The last two months have changed everything. What was once important no longer seems so. Three months ago, soccer was in full swing, spring league was starting, soccer drama was at fever pitch on some teams…and then we were told to stay home. Soccer stopped. Drama around soccer no longer seemed important…foolish even. No practice, no school, kids staying at home mostly doing nothing. Days turned into weeks…we couldn’t let doing nothing become our new normal, and let’s face it humans are nothing if not adaptable. And in that spirit Folsom Lake Surf along with Surf Nation started to adapt. Our kids needed an outlet, and what better outlet than exercise and soccer?
Being part of Surf Nation gives us access to a great content and a wealth of ideas from our soccer collective. First, we introduced TopTekkers – a great app that leads young players through all sorts of soccer trainings, scoring points along the way. In addition to that we started virtual competitions for prizes, each week a challenge was sent to our players. The players were to video themselves doing what the challenge called for…our players stepped up with some amazing videos! Great job players!!!
Even our coaches came up with creative ideas like using Band.us where teams could keep in touch virtually, post training videos and just plain old talk to each other. Some even did virtual running competitions seeing who could log the most miles.
TopTekkers app used by Surf Nation
BAND app used by Krissy Looney and her 09 Girls Premier Teams
Running App used by Danny Cruz and his 04 Girls Premier NPL Team
Of course, nothing replaces actually seeing each other. Coaches and their teams started to use Zoom and other video conferencing solutions to meet over video where they could conduct trains, and just say high to each other. After seeing how well this works I can tell you this is here to stay in one form or the other. Of course, nothing can replace on field training, that said how many times of the past 18 months did we have to cancel practices? Heat, rain, smoke and now a pandemic…and how knows what is next. Zoom meetings are a great alternative when issues like this arise.
Krissy Looney’s 09 Girls Premier Team training on Zoom
