After five seasons I think I’m done as a soccer coach for a little while.

Back in 2021 I started coaching my daughters soccer team. The first season was rough and the best outcome was a hard fought tie. A winless season sucked but over the seasons we began to retain players and I could see progress.

The past two seasons I feel like by the time I am able to rebuild a mostly new bunch of players into a cohesive team the season is over and I’m back to square one.

I suppose if you’re leaving most games frustrated as hell maybe it’s time to take a break.

Past seasons were fun. This season not so much.

Part of me feels like I’ll regret giving up coaching but I am just burnt out.

What made you step back from coaching?

Rebuilding and new groups of kids is a reality of youth sports. Kids grow up.

I did not step back, I quit.

I coached girls youth and AAU basketball for 8 years starting when my daughter was in 2nd grade. When my daughter made varsity I wanted to watch her play so I gave up coaching youth, then gave up AAU a year later. Wanting to watch my daughter play, and the behavior of parents made it an easy decision.

After my daughter graduated HS she went on to play college lacrosse. We traveled to her games. I was approached to get back into coaching and was humbled that the organizations considered me, but I was done. I still go to our local HS games and am close friends with the varsity coach. I scout opposing teams and keep game stats for him. Parental behavior seems to have worsened. I have nothing but respect for coaches, especially volunteers but I will never get back into it.

The best compliment I ever received was from our varsity coach (a great coach and very successful). He tells people I was a good coach and the sanest player parent he's ever known.

Support your kids by becoming the assistant coach. This is what I did when I burned out. All the fun none of the bullshit.

I'll start by saying that I retired from coaching hockey in the spring of the 2022 season after 20 years on the ice. I started in youth sports and worked my way up to collegiate level at a large university. Up until the last year the first 2 months of the off season were great, then the itch started and by late July I couldn't wait to get back on the ice.

Building a team is one of the most difficult elements of coaching. That is, unfortunately, becoming more difficult for a variety of reasons. Believe me when I say I understand your frustration.

Given that I coached both Men's, and Women's hockey at the collegiate level I can tell you that there is a significant difference between coaching Men and Women, especially if you're a man. Women think different, bond different, look at coaches and look at men differently than boys or men.

One thing I learned was if a male player is not happy with you, you'll know it. Usually you can work it out. If a female player is upset with you, you may never know, but all of the other females will. By the time you find out, it may be way too late to even try and fix it. I now understand when I was handed this opportunity and enthusiastically accepted the new challenge, so many people were telling me not to do it.

I retired at the end of that season. I hung up the skates. I was tired of all of the time and effort, the prep, the experience that I brought to each practice and game only to have the players roll their eyes as 'it wasn't what they wanted to do, or they thought it was stupid.

That added to all of the certifications required, all the continuing ed classes, all the time required for all of that out of my pocket. Not to mention more vacation time off work in addition to what I had to carve out every year for road trips, and a potential trip to Nationals. It just wasn't worth it anymore.

I was asked if I'd go back to HS hockey but that is sliding backwards pretty quick. Youth hockey is absolutely out of the question. The parents were insane 12 years ago and they are NOT better today.

There are better things to do with my time.... I thought I would miss it but that itch never came in July or August, or even September when we'd normally start tryouts. I just didn't care, and that was a totally odd feeling.


Getting back to you. IF you're burnt out, stop. Pushing on won't make it better. It might even make things worse or put you in a bad position in a bad mood. Let it go for now... if you get the itch bad next year, consider looking for an opportunity with a better program.

What made me step back from coaching? The short answer is parents, as well as some other coaches.

Jim

Parents.

I coached both of my daughters’ softball teams for a few years in little league. I had a blast with the oldest. The games were competitive, parents were involved, the girls worked hard. I’ve noticed with my youngest, though, that parents are treating it like a babysitter for a few hours a week. One team I had several girls who didn’t want to be there and put forth no effort. It was obvious that none of them did anything on their own to improve. Then none of the parents would help at all.

The last 2 seasons I haven’t been a coach. Last season they had 2 guys who did nothing with the team. They were lazy and acted like they didn’t want to be there in addition to having their daughters pitch and catch when they had no experience but other girls did. This year our coach has no idea what she’s doing. She played in college but has no idea how to coach. We’ve lost every game and, more importantly, our girls haven’t gotten any better.

Thank you guys for the responses. I really do appreciate the experiences and insight you all have provided.

Overall the experience has been positive. I’ve been fortunate to coach dozens of first time soccer players and get to watch them learn and enjoy one of the most beautiful sports on the planet.

I didn’t have too many issues with parents. There were a few problems with unprofessional coaches but thankfully that was resolved.

I slept on it a few days and it confirmed my decision to take a break.

When I coached youth sports I always approached it as building players more than building a team.

Yeah you want to win, but I spent time ensuring that the kids had the fundamentals down so they could come back stronger next year, even if that meant them going to another coach.

Our football league had two divisions, D1 and D2. D2 was for the beginners, undersized and less talented kids. D1 was a much more competitive division. I mostly coached D2 and preferred it. I liked taking brand new players and working with them. I measured my success by how many of those kids made D1 the next year instead of wins and losses. And it’s been a real joy watching a lot of those kids play at the varsity level in high school now. It brings me far more joy than some old trophy’s that I would have likely tossed anyway.

quote:

Originally posted by stickman428:

I slept on it a few days and it confirmed my decision to take a break.

Thank you for the work you did. Enjoy the time off and take car of yourself.