This program year, Soccer for Success will teach soccer and life-skills to approximately 25,000 youth across the country. This is no small feat, as just five short years ago the program began with only 3,000 children. To achieve our goal of impacting 25,000 kids in the 2014-2015 program year, we’ll need over 2,000 coaches to help implement Soccer for Success. My job is to assure that these coaches are trained and prepared to run the program in each of their communities.
You may be thinking, “How do you train over 2,000 coaches?” Every year, we organize local trainings in cities across the country and hold one large event in Washington, D.C. called the National Coaches Training. By October, every Soccer for Success coach will be trained to run the Soccer for Success curriculum. We call this journey our “road to 25K.”
This road began in June at the Training of Trainers Summit, held at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, FL. The Summit is our opportunity to train Foundation staff and National Training Team members on the latest content and training methods as it pertains to Soccer for Success. The Summit is crucial to our work, as the bulk of our Soccer for Success coaches will be trained directly by this group. This year’s summit spanned three days and brought together 26 top-notch trainers from 12 states and the District of Columbia. The event was co-facilitated by 13 experts, many of them members of the training team themselves, and featured brand new mentoring content.
The Training of Trainers Summit was an important beginning step. Next stop on the road to 25k is the National Coaches Training, which will take place July 25-27th. Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter for more information about the National Coaches Training and our road to 25k!
