Hi everyone! I miss seeing all of your and your player’s faces on a daily basis! I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy and sane. 

 

I was thinking back yesterday to right before spring break when everything became very real and our worlds were all changed so significantly. I remember thinking, well what now? Everything we usually did all of sudden we couldn’t. Everything we wanted to do we knew we shouldn't. And the timing was brutal too with it all coming right when the competitive season was about to start and our rec season was going to start shortly thereafter. It was like I was learning how to drive in my mom’s old Isuzu stick shift on a hill at a stop light waiting to turn left with 5 cars behind me only to stall multiple times through two traffic light cycles.

 

I remember during spring break reading so many blog posts, listening to so many podcasts, and talking to all of our coaches searching for an answer when there wasn’t one. And when discussing everything, it came down to the fact that we had two choices: sit down and wait for everything to pass, or buckle down and get to work however we could. I am beyond proud that we chose the latter, and much like when I was learning to drive I am glad everyone has been so patient and understanding, and also much like then, we have fairly quickly figured out how to move forward. 

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The coaches all met virtually that first Monday after spring break, and we talked about what we could do. We knew that everyone was going to be struggling with adjusting to home-schooling and working from home (including yours truly with my son), and we knew that whatever we did not everyone would be able to do. However, we also knew that our goals - to develop each player to their maximum potential holistically in the areas of cognition, competence, confidence, connection, and character - had not changed, but that our method to go about it needed to. We agreed that we could still work towards our goals virtually, so the coaches got to work filming training videos (insert shameless plug for the GESC youtube channel), and we started the next week meeting online with all our competitive and academy groups once a week. Since then, all of our coaches have continued to meet with our groups once a week and we have also continued to have coaches' meetings every week via zoom. The coaches have been using this time to fine tune and update our game model and style of play and coaching methodologies so that we can come out of this even better and stronger than we entered.

 

It has definitely been a challenge that is outside all of our comfort zones, and we continue to learn a lot on how to conduct virtual sessions with kids (by the way, teachers are amazing; thank you to all of our teachers and education people during this time and always!), but seeing some of the kids faces and getting to see some smiles and work with some players made it worth it. We hope that those that have been able to get on have enjoyed it and found some encouragement to keep working on their game and themselves too. And for those that have not been able to get on the calls or not wanted to, that is totally ok too! We knew that not everyone would be able to or even want to, and we totally understand. 

 

I just know that this past month has showed me that - just like when I was stuck at the stoplight - we will get through this, and whenever that is, GESC will still be here for everyone as a club that was created and always will be run by soccer people for soccer people. Talk to everyone soon!