than almost all candidates that attend these. I did not play soccer in college or professionally. I coach a handful of teams for a very small rec soccer club and high school program. So the respective programs are not sending me to these, paying for these or is my job contingent on obtaining these licenses. Obtaining a license isn’t going to allow me to “advance” relative to what I’m already doing now and most everyone I coach or involved in soccer with would not have a clue what a license means, so there is no “status” gained. For me, I attend these like I would attending college. To learn something I’m incredibly passionate about from some of the best minds in the craft of coaching soccer.
If you enter these courses with the right mindset and go in thinking you’re the dumbest person in the room set out to learn as much as possible, you’re going to benefit significantly from the work ahead even if you are not successful in earning license at the end. As Andrew stated, you cannot under estimate the greatness of the network you will create with the fellow coaches as I am still in contact with coaches I met in my D license course I took back in 2006 and each successive license has lead me to broadening my network globally and me discovering 3Four3.
Although I agree with Klinsmann that licenses are important, my reasoning for it is significantly different. Again, that is from a perspective that is different than most that coach soccer.
One more pragmatic reason why badges are needed is insurance. In my club you need a NJYS “F” to get insurance coverage. So while I have a UEFA “B” and played at a top academy, all that mattered for coverage was this 6 hr course with people who have never touched a ball before. This experience has made me question getting further badges. I am all about continued learning but the current system should be changed with the changes in the game to make it truly a worthwhile venture
I look at a license as something you need to get your foot in the door for certain jobs or just to stay you’ve accomplished (similar to college degree for many jobs). I’ve gone through the D and while I feel like I have picked up some useful information, it has by no means made me a great coach.
If someone tells me they have an A license, the first thing I would think is they’re dedicated to coaching by committing the time and effort necessary to achieve that. Whether they are actaully a quality coach or not is a different matter. There are plenty of coaches who have a high license but can’t coach well and conversely, coaches who do a great job, but have only done the minimal USSF requirements. At the end of the day, it’s just a piece of paper and the real display of ability is shown by the product on the field.
Going through this exact analysis now – had an E License back in my teenage years (instructor was my club coach, who I liked a great deal and thought it was good). Since then and until now never needed a further lincense (lawyer by trade and have to deal with a ton of licensure requirements on that end), but kicking myself I didn’t at least get to C (between college playing experience, plenty of coaching/managing in the men’s ranks, and prior E license could have gotten there fairly easily).
Don’t plan to make a living off of coaching, but having the C would be a nice to have now. Technically I am suppose to start over (no more playing credit for the E and received the prior E in a different state that can’t track it down) and finding it hard to justify the investment of time right now.
The other part of the licensing piece that appears to be a miss – teaching younger children is so much different then coaching/managing older boys/men. Even with a common philosophy, actual instruction can be so different. I don’t need an introd to progression practices or practice plans, nor do I need to be thinking through every intracy of the 4-2-3-1 when I am coaching u8 to u10 (except how what I am doing scaffolds to that); but some depth in thinking about coaching the young ones would be of real value. However, don’t see licenses really tailored to that (realize their is a youth badge which I may look into).
What have folks thought about the NSCAA badges? They don’t appear to have prerequisites for the middle badges, and am thinking of taking one of those.
Justin,
Someone told me early on that the C license was the toughest. Having recently completed my B, I will say its a true statement in that the C was difficult and good preparation for the B. From my friends that went on and earned their A, the comment has been it was more difficult than the B, but more of a progression. Not nearly the shock experienced going from a D to a C. The license course dates will probably be released late this month for the coming summer and sell out almost immeidately. I want to do my A, but likely will wait a year or two due to costs in terms of money and time commitment.
Rene,
I’ve only taken a couple of NSCAA courses, both were diplomas for goal keeping, so no pass or fail. I enjoyed it tremendously and learned quite a bit about the technical elements that go into diving, shot blocking, etc of the goal keeper. When I did my B license in 2012, there were quite a few candidates that came in through the NSCAA “C” course equivalent. Their perspective was that the USSF course was much more demanding and quite a few of them struggled in the B course. Personally, I intend to take additional NSCAA courses on topics that USSF does not cover. Once I earn my USSF A, I intend to take the advanced NSCAA courses as continuing ed credits for the A.
I’d 100% agree that the “C” is the hardest one I’ve taken so far since they expect much more out of you than the “D”. The “B” was easier in the fact it was 11v11 format and it made more sense. I did like the fact that in the “small sided game” activity part they introduced the importance of giving your team a plan of how to execute; however, not nearly to the extent of recommending tactical pattern play. I think Tom Durkin (“B” course instructor) specifically told us that pattern play/shadow play doesn’t work because once you add pressure, it all breaks down. Not sure if that one quote encapsulates his view of it, but just a quote that stuck out in my mind.
I know this isn’t the main focus of this thread (more on that in a minute), but I thought the quote from your ‘B’ License instructor was interesting regarding pattern play/shadow play. I can see why it stuck out in your head. In a certain way I both agree and disagree with the quote, although obviously I have no idea of the context in which it was said. He’s right about pressure causing those patterns to break down but that doesn’t mean you can just toss your players on a field and automatically expect them to have proper movement under pressure without any preparation beforehand. The purpose of shadow play/pattern play, at least how I use it, is to introduce a team to the cues and movements I want to see on the field in order to give them ideas which reduces the amount of time they have to think about their next move when they are under pressure. As I see it, shadow play/pattern play is the warm up which then provides the base to expect such movements in game like situations where the movements and patterns are now opposed. USSF has always stressed the idea of progressing practices and training from unopposed to opposed and simple to complex. Starting with pattern play, unopposed and in controlled environment, in order to introduce a team to the cues and movements would be very effective as long as they eventually have to complete it with defenders afterwards.
Anyways, as for the licenses, I’ve done the initial part of my ‘D’ and have the evaluation session coming up later in the summer. I’ve already started prepping for the ‘C’ with the head coach at the college I’m lead assistant for and he’s done a good job of mentoring me as I get started with my coaching career. Basically, he’s always told me that the licenses won’t make me a better coach by themselves, only I can do that, but that they might give me different perspectives on how I see the game and also show a commitment to being professional as a coach. I will say that I haven’t found the ‘E’ or the ‘D’ license challenging in terms of expectations out of me but I will say that it has gotten me to think about some of the ways I plan out and run my sessions which is always nice. Of course, like everyone else I’ve heard that there is a large jump from the ‘D’ to the ‘C’.
A little tangent, since I plan on getting my ‘C’ as soon as possible, I would love to hear any advice people have for the course.
Every house needs walls. How you choose to paper or paint them, what frames and photos you hang, how you elect to display your home is uniquely yours. In the nursing profession we call this socialization to the role. The science of being a nurse (the what) is taught in school and on the hospital floors, the art of nursing: (the how and why) of my relationships, levity, level of care is what I bring to each patient. Futbol is really no different. I’ve been hosting pick ups for a while but am new to formal coaching, and while I feel I can glean the necessary information on my own through self study and constant reading, watching, conversing, there is a certain allure to having a ‘C’ License and I figure this socialization is important in my long term education process. To paraphrase Gary in an article on 3four3, he essentially writes that the licensing method is a bit tedious and a joke but if you want to move up in teaching it is a necessary evil.
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