GFR Falling apart?

[Anonymous]

who is FA? young girls coach leaving to start a new club? boys side is doing great!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So she's a terrible coach but she makes the girls feel welcome and the girls are happy to be part of the group... such a horrible person.

How dare she not put pressure on these 6-7 year olds to become professionals and earn those badges.

I hear the futsal program had a lot of kids there, so while GFR might keep their best coaches, hard to coach when you don't have kids to coach

you have never seen her coach if you don't think she is putting pressure on those kids. maybe not PTA, we never did that, but at U9 and U10 she was a monster.

a monster? 🤣🤣 but you stayed w/ her for 2 years? and now people saying she’s coaching 100 girls and none have left….weird.

FA is a very good coach. Our daughter loves her. She is easily the best in-game coach of all the soccer coaches that all of our children have had.

Between my two DDs, I have spent a lot of time FA-adjacent, although never directly on one of her teams. Coach F is a complex character, and many things can be true at once:

1. She pushes her teams to play with aggressiveness, tenacity, and quick decisionmaking. As a result, at U8/U9, they win a lot of games. Winning at these ages is not necessarily the most important thing, but a lot of parents are happy to have their DD on a “good” or “winning” team.

2. There will be a handful of players on the team who will be her favorites (and, in fairness, who will often be the biggest, most athletic, and/or most talented). She will script her games to play through these players up front. They will get a lot of touches on the ball and a lot of positive and constructive feedback. These kids will develop and their parents will likely be big fans of FA.

3. Everyone on her team, if they stick it out, will learn to play efficient, tenacious soccer and make quick decisions on the field. This decisionmaking & tenacity will benefit them as they get older. Her teams will also be well-conditioned.

4. They may not get the strongest foundation in technical skills often taught at this age and it may not be the best environment for everyone’s individual development, although they’ll learn to play under pressure. Also not the place for smaller & even faster players to develop unless already very talented with the ball.

5. The style of play that wins the games for FA will not necessarily translate to older ages. They won’t necessarily learn how to play a possession game or develop a field sense for that style of play.

6. I’ve seen or heard of behavior that, to me, crosses the line for coaching 8 y.o. & 9 y.o. players. Picking favorites and encouