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S1 E3 - Andrew Kummerer
48 Plays4 months ago
Craig is joined by Andrew Kummerer, Director of Coaching for MLS Next Club FC Delco. Andrew is passionate about Youth development and as strong views about the subject.
Andrew Kummerer
Twitter / X - Follow @krummy06
Instagram - @krummy7
Session Share
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Transcript
Introduction and Background of Andrew Coomer
00:00:03
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Session Share, the Coaches Podcast. My name is Craig Bertersall and I'm extremely enthusiastic to have Andrew Coomer. I've had the pleasure of knowing Andrew for a few years and have the opportunity to work with him at MLS Next Club FC Delco. Andrew is the Director of Coaching at FC Delco in Downingtown, Pennsylvania. Andrew has a lot of insights and feedback on how he feels players should be developed in the early stages. How you doing, Andrew?
00:00:31
Speaker
Good Craig, thanks for asking. Excited to get out, get on this podcast with you and just, you know, see how we can help other coaches. Fantastic. So tell me a little bit about your background. How'd you get involved in football?
Andrew's Journey to FC Delco
00:00:45
Speaker
I started it when I was five, just a local rec program. I still actually work with that local program now with with some of my camps and um you know obviously my my family's involved with it, still with my brother's coach and their kids, but started at five there. and they were They were just starting into travel with Downingtown Spirit at the time, which eventually you know merged with FC Delco.
00:01:10
Speaker
Now it's all kind of one big thing, but i probably two years into it, a guest played in a tournament, got asked to play full-time and then got into ah my regular birth year. And I think it was like seven, eight years that I played with the club. um Left for two years, just end of high school. My team fell apart and then 07 came back to the club. And my one of my former club coaches actually had asked me to take on a team mid-year and so did that kind of mid-year 2007 and seven and ah basically been stuck since and went from a part-time coach to a full-time director that you know left other another career path and and here I am. Fantastic. So you've basically been a lifer at the club then, right? You started as a player and then ah built into being a coach.
00:01:59
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, 100%. I mean, there's basically between two year gap playing and, you know, colleges, that's my only real gap in life of not being a part of the club. You know, so basically almost from birth. That's awesome.
Motivation and Philosophy in Coaching
00:02:13
Speaker
Excellent. And what would you say has been your motivation once you got into coaching?
00:02:18
Speaker
I mean, it certainly varied over time. You know, at first it was like, oh yeah, it's something I like and, you know, I can make some extra money and all that. And then it just became, you know, a way for me to stay young, a way for me to impact kids and, you know, candidly just I'm a competitive person.
00:02:37
Speaker
And, you know, yeah, over time, you get hurt more and more playing men's league and you get tired of it. And so you utilize your ability to go out and coach kids and use that as your competitive fix, if you will, to, you know, kind of satisfy those those needs when you no longer can play or at least play at a competitive level.
00:02:57
Speaker
That's great. And then in that, that sentence that you did there, you mentioned competition quite a lot, which I know a lot of coaches kind of shy away from saying the idea of like, winning doesn't matter or anything like that. The fact that we have that competition I feel that competition is obviously very healthy for a kid to develop. One, because as they grow, it helps them in their career path and everything along those lines.
The Role of Competition in Training
00:03:22
Speaker
But also, I feel that it helps build confidence and it helps us as coaches then to give the opportunity to teach them more because the more they buy into the product, the more they buy into us, the better they become. Would you agree with that?
00:03:38
Speaker
1000% I mean, one of the biggest things when our our directors that kind of took over, shortly in that transition when I was coming in and you were you were headed elsewhere. One of the biggest things they talked about from the very get go was the intensity and the competition, competition level of training that, you know, we can't expect kids to compete at a certain level in game, but not demand that in training. um So from a soccer perspective, i I'm 1000% on board, I, I've tried to yeah You hear a lot of coaches over time say, the the practice should be harder than the game. And I never was able to really draw that out until my first girls team um and my first U8, U9 team that I had for four years. By the second, third year, our our training sessions were
00:04:32
Speaker
Ruthless, to say the least. Now, it was a healthy ruthless in terms of, you know, we competed and at the end of the day they understood, hey, we're teammates and we're trying to make each other better. But when we went into games, most teams were tired of playing two thirds of the way through the game because we were just so relentless.
