Questions Parents Need to Ask: Program Goal

The question: Can you explain to me what the goal of your program is?

You will have goals for you children and the program will have goals.  Sometimes the goals are clear, sometimes not so much.  It's important to clarify your goals before you ask the question - I assure you, that you have goals!  Think of it this way: what would get you concerned in the program?  The amount of time your child gets to play?  Your child comes home exhausted?  Watching physical contact in the game?  Why aren't they praying more before games?

The question is: are your goals in line with the program you're looking at.

The goal of our program is in the parent handbook: The Syracuse Eagles organization provides a competitive, varsity-level (7th-12th grade) soccer program based on Christian principles. We strive to develop God-given athletic abilities in a positive environment and help students meet New York State physical education requirements.

Some key points around this:

Competitive or Recreational?  This will show itself in the level of intensity in training, who gets more game time, and level of detail.  A recreational program will emphasize equal play time, basic training and just getting out there and playing soccer.  A competitive program will emphasize winning, lots of conditioning, lots of feedback on what needs to improve, and lots of drills.  Now maybe your goal is to just get your kid some physical activity and you enroll them in a competitive program.  Let the coach know.  If the goal of the program is competitive, the coach may have higher expectations than you and wonder why your child isn't stepping up.  If you both are clear on that goal of yours, then the coach will have one less thing to worry about.  We had one situation where a family enrolled their son and daughter and it was a struggle for them.  Talking with the parents we found out that the kids were foster kids and had never even ran before, let alone play soccer.  The parents goal was to get them active, and we were cool with that.  Clear goals, even though different, made things good.

Varsity, Junior Varsity, or both?  Home school or small Christian schools can have very small teams that are a mix of JV'ers and Varsity players.  That can create some dynamics that need to be worked through.  For example, an 11 years old joining a team that is run like a varsity program is going to be challenging, to say the least, for that player.  The coach should know this and will challenge the player to their level.

Role of Christian principles?  From a goal perspective, what role does the program have in the development of Christian character in the player?  One soccer team I know of, the coach focused exclusively on soccer.  The next year the coach changed and the focus expanded to include a lot more ministry to the players.  Ultimately it's the parents responsibility to raise their child, not the coach.  If you expectation is that the coach will have work on Christian character development and they don't, then you might get frustrated.  The larger the program, the harder it will be for the coach to help individual players on character development.


Bottom line: Avoid the problem of you having expectations that you didn't communicate with the coach.  Let the coach know your goals.  Understand his or hers.