The suitability of elite practice at the lower level

Over the past month or so, I have seen articles, messages board posts, blogs, and tweets (yes I said that word) mentioning what the top football / soccer teams are doing, and how this can be applied to lower levels of the sport. Whenever the practice of a professional team or player is mentioned, coaches and parents start to salivate at the thought of training their players / kids like Lionel Messi or Christiano Ronaldo.

Crazy as it seems, though, the U11 girls soccer team your daughter is on is not FC Barcelona, and the high school team you coach is not made up with the best of the best natural selection has to offer! I would even argue that the high amateur, and lower professional levels, are a far cry from the elite in many respects.

Yes that includes top NCAA and USL teams in the United States, and the premier academy and League 1 teams back in the homeland.

Sometimes practices at the top level are justified by success - even if it is wrong in so many other regards when the context/level is changed.

Individual awards for ETSU men's soccer players

Another "cheap" blog post for now - but there are some "real" ones coming soon, and these players deserve some reward for the work they have put in:

"JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (Sept. 27, 2010) – Junior Aaron Schoenfeld (Knoxville, Tenn.) received Atlantic Sun Player of the Week and College Soccer New National Team of the Week honors for his two overtime game-winning goals against Marshall and UNC Asheville, announced the conference office and College Soccer News on Monday.

ETSU men's soccer regionally ranked

A big achievement for ETSU men's soccer:

"JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (Sept. 27, 2010) – The ETSU men’s soccer team received its first ever NSCAA/HendricksCars.com Regional Ranking as the Bucs were voted eighth in the South Region, announced the National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA) on Monday.

“The players have worked hard in training and games, and performed well to this point in the season,” said head coach Scott Calabrese. “The regional ranking is a reflection of this. I am very pleased with our progress and with our focus. I believe the players have a great deal of spirit, and they want to continue to build on our season thus far.”

5th Annual Coaches & Sport Science College Schedule

Below is the finalized schedule for this year's Coaches College, hosted by the Center of Excellence for Sport Science and Coach Education. This will be the 4th Coaches College that I will have either attended or been part of and it has been fantastic to see it grow.

This year's event combines internationally-recruited speakers with strength and conditioning coaches that are working with the athletic teams at ETSU. Each year we look to change the focus slightly based both on feedback, and some kind of rotation, and this time around the focus is on practical application of evidence-based programs.