Sam Snow’s Holiday Wish List for Soccer
Sam Snow is Coaching Director for US Youth Soccer, the largest youth sports organization in America. A United States Soccer Federation “A” Licensee, Snow is a passionate leader in youth soccer who has worked in national, collegiate and youth soccer. Snow believes in the power of education to raise the level of soccer in America and is dedicated to making a difference in the lives of youth players.
With 2016 just around the corner, I am sharing with you my wish list for the New Year.
- I wish for ever-improving working relationships among the various soccer organizations in our country.
- I wish that every soccer club in the nation would have parent education as the #1 priority so that the player development pathway will have fewer obstacles.
- I wish for calm to prevail over adults during a match so that abuse will no longer be hurled at young referees – I want those young refs to become adult refs someday and to not drop out due to the nonsense they sometimes hear from coaches and spectators.
- I wish that every single coach in the USA had a coaching license; after all, the players deserve a qualified coach.
- I wish that soccer would continue to grow by including more people from inner-city and rural communities – we have approximately 5 million regularly active youth players in the USA and that number should be double.
- I wish that all soccer clubs had disability soccer – like TOPSoccer – as one of its offerings to their community.
- I wish that all clubs had and used a well thought out curriculum for player development.
- I wish that for the sake of fun and good health that more people participated in soccer as a lifetime sport.
- I wish that our coach and referee ranks included more women.
- I wish that the meaningless divide between “rec” and “comp” soccer dissolves.
- I wish you all the best in your soccer endeavors for 2016.