00:04:48
Speaker
Um, you know, so from a soccer perspective, I couldn't agree more. Uh, but more importantly, and I think this will tie into some things we'll probably talk about later, but to your point about life, I mean, we, we need to help teach kids how to compete, how to be successful, how to be driven, how to manage emotions, how to be driven to get better. Um, and if you don't create a competitive environment, what are you striving for?
00:05:14
Speaker
Very true. They say like steel sharp and steel, right? And if to give an example of say like the Premier League, if you're Manchester City and you're a centre back and you're coming against Holland every single day of the week, um it's going to keep come easier come the weekend, right? So it's as simple as that. Like you mentioned a few things there that um I think is going to tie into my next question. and What do you feel your coaching philosophy is?
00:05:41
Speaker
It's involved over time i think as we learn more and and all of us as coaches directors we joke about you know how none of us has an original idea that everything is ah a conglomerate or a compilation of of everyone's ideas. ah For me you know in terms of the players that you know i wanted to teach players how to develop good habits.
00:06:02
Speaker
ah in terms of you know what their mentality is when they show up for training, when to be silly, when to be serious, um you know attention to detail. Again, going back to, and I think this is what you meant, but helping them prepare to be successful in the future. right But I also want to create a fun environment that fosters autonomy, problem-solving, creativity, and again, going back to a competitiveness. um As a club, we want to establish those behaviors um such as being aggressive, you know, whether it's, you know, aggressive in their mentality of with the ball, aggressive in their mentality without the ball, physically aggressive, um you know, sprinting reactions, you know, those kinds of behaviors are really what we try to establish, particularly, you know, from a zone one perspective.
00:06:49
Speaker
um yeah Because I think the skill stuff, you yes, there's a certain age where you want to have those skills developed, but I think you need to create certain habits first to be able to properly develop those skills.
00:07:03
Speaker
totally agree we'll be back shortly andrew after a short break a little short break involving ah commercial with zencast Do you have a story to tell that the world needs to hear? Have you struggled with reaching new audiences who are engaged with your story? It might be time for you to start a podcast.
00:07:22
Speaker
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00:07:52
Speaker
Welcome back. And we're going to delve in a little detail, in more detail, I should say, in developing players, in particular the players in the Zone 1 age group. Andrew, tell us a little bit about the issues you face on a day-to-day basis. I think the first one, you know, particularly, I guess we're talking from a director's perspective, you know, session planning, helping coaches.
00:08:17
Speaker
develop sessions, helping them be better in training, helping them be better in games. um You know, for me, I think, you know, I've criticized experienced coaches in the past for how basic some of their practices have been. You know, some of these coaches, they just throw out a couple of pug goals. They say, go play. They walk over to the coach next to them and say, hey, you want a scrimmage. ah in In theory, I do understand a lot in terms of why, you know, in the sense of letting kids play and learning on the on the fly kind of in terms of game like situations. um But I do think there needs to be a little bit more context in terms of, you know,
00:08:59
Speaker
trying to draw out specific concepts, specific themes, specific ideas. and And so for me, what I've really kind of focused on with coaches is simplification, um having your core sessions, having more simple activities that really kind of allow you to get right into it, allow kids to would adapt quicker. um You know, that's, that's one thing, obviously, you have to manage parent frustrations on a daily basis, ah which can be a variety of things. And I won't say that, I would say largely, you know, probably 90% of the concerns that parents have are fair. It's how they're presented is really the issue. um You know, most don't know how to properly approach, you know, a director or coach and ask for feedback. They don't know how to control their emotions and
00:09:47
Speaker
yeah these things tend to spiral into bigger situations than what they really need to be. Good. I was going to say that um the first one that you brought up about the quality of like session plans and stuff like that for the coaches, the one thing I found is the fact that it's it's like two opposites of the scale. um The first one being that you have the coach that feels the initial and let the game teach the player, which I can understand to ah a logic, but you can't just throw a bunch of balls out and expect them to learn to get better.
00:10:22
Speaker
I kind of like in it too i can hit a piano a hundred time but i'm gonna sound like music do you mean so it's as simple as that and then you get the ones on the other end and. ah If it's if they're not over complicated they think they're not doing the right job and then the kids get lost basically not being out to figure out what's going on.
00:10:42
Speaker
oh um For me it's a case of 100% agree with you, simplifying the process, making sure the kids know what they're learning, but also the amount of coaches I see go out there and the last 30 minutes of their hour and a half practice is just to sit back and let the kids play.
00:11:02
Speaker
And for me, I think you need to find one or two points within that coaching session to tie it into your practice. So the kids have what I refer to as
Session Planning and Problem-Solving
00:11:11
Speaker
that, like, aha moment. So they figure out why Andrew did this in the middle of his session. So this helps me in the game come the weekend. I think that's fair. Yeah, I mean, for ah for the club and what I've learned to do, we've gone with the whole part, whole methodology in terms of bigger than smaller than bigger. So to use your analogy in relation to a piano, um you know we've talked about like an orchestra, right? You have the whole orchestra, you're working on a certain part of a song, ah then you narrow it down into one section, say like you know the the woodwinds or whatever, and then you go back and do the whole group, right? So for me, I typically only have three activities in a session.
00:11:53
Speaker
And you know it's gonna be a bigger game you know that a smaller game smaller numbers than back into a bigger game. um yeah know But the last five or 10, I will step away and let them be free. And you know if it gets to a point, you know obviously kids are kids and sometimes they take freedom and they run with it. um And you know I have separate thoughts on how to mitigate that. um you know But as long as they're competing and trying to do the things we've worked on throughout, you know I try to let them have that five, 10 minutes of stress free, no coaching, no structure, anything.
00:12:30
Speaker
you know, because they do need at some point to see if they can do it themselves. And that helps you kind of assess a little bit in terms of looking back and go, OK, how much success that I really have today. I'm saying I like that. It's about following that balance, isn't it? um I agree with the fact that most of the players that you're coaching are like, you nine and up, correct? Yeah, yeah. I mean, what I do right now is I coach the U11s the year before pre-EC now and pre-MLS for our boys and girls.
00:13:00
Speaker
um But something I would say kind of going back to that for me is, you know, I think young coaches, new coaches, um you know, they they often over complicate things for themselves. They need, they think they need a million cones. They think they need a million goals. um They think they need a really complex activity. And some of the most, I mean, one of the most basic things we use, some call it Penn State, some call it King of the Hill, but basically winter stays on.
00:13:27
Speaker
right I start and end with that almost every single night. So the kids play that probably almost 50, 60 minutes of practice every night. Now, how do I change that? Multiple goals, um touch restrictions.
00:13:42
Speaker
um ah It could be a restriction before you can go to goal, a number of passes, it could be yeah everybody has to be in the attacking half to score, you know, things like that. um You know, but I, I try to keep it so simple. um And I'm sure we'll, I'll probably go back into this later. But like, for me, there's an orientation phase of every, um, activity. There's the orientation of the coach getting adjusted to, is it big enough? Is it small enough? Is it the goals in the right spot? What's the rotation of players if that's part of the activity? With that, the players are getting oriented to what are the rules? Where's the space at? What's the problem? Right. So for five, 10 minutes, there really shouldn't be any coaching because learning is already taking place both for the coach and for the player.
00:14:32
Speaker
right So that observation period for me is massive and the the the inexperienced coach jumps in and starts identifying or fixing the problem before the the problem is actually identified. right And so the kids are just at this point trying to figure out the game itself and you're already adding more information, their heads go into what I call mental paralysis.
00:14:55
Speaker
Right. And so I've lately, I've been really encouraging coaches like, Hey, basically keep your mouth shut for five, seven minutes and figure out what you need to change and make sure a real problem exists. Because we have this false sense of like, Oh, there's a problem because they can't do this. The problem is they can't do it because the field's too small or they're having too much success because the field's too big.
00:15:17
Speaker
Right? So I think the best tool that a coach can really learn from is observation first and allow themselves to settle in and kind of take away their own anxiety, right? We all get nervous coaching, right? Oh my God, parents are watching or, you know, I don't want to screw this up. My director's over there. It's like, no, just Take a deep breath, let everything settle in, and after five, seven minutes of just observing, all of a sudden you forget about all those other things and you're just trying to figure out where your spot is to interject.
00:15:49
Speaker
Totally agree. I feel like at times coaches are scared of that chaos when an activity isn't quite going right. I agree. I've allowed told coaches to wait two to three minutes, see if it problem solves itself, because you'll also find that sometimes the players help each other get through it as well. And that's obviously coaching the mental side of the game, as well as the physical, the technical, the tactical.
00:16:14
Speaker
and all those things so that's great um um social to write social teamwork right i mean there's a lot there that we. You know that there's little moments that we take away and teaching that we don't realize it because we think we're teaching by talking. And you just eliminated probably five other sources of information.
00:16:35
Speaker
I love that. but That's very good advice. And speaking of advice, if a coach comes to you brand new, fresh off the conveyor belt, if you will, what's the best bit of advice you would give them?
Advice for New Coaches
00:16:48
Speaker
Well, honestly, there's a lot. um You know, for me, you know, I'll i'll say i I could have used a lot more little things to help me early on.
00:16:59
Speaker
I had good ideas. I had a good foundation. I think I had the personality for it, um which I think for me, identifying coaches, you have to have a personality, right? You have to have energy. But, um you know, the the the notes that I kind of jotted down were one, just understanding that every kid has different needs and tailoring to them, not asking them to tailor to you. You'll capture a lot more kids and you'll gain a lot more trust and confidence from them by adapting to them as opposed to them adapting to you. um In training, so for me, you know, what I've, I kind of already said it a little bit, but just making sure that the game's a real situation, the activity's a real situation that the kids can relate to. That they're like, oh, this is just like in the game or in the game. Oh, this was like practice on Tuesday. I know how to solve this now. um And then the last one we we already kind of dive dove into, but
00:17:54
Speaker
just the simplification of training, not just the activities, but the number, right? Six to eight core activities. And literally, that's kind of your go-to. It allows you to get training going faster, because kids quickly understand, oh, we're doing King of the Hill, or, oh, we're doing Crossfire, or, you know, whatever it is. You know, you can set it up. They start looking around.
00:18:19
Speaker
I don't know if you experienced this, but I have kids that try to predict what we're doing before I even start explaining it. So it's a good example of they're already trying to identify certain things and they already have a certain comfort level and how their emotions are. So, you know, if you go and give them something new, they freeze up. If you give them something they're comfortable with and they like.
00:18:42
Speaker
They get excited right so right there you're changing emotional reactions by your activities which changes how quickly they get going the energy the effort. And then that whole orientation that we just talked about that gets shrunk down to a two three minute. Scenario where you barely have to adjust anything and then you can get more repetition which everybody agrees repetition is good cuts down on stoppages.
00:19:09
Speaker
Yeah, it's funny you mentioned that about um experiencing that as a coach. I remember, and it was back in downtown Pennsylvania that like, I developed a curriculum for the club and everything like that, just like you do too. and With session plans and everything like that, pass them out to the coaches, they use and adapt and so on. And I remember I do did an exercise that I actually invented, created, if you will. And I just remember one of the kids turned around to me. No, no, no, no. Coach Tony did this to but to us last week. um Maybe because I gave him the session plan. But you know what I mean? So like the one thing I found, especially with coaching in America, is the fact that if you do an activity more than once, they're like, oh, we've done this before. And they kind of like pass it on.
00:19:58
Speaker
Whereas like in Germany, for example, they will do the same session plan for the whole week. So they'll spend two to three days for the whole week doing the same session plan. And their theory of that is, is the fact the first time you introduce an exercise, the kids are learning how to play the exercise.
00:20:15
Speaker
the second time they're learning how to now play the exercise within the game and then the third time they do the exercise it's natural and it's now time that they're adapting it to their game which I think is a very unique experience because I feel like if we saw that from our coaches doing the same lesson plan for a whole week we would say that was laziness.
00:20:38
Speaker
Do you understand where I'm coming from? it's ah yeah that's I actually agree with the with the other side. of it the I think you said it was a German club. um That's kind of where I said like the orientation period, right? So like the way we have our curriculum set up, it originally we started our curriculum where it was like point counterpoint. So for example, building out of the back, learning how to press against a build out.
00:21:01
Speaker
right and it was That was first week, session one, session two. Second week was playing in behind, learning how to delay, third week finishing, learning how to defend shots. We changed it to a two-week cycle where three of the four sessions are, say, building out of the back. So building out of the back day one, building out of the back day two.
00:21:22
Speaker
Day three defending against the build out day four is now defending against the build out or planning with the build out against a better defensive shape now because you worked on both sides of it. But basically within those four sessions you do nearly the exact same activities you might change one or two.
00:21:45
Speaker
Um, so that, that's kind of where we've, or I won't say we've, cause not everybody is has done it within this coaching staff. But for me, that's where I've gotten to. Like I said, six to eight core activities, even going from one phase of the game to the other.
00:21:59
Speaker
The activities aren't far you know from the the original. it's It's, again, a modification. Maybe it's the orientation of the field. Maybe it's the the width is wider than the length to modify it. But again, rules and kind of game flow are almost the same.
00:22:18
Speaker
I think that's a great hybrid of way of doing it as well because say, for example, you're doing playing out from the back, the the team is now learning how to play it from the back. That's obvious that's in the title. And then when you do the reverse then and you're doing pressing from the front, you may be not coaching the defenders now, but they're having to do the stuff you've already implemented in a previous session and as kind of like a revision. And now you're able to focus on the other team who's now pressing from the front. So I think that's a really what good way of doing it.
00:22:48
Speaker
So, I'm not sure, last time you've done a US soccer course, but have you heard their concept they use, which is called OLI, Orientation Learning Implementation?
OLI Methodology in Training
00:22:58
Speaker
Yeah, could you explain that a little bit more? think I think our readers wouldn't listen as well. Yeah, yeah um it was something that was kind of interesting. It's a way to to help teach kids, but I think for me, it was everything that I just shared in terms of like the orientation of activities and stuff like that, it kind of stemmed from this concept. So what they want you to do in each activity is they want you to, um so you set up your activity, you get it started, then at the beginning of the activity, you're actually coaching the opposite side of the theme, right? So you're creating the problem effectively. So if it's if you wanna work on building out of the back,
00:23:40
Speaker
they start coaching the defense first and make sure that the pressure against the build out is appropriate so that the real problem is created. And that can be anything from three minutes to 15 minutes, depending on how effectively they do it. That might also involve modification of the um the the framework of the session, right? You know, size, space,
00:24:07
Speaker
My apologies, we had a little bit of technical difference difficulties there, so we are going to carry on a podcast after this short message. Do you need fresh ideas for your football, soccer training? Then follow Session Share on YouTube and X. Our handles can be found in the show description. Session Share. Four coaches, bye coaches.
00:24:30
Speaker
Welcome back. We just spoke about advice that you would give a coach. um What advice do you feel you've been given, Andrew, that's helped you with your career?
Connecting with Players
00:24:41
Speaker
The main thing that comes to mind and super basic is just be enthusiastic. um I think at the end of the day, a lot of coaches come into it, and and I did this as a young coach, made the mistake of thinking players should just be motivated to show up and and play and compete.
00:24:59
Speaker
And yeah what I realized was that, no, that's actually a big part of what we do as coaches is getting kids excited to be here. um you know Whether it's through the type of activities we do, um but you know for us just our energy to you know give the kid a fist bump when they show up and you know smile and pat them on the back and ask them how their day was, be enthusiastic and care about the kids. ah The quicker they feel like you care about them, ah the quicker they're gonna,
00:25:28
Speaker
trust you, execute the things that you're asking, and do it at a high level of confidence as well. I love that. Yeah, great bit of advice there. And we're going to finish off the podcast, Andrew, a little bit of a lighter moment. um What's your favorite moment in sports? It can be anything as a player, a fan, a coach.
Favorite Sports Moments
00:25:49
Speaker
Yeah, for me, simple, I'm a, I'm a Philadelphia sports fan. So obviously an Eagles Super Bowl was ah a big deal. Um, you know, my, my, my mom passed away actually this past spring and she, she was a life life Eagles fan diehard used to write notes to the Eagles coaches when she was upset with them, uh, things like that. And so like to this day for what, six, seven years now, the background of my phone has been a picture of like my whole family together for that.
00:26:20
Speaker
um and I also have a photo picking up my mom-mom in celebration during that ah during that night. so That's obviously my number one, um the Phillies World Series. Again, a kind of a funny memory. My brother and I are babysitting my niece who was a year or two old while my mom, dad, and my other brother and and his wife were at the game, and we had to celebrate in silence because she was sleeping. so We're fist-pumping, you know but like not yelling so we don't wake her up.
00:26:48
Speaker
um That's not right there. Yeah, but it's like they're said they're just so subtle about that. They're just like, you'll never forget how you celebrated when they won. It was like, you know, silent, silent celebration. um And then the third one, I'm actually the buddy that I'm seeing tomorrow that I, he started coaching me early on. I don't know if you remember Mike Korovich, but Mike and I were at a local restaurant, I won't say which one, but we're in there watching USA Algeria ah in the World Cup. And, you know, it's obviously it's a tense game and, you know, we're with the the extra time and he decides at the worst moment in time to go into the bathroom to take a leak. And while he's in there, we score and he's telling me how he's in there, like fist pump into the sky while he's standing at the What a way to celebrate.
00:27:37
Speaker
Yeah, so those are the three I kind of came up with. I'm sure there's there's some personal ones, you know, in terms of playing that I had some good memories. But those in in terms of a fan, those were the best. There's some really good stories there, some that you'll be able to tell for the rest of your life, I imagine for sure.
00:27:54
Speaker
That is awesome. Well, ah thank you very much, Andrew, for your time. I've had a lot of fun with this conversation. It's been great. It's been very beneficial.
Conclusion and Contact Information
00:28:02
Speaker
um So, Andrew, if our listeners want to get in touch, obviously, either with your position at FC Dalco or just in general, um is there any social media outlets that you'd like to promote?
00:28:13
Speaker
Yeah, I use Instagram. It's crummy 7 k-r-u-m-m-y-7. Or on Twitter X, I i go by crummy06. Great. So what I'll do is I'll leave that in our podcast ah handle at the bottom of the page when you download your podcasts.
00:28:33
Speaker
and you'll be able to get in touch with Andrew. So, well, that's all about the time we have for this episode of Session Share, The Coaches Podcast. Thank you very much, Andrew, for joining me. Be sure to get in touch across all our socials to offer your opinions on what we discussed. We can be found in the podcast description. This has been Session Share, The Coaches Podcast. Thank you for listening and thank you for coaching the beautiful game.