Coaching Education Setting Culture at VSA

Feature Friday:

Coaching Education Setting Culture at VSA

Feature Friday:

VSA continues to pour into not only our players but also the holistic approach of the club. The past few months VSA has gone above and beyond to assure that the top coaches represent the club by providing VSA coaches multiple opportunities for continued education. We want all of our players and parents to know how important it is for VSA staff to be at the top of their game so that our players can be at the top of theirs.

We have already had 3 in-depth coaching education sessions held at the VSA headquarters, and we still have another one for all our Recreation coaches this coming week with Coaching Education Director of Virginia Paul Shaw.

To help bring you behind the scenes, here is a picture of what our coaches are experiencing. In the first session, we learned about and developed the importance of Periodization, which is a state of the art training regiment to maximize the coaches’ sessions. This will allow VSA to ensure that our players are getting the very best training and recovery time.  This expansive classroom session led us into our second coaching education course, this time run by Antonio Pinilla. Coach Pinilla is a former player at Barcelona and currently works with our partners at ISL Futbol. He taught in the classroom and on the field the “Barcelona way,” showing us not only how to train the player, but how to train a mindset. US Soccer Staff and Technical Director of Virginia Gordon Miller held the most recent session. Coach Miller brought experience, expertise and professionalism to a whole new level. As he built upon the previous sessions, he expanded on practice development and adding new tools to our coaching toolbox.

This training was invaluable, as it continued to open the eyes of our many seasoned coaches.  Coach Graham Maclean, who holds His USSF “A” License and is one of our most experienced coaches on Staff, had this to say, “Coaching education sessions have been extremely beneficial and full of great information with a pleasant mix of new information and important reminders.”

VSA has also seen our coaches spend this summer going out into the soccer education scene and exceling to new heights. To name a few: Coaches Dustin Butcher, Alex Herrera, Fro Adu, and Ernesto Marquez have received their National Youth License, which is the highest license for coaches U6-U12’s. A lot of our coaches also went after their USSF E, USSF D, and many will be completing their USSF B and USSF A shortly.

VSA Technical Director Matt Lacey continues to set the bar for the club. He is an instructor in Coaching Education for the state and brings that expertise back to VSA. Here is Coach Lacey’s thought’s on Coaching Education being available for our VSA coaches, "We believe that the foundations of a quality soccer program are based around the level of instruction from coaches. This is a belief that is shared by Virginia and U.S. Soccer staff, so we are working towards improving our coaches all the time. In the environment that we are in, it is often easy for us all to believe that we have the answers—whether a coach or a parent—but it takes a great deal of dedication and ability to learn to be a quality coach. We hope that what we are doing will raise the bar at our club and others around us because ultimately we want the best training environment for young soccer players."

 

At VSA we continue to look for ways to grow while ALWAYS MOVING FORWARD. 

VYSA

VYSA

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US Club Soccer

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