Description

In this video we talk with long time youth sports coach, Harry Bacheller on coaching youth players using the "Simon Says" technique

Transcript

Kasey: You're the coach of a six and under soccer team but you can't get your six-year-old to pay attention, what do you do? Well, we’re going to talk to a guy today who has a simple but brilliant plan. So, stay tuned and learn how to make your six-year-olds pay attention right here on Clubhouse Gas. We’re lucky—be joined by Coach Harry Bachelor. Harry thank you so much for joining us buddy. Harry: Pleasure being here Kasey. Kasey: Now, I want to talk about an interesting technique you’ve used. Now I coached six-year-old boys and girls in track. And I'm telling you I had the hardest time just getting them in the lane to be able to run in the first place. You—for six and under soccer to keep the kids on task and it's pretty interesting. Why don’t you tell us about it? Harry: Well it was actually about 26 years ago. It was my coaching position and it was four, five and six years. And I was dealing with actually a sport I knew little about which is soccer. So I went out there and obviously found out I didn’t have their attention span so out of desperation, I said “kids, we’re going to play a game and we’re going to play Simon Says”. And all of a sudden, everybody standing there looking at me and I said this is going to work. So, from there, I just built it anytime we wanted to teach a certain technique or a drill, we use the game. You obviously can't overwork it because it won't be as effective but I got to keep them on it, have a looser, maybe award them something. If it's a little league baseball, give them a package of baseball cards or something. Well basically, what we did was you know if we said “all right Simon says put the ball down in front of you” all of the kids were putting the balls down in front of them. “Simon says put your right foot on the ball”, they’re going to put their right foot on the ball. “Simon says take your right foot off”, “Simon says put your left foot on, “Simon says take your left foot off” and eventually you're working the ball tap drill or you could do this for any drill you wanted to. And again, you got to make it effective by not overusing it and just maybe as the season goes along saying “hey you guys, work hard, give you some breaks, pay attention, we will play Simon says’ in practice. Kasey: And would you trip them up and do a Simon says put your foot on the ball, take your foot off, oops Simon didn’t say you're out, would you do that kind of thing? Harry: Definitely and the assistant coaches work with e and I’d get them the same time. Kasey: You get the assistant coaches too? That’s always fun right? Harry: As you said you’ve used this drill before with older kids. I've used it at the high school level too. So, anytime it's a game or competition, all of the sudden you got the kids attention. So it works about at any level. Kasey: Mine was completely and totally out of desperation with 13-year-old at risk kid. I just needed to get them in line to get them to lunch and when you “Simon says” and it worked pretty, it didn’t work as long as I'm probably working with the six year olds but it worked once. And so we use that. So how did it affect the team? We’re you able then to have an effective season? Harry: Definitely! Back then, again we’re talking 25 or 26 years ago where we didn’t have club soccer or anything. This is a YMCA, it was co-ed, it was actually you know it's a young college student working a part time job at the YMCA and kind of got a few extra practices in because it's after daycare and I was basically playing basketball with 15 year olds for the great college job. But when I took this team over, I would stick them in there for about 15 minutes extra practice and again not being clubbed or travel or anything. It was co-ed. We ended up playing in our own terms as hosting tournaments. We stayed together until under 12. So we went from under six to under 12 indoor soccer and outdoor soccer. Again, it was a sport I knew nothing about. I just read up on it, went to clinics, talked to the coaches and still Simon says game was always there for us the whole time. Kasey: Now working with the six-year-olds as far as soccer goes, obviously you don’t try to do a whole lot. But what are the one or two or three things that you definitely want to work on as far as six-year-old go? Harry: Well, just try to get them better. You got to manipulate it whether you're having fun. Kids at that age is keeping everything short and simple. Don’t talk too long. They want to be active, so as long as you play in your practice as—athlete, that's something that’s important for coaches, to have their practices plan get the most of practice. Make sure you remember the age group you're working with. You got to give them breaks. I'm coaching a 7th grade girl’s basketball team right now. And I tell them, “You know, let’s work hard 15 minutes. I will give you a tea party break and social break” and they get to have that for about five minutes and then they come back and they know they’re going to work hard for me. It's just matter of trying to get them to do what we’re trying to get done that day and get better everyday. Kasey: So with the 7th grade girls which is also a very difficult demographic to work with, that works. Do a 15 minutes and then you give them a five minute social break and then 15 more minutes. We’ve talked to some coaches on our message board. I had some coaches who’ve struggles with girls and then some other guys come back and say “you know, a lot of times the problem is you're trying to coach them like the boys and they’re completely different personalities”. Harry: The boys are a little more athletic and try to do things on their own or actually basketball, I like coaching girls more because they have to rely on team play and fundamentals. And when you're watching basketball to a higher level, I like watching the college girls versus the NBA or just one-on-one freestyle ball. But to learn about basic fundamental basketball, girls are a really good learning tool. Kasey: Well, thank you so much for joining us. We’ve learn a lot. You guys take it out there. Simon says number one, tell all your friends to watch Clubhouse Gas and number two, work with your six-year-olds. It’s maybe a lot easier for you. He’s Harry Bachelor, I'm Kasey Bass. And we’ll see you right back here tomorrow on Clubhouse Gas.