Coach Education
MYS encourages all of our Coaches and Parents to take the Grassroots Level courses. These courses help you understand the playing and coaching philosophy that we follow within MYS.
Coaching Pathways
There are different coaching pathways available to coaches depending on your own experience, goals, and the ages that you are coaching. The image to the left is from the US Soccer Learning Center. You can click on it to get more information about the Coaching License Pathway and each course description. You can also register to take Coaching courses as well as take the pre-requisite to the Coaching License Pathway.
Free Online Session
We highly recommend that all coaches (In-Town and Travel) attend the free online “Introduction to Grassroots” course offered by the USYSA. In this course, you will learn about the four Player-centered constants and the focus on Play-Practice-Play. This course is a pre-requisite for all of the four online or in-person Grassroots courses.
Licensing Courses
We want to encourage all of our coaches to grow in their knowledge and expertise of coaching. Using the new USYSA Coaching Pathway, coaches can learn the six tasks of a coach, running a Play-Practice-Play session, and the five elements of running a training session – including organizing the activity. Any MYS coach that takes the 4v4, 7v7, 9v9 or 11v11 licensing course, can submit their receipt for reimbursement from Mansfield Youth Soccer. (Please note that these are the only four courses that we will reimburse coaches for; we will not reimburse for License D or above.) These courses require a little pre-session work, an online classroom session for about 90 minutes and an in-person field training session for about 90 minutes.
For those coaching PK through 2nd grade, we recommend 4v4. For those coaching 2nd through 4th grade, we recommend the 7v7. For those coaching 5th and 6th, we recommend the 9v9. For those coaching grades 7th or higher, we recommend 11v11.
In-Town Coaches are highly encouraged to take the 4v4 in person. While the online course is helpful, the knowledge that is gained during the field training session is much more valuable for use in running your training sessions.
If you have any questions about these licensing courses, or which one you should take, please email our Director of Coaching at mansfieldysdoc@gmail.com.
More at Massachusetts Youth Soccer (MYSA)
Visit “Coach Education” on the MYSA website for pathway information, grassroots podcasts and other available resources.
