Guinness World Record and Soccer

An attempt to break a world record took place and Bob Jones University last weekend. Do any of you know if it was successful? - C

Breese Stevens Field

Over the years, Breese Stevens, has always been one of our favorite places to play. The stadium is 82 years old and has held high school football, car races and soccer games. I believe that both my grandfather and father played highschool football in the stadium. My grandpa attended the old Central High School and my father is a La Follette grad. I remember seeing two great matches played there - one was between Concordia Wisconsin and Edgewood for the conference championship in 1998 - Concordia won 2-1 in 2OT. The other great match was between Maranatha and Edgewood that ended in a tie 2-2. MBBC was down 2-0 for most of the game before Sarah Beardslee and Sommer Rodolph both scored outstanding hustle goals in the last 10 minutes to send the match to overtime.

Recently, the city of Madison announced renovations to this facility that will make it a much nicer place to play. . . although I kind of liked the crumbling concrete, rusted seats, tiny locker rooms where you can hear the other team talking. . . - C

Madison Master's Soccer

I managed to put one in the net on Saturday. Scoring a goal in a soccer game is such a great feeling. In each of the past three seasons, I have managed to score a goal during the first game of the season. The problem is that in each of the past two seasons, I have not scored again the rest of the season.

Gotta' be the shoes.

We had a great little scrimmage yesterday for our final training session of the year. We are now looking forward to Soccer Camp!-C

100th Post

I know it has been a long time since I have posted. This is my 100th post on this blog. Hopefully I have not lost too many readers over the last couple of weeks. Here are some of the latest happenings and a few observations:

The women's scrimmage v Cardinal Stritch was cancelled due to poor weather. Very disappointing, but it sure is nice outside right now. . .

Dan Campbell, Chris Jochum and Emily Kutz helped me run a 2 hour soccer clinic at a Christian school in Utica yesterday. While driving there, I realize that I had played my very first organized soccer game against that school in 1984. Maybe I will shared my memories of that day in a future post. . .

I was hoping to see a couple of recruits play next week, but I don't think I will be able to get out of town. It is much more difficult to travel now that Sarah and I have three children.

My first Madison Master's soccer game is tomorrow in Madison. Playing in these games might be the highlight of my year - within reason. Boy, do I love to play. Win or lose, doesn't matter.

I have been following the Virginia Tech tragedy pretty closely - an awful event. I have a lot to say on this topic, but something that really struck me is that we never hear about these shootings at gun shows, rifle ranges or Texas. They always happen in a place where guns are banned. . . it seems to me that guns are not the problem.

I have been blessed by the diverse talents of many of the players on the men's and women's soccer teams. We have many who are active in student government, ministry societies, plays, band and choirs. Several will be traveling in ministry groups over the next few months. If you ever have the ability to hire someone who played soccer for four years at MBBC, chances are you will be getting an employee who is well-rounded and knows how to get involved. I enjoy recommending our soccer alumni.

We have several solid recruits visiting the college next week.
Julie Muse will be returning to Germany again this summer with the Maranatha volleball team. We are all extremely jealous. Pray for her, this is a last minute decision and finances will be tight.

Elijah Ronald (or Elijah Ronaldinho, as I have taught Elise and Eliana to say) is doing well. Still not sleeping through the night, but he has been a pretty good newborn over all. -C

A Look-a-like?

One of my players sent me this picture and said that I look a lot like the guy on the left. I'm not exactly sure how to take this. Should I bench him? Or give him more time?- C

Training Session

Picture from a 2002 college women's practice. That freshman class finished as the winningest class ever for Maranatha women's soccer.Here is a link to a training session that was published on a website about a year ago. There are several things that I wish I had done differently, but many coaches who come to this site might get something you can use from it. I am still working on ideas for releasing training sessions on this blog, but it is difficult to do with text only. If any of you would like a particular soccer topic discussed on this blog, send it to me and we will mention it.
David Harris the referee assignor for the Northern Athletics Conference has also taken the job as the head girl's soccer coach at La Follette High School. David has been one of the top referees in the state for many years. He started the boys and girls soccer programs at Watertown High School.

Another picture from 2002. According to the comments on the previous post, we won't be seeing this move at the 2007 Alumni Scrimmage. Too bad. -C

Some quotes and a cool picture.

I thought I would take a break from soccer pictures to post one of the best pictures taken of my daughters in a long time. I think it really captures both of their personalities. Once again, Lord willing, we will be adding a boy to the mix near the end of March. My lovely wife took the picture.

I am in the middle of correcting the Philosophy of Coaching papers from my Techniques of Coaching Soccer class. I am enjoying some of the thoughts and some of you might like them as well. Here are a few quotes from the papers. I don't necessarily agree with all of the quotes, but they are all interesting. I edited some of them for grammar:

In dealing with my athletes, a coach should be completely honest, straight forward, but not cruel.

I consider a successful soccer team to be one that is unified.

Perhaps the best part of athletics is that it allows success to be possible regardless of the outcome of the competition.

I need to remember that most athletes do not live to play sports.

Never accept less than the best.

I think the true purpose of athletics is not to just build character, but to reveal it and then help fix it if there is a problem.

Character will last a lifetime where a trophy will get broken, lost or become meaningless.

I will make an effort to make sure that my players understand that it is the team that wins the games, not the individual.

I would like to say that physical education is the best major on campus at Maranatha.

While I will definitely stress defense, I will always want to be an aggressive and attacking team. Maybe it is a bad strategy, but I think that teams have to take chances, and push the ball, and do things that pressure not only the opposing team, but also stretch themselves as well.

I want my program to be known for team play and passing.

Whether or not a player 'bends it like Beckham' or whiffs 3 out of 3 times will not be the determining factor for his or her success in life.

Another DIII player is going pro. Read the story here. -C