Commitment to Culture Initiative
This is clearly a time of reflection and change — leading the way is United Soccer Coaches, which started in 1941 and has grown into the world’s largest soccer coaches’ organization. Now with a 2019 Survey: U.S. Culture of Soccer, this organization is showing how it is an advocate and partner for coaches of all levels of the game.
United Soccer Coaches is the coaching association for soccer coaches. Actively seeking to improve and grow the game in America, the United Soccer Coaches’ Commitment to Culture Initiative is asking us to reflect on how positive our soccer playing culture is.
And, this is a great question.
Asking coaches in America to participate in a quick two-minute survey to share experiences in our culture of soccer in the United States is a great idea and one should make everyone pause, reflecting on our individual responsibility in the game.
What can we do better? How can we bring about positive change?
America is a great country with a throbbing heartbeat for success. An unquestionable drive for victory and a desire to do good, our country has millions of kids playing soccer. But are we doing our best for this future generation?
The first question in the survey asks:
Thinking about the past year (2018), how positive is the soccer playing culture in America?
For the answer, the options are Extremely Postive, Positive, Negative or Extremely Negative.
The survey then asks us to question if soccer in our country unites us in embracing and celebrating our differences?
The world’ greatest and most played sport unites people all over the world and crosses the great divide of race, religion, nationality, and economic differences …. the only profound cultural chasm it crosses weakly is gender, but there are efforts working to change this.
United Soccer Coaches is helping all of us take a great step in reflecting, and hopefully honestly analyzing how we really feel about how the game of soccer is played in the USA and the environment we place our young.
Are we teaching the values of teamwork? Is soccer a player’s game?
Without asking us what we can do better or telling us we are doing anything wrong, the survey does the most important thing of all … it makes us think.
Hopefully, after we think, we will act better.
