Fellow coaches, We are proud to announce a partnership with the Harvard Business School! This will be a fantastic opportunity for coaches to get involved in a research study. Play Better – a local program designed to impact coaches, players and parents – has been chosen by Harvard to be studied. The objective of this research […]
The question may seem easy to answer but it’s more complex than many think. The readiness of the child is not determined by a certain age or because there is an enrollment for children who are in the age bracket of your child. Your child’s readiness is not dependent on the fact that neighbour’s children […]
I fear for the mentality of many female footy players. One of, several current coaching mentors of mine these days, Brendan Quarry who I work daily with, says it straight up and all the time. Fear is the number one killer of development on the female side of the game. Brendan has been coaching female […]
Failure is a part of growing up. You can receive a bad grade, learn from your struggles and bounce back. But when there are expectations, entitlement is not too far behind. These expectations are instilled in children from a young age, as the “everyone wins” ideal is spread to kids everywhere and participation trophies are […]
A guest article written by Rich Zahn: Coach of the U14 South Delta United who Played Better last year to support the Delta Hospice Society. Last summer, as I prepared for pre-season with my U14 boys, I found myself pondering ways to get them – and their parents – to focus on development over winning. […]
The Play Better team is excited to present this video to answer the important question of why and how Play Better was born. We really encourage everyone to spend the five minutes and watch this video. Willie provides some fantastic context into why Play Better exists and why it works. Play Better – FEAT Kids […]
The Play Better program is happy to introduce the ‘move of the week’ metric, for younger age groups. After a series of tests we have decided it is a fun, simple and effective metric, which can be easily rewarded. To do this will you need to incorporate a few goals and challenges weekly to keep […]
Developmental soccer. We’ve all seen the words. They are on every website attached to just about every club out there. Problem is, the actions by many aren’t matching up to the words. A few years ago, as a coordinator for numerous young age groups, I went and observed one U9 team play 6 weeks of […]
0 wins since 2012. 2 goals in 14 months in the men’s game. 110th ranking in Men’s soccer, out of 209 registered nations. 1 World Cup appearance. 0 goals. 0 entries since 1986. 1 Gold Cup. 7th ranking in Women’s soccer of 129 registered nations. [Only 1 other of those nations have our infrastructure and […]
All you parents out there, we need to keep our kids in sport! It is widely and commonly cited that youth dropout rates in sports are staggering. Discouraged children are simply quitting sports before the age of 13. This is the cold hard truth. A fact, as it once was. Children are quitting sport […]
