Hi, I am Coach Pete or Pete, your host. I love soccer and consider it one of the greatest games with some of the best athletes on the planet. I have played since I was five years old and have learned a bunch about the game in that time. In the time that I have been involved with game I have at some point been in what I consider the three main aspects of the game, which are coaching, reffing and playing. I want to use this knowledge to help others, especially parents, that have no clue about the game to understand it better.
I started playing at five years old on a local rec team in the area that my dad helped coach. At the time, I also played basketball and baseball like most other kids. I learned quickly that I did not really enjoy baseball. Even though baseball is considered a team sport I hated the one-on-one aspect of the batter vs pitcher. I’ve always been very tough on myself to perform at a high level for the team and so whenever I struck out it crushed me. This usually lead to me crying after every strike out. So, I quit baseball around 10 years old and mainly focused on soccer and basketball. I enjoyed both very much because they are both very team focused and are played very similar to each other, ball movement is key, and both are very focused on using triangles. Around the time I was 13 I realized that I was not going to be tall enough to get very far in basketball and that I just enjoyed soccer more leading me to pick soccer as my only sport. This is the point where I got into the more competitive level of soccer, which at the time was call classic. This is also the point where my dad stopped coaching me and I started to get different coaches. At this point I was playing on talented teams, eventually moving to the high school team I played on. We had an exceptional amount of talent on the team, all three years I played varsity soccer we were nationally ranked, made it very far into the state tournament, and sent many players onto college. I had an opportunity to play at a D1-AA school but didn’t take it because no scholarship was involved and it was at The Citadel, which is a military school, and I didn’t want to get involved with that unless I had a scholarship. It is one of the great regrets of my life. I ended up going into the military anyways and I really blossomed as a player after high school, it would have been good for me as a player. After that I ended up playing in various adult leagues at various levels, learning that I could compete at higher levels, but it would stretch my abilities to the max, eventually figuring out in the grand scheme of all the players I had ever played against I was above average in my abilities.
My coaching life was interesting and a good bit different than most coaches I know, and I had been coaching way longer than many I knew but didn’t know it. I thought my path in coaching was the same as pretty much everyone’s. I did not realize I had been building a coach’s mind for far longer then most. I started off coaching right around the time I decided to make soccer my only sport because while my dad had stopped coaching me he had started coaching my little brother and he needed help with the team. So, I started being his assistant coach. I was at the fields anyways usually and saw it as a chance to get more practice in. While I was using it as more practice for myself, usually demonstrating drills and helping players that needed extra help. I was developing my coaching skills at a younger age then most and not realizing it. It was here that I learned to love the moment that it clicks for a player, every coach should know this moment and love it. If they don’t then you really need to consider moving away from that coach. I continued this all the way up until my stopped coaching my brother because he got to higher levels as well. Later in life I picked coaching up again because I had one of my teammates at the time ask me out to help him with some teams he had. My love for coaching was reignited at this moment and I realized how much I enjoyed it and started coaching again until life took over and I didn’t have the time.
I started reffing around the age of 14 because it was one way I could make some extra spending cash at that age. It was pretty good money at the time for me and I enjoyed it when I started off. It was a great way for me to watch games, but also get some extra running in to be ready for games. Very early on I learned that my least favorite part of the games was dealing with parents. Most of the good center refs would put me on the sidelines with the coaches instead of the parents because they were easier to deal with, leaving the older more experienced ref to deal with the parents. When I was center for younger kid’s games, I was usually able to just ignore the parents because I was too busy to hear them. There were times though that they would get unusually verbal and would say things that would hurt my feelings. I would usually just ignore it though because they were ignorant to the rule they were usually yelling about. After some time as a ref though I developed a thick skin, and it became pretty hard for parents to get through it. I also got very confident in my knowledge of the game and the rules as time went on and I worked with other more experienced refs who enjoyed reffing with me and complemented me on my abilities. I never forgot how it felt to be on the sidelines as a young ref during games and having parents say the things they did to you and because of this I became very defensive of my linesman during games, especially if they were young. The only ejections I had from games was people on the lines, usually parents, for saying things to my linesman. I never had to eject a player or coach from a game though, which is a point of pride for me. I continued to ref up until around the time I graduated high school when I needed more money and started work regular jobs and didn’t have the time to ref and lost the patience to deal with the parents on the sidelines.
Through this podcast and community, I hope to impart knowledge on people looking to understand the game better. I hope to help parents understand the game better, so they know why the ref made the calls they made and to help them understand how hard these calls are to make as the ref. Maybe to make them think a little bit before they yell at the ref about a call. I hope to give you the knowledge you need to be able to talk to a coach when you have a disagreement on your child’s playing time or position. I will provide you the information you need to understand when a coach is telling you how to help your child improve on certain skills. So, join me as we all grow and try to improve and strengthen the youth game together.
Hi, I am Coach Pete or Pete, your host. I love soccer and consider it one of the greatest games with some of the best athletes on the planet. I have played since I was five years old and have learned a bunch about the game in that time. In the time that I have been involved with game I have at some point been in what I consider the three main aspects of the game, which are coaching, reffing and playing. I want to use this knowledge to help others, especially parents, that have no clue about the game to understand it better.
I started playing at five years old on a local rec team in the area that my dad helped coach. At the time, I also played basketball and baseball like most other kids. I learned quickly that I did not really enjoy baseball. Even though baseball is considered a team sport I hated the one-on-one aspect of the batter vs pitcher. I’ve always been very tough on myself to perform at a high level for the team and so whenever I struck out it crushed me. This usually lead to me crying after every strike out. So, I quit baseball around 10 years old and mainly focused on soccer and basketball. I enjoyed both very much because they are both very team focused and are played very similar to each other, ball movement is key, and both are very focused on using triangles. Around the time I was 13 I realized that I was not going to be tall enough to get very far in basketball and that I just enjoyed soccer more leading me to pick soccer as my only sport. This is the point where I got into the more competitive level of soccer, which at the time was call classic. This is also the point where my dad stopped coaching me and I started to get different coaches. At this point I was playing on talented teams, eventually moving to the high school team I played on. We had an exceptional amount of talent on the team, all three years I played varsity soccer we were nationally ranked, made it very far into the state tournament, and sent many players onto college. I had an opportunity to play at a D1-AA school but didn’t take it because no scholarship was involved and it was at The Citadel, which is a military school, and I didn’t want to get involved with that unless I had a scholarship. It is one of the great regrets of my life. I ended up going into the military anyways and I really blossomed as a player after high school, it would have been good for me as a player. After that I ended up playing in various adult leagues at various levels, learning that I could compete at higher levels, but it would stretch my abilities to the max, eventually figuring out in the grand scheme of all the players I had ever played against I was above average in my abilities.
My coaching life was interesting and a good bit different than most coaches I know, and I had been coaching way longer than many I knew but didn’t know it. I thought my path in coaching was the same as pretty much everyone’s. I did not realize I had been building a coach’s mind for far longer then most. I started off coaching right around the time I decided to make soccer my only sport because while my dad had stopped coaching me he had started coaching my little brother and he needed help with the team. So, I started being his assistant coach. I was at the fields anyways usually and saw it as a chance to get more practice in. While I was using it as more practice for myself, usually demonstrating drills and helping players that needed extra help. I was developing my coaching skills at a younger age then most and not realizing it. It was here that I learned to love the moment that it clicks for a player, every coach should know this moment and love it. If they don’t then you really need to consider moving away from that coach. I continued this all the way up until my stopped coaching my brother because he got to higher levels as well. Later in life I picked coaching up again because I had one of my teammates at the time ask me out to help him with some teams he had. My love for coaching was reignited at this moment and I realized how much I enjoyed it and started coaching again until life took over and I didn’t have the time.
I started reffing around the age of 14 because it was one way I could make some extra spending cash at that age. It was pretty good money at the time for me and I enjoyed it when I started off. It was a great way for me to watch games, but also get some extra running in to be ready for games. Very early on I learned that my least favorite part of the games was dealing with parents. Most of the good center refs would put me on the sidelines with the coaches instead of the parents because they were easier to deal with, leaving the older more experienced ref to deal with the parents. When I was center for younger kid’s games, I was usually able to just ignore the parents because I was too busy to hear them. There were times though that they would get unusually verbal and would say things that would hurt my feelings. I would usually just ignore it though because they were ignorant to the rule they were usually yelling about. After some time as a ref though I developed a thick skin, and it became pretty hard for parents to get through it. I also got very confident in my knowledge of the game and the rules as time went on and I worked with other more experienced refs who enjoyed reffing with me and complemented me on my abilities. I never forgot how it felt to be on the sidelines as a young ref during games and having parents say the things they did to you and because of this I became very defensive of my linesman during games, especially if they were young. The only ejections I had from games was people on the lines, usually parents, for saying things to my linesman. I never had to eject a player or coach from a game though, which is a point of pride for me. I continued to ref up until around the time I graduated high school when I needed more money and started work regular jobs and didn’t have the time to ref and lost the patience to deal with the parents on the sidelines.
Through this podcast and community, I hope to impart knowledge on people looking to understand the game better. I hope to help parents understand the game better, so they know why the ref made the calls they made and to help them understand how hard these calls are to make as the ref. Maybe to make them think a little bit before they yell at the ref about a call. I hope to give you the knowledge you need to be able to talk to a coach when you have a disagreement on your child’s playing time or position. I will provide you the information you need to understand when a coach is telling you how to help your child improve on certain skills. So, join me as we all grow and try to improve and strengthen the youth game together.