They say you are never too young to learn something. That being the case, La Jolla’s very own Nomads are getting kids involved in soccer at an early age.
The Nomads began a session last month called the Nomads New Little Strikers, geared toward players ages 4 to 8.
According to Mary Kaliff, who oversees tournament and club operations for the Nomads, the program provides fun, fast-paced soccer-related games and activities for the newer players of the game.
“It develops motor skills, cognitive abilities and peer relationships and introduces children to soccer,” Kaliff said.
The sessions are an hour in length, twice a week, and the cost is $100.
“Too often kids starting out for the first time playing soccer are thrown in to a jersey, assigned to a team, put in front of a ball and the whistle is blown,” Kaliff continued. “A parent volunteer coach yells and screams at the kids to pass the ball, spread out, but all the kids know is that the ball needs to go in the net. I’ve watched games where kids swarm the ball like honey bees to a flower, players running and scoring in the wrong goal, moms running alongside their child holding their hands as they are playing the game. That’s not how to learn soccer.”
Kaliff believes that players at this early age can quickly learn to hate the game if they are hurt badly.
“I had a child in my session this past month that was 4 years old,” Kaliff noted. “He dribbled a ball around cones like a star but when asked to put on a jersey he cringed and said that he hated soccer. After further investigation, his mom told me that he played in a spring league and was hit hard in the stomach during a game by a ball. The child clearly enjoyed playing the game but was traumatized by the experience of league play.”
Kaliff said that all too often, the Nomads receive requests to start a technical program that will teach kids how to play soccer from the most basic fundamentals, such as which part of the foot to strike the ball, dribble and run with the ball properly and be a good team player. The Nomads’ new Little Strikers program has been designed to address this need and to teach young players the fundamentals of the game without the pressures of playing in a league.
“As the kids become more comfortable with their ball control skills, we will introduce them slowly to small, sided games when the time is right,” Kaliff commented. “More importantly, we want to build a foundation that the Nomads can draw upon in future years. We are very excited about this new project.”
For further information on the program, which is open to all kids (including those outside La Jolla), visit www.nomadssoccer.org or e-mail [email protected].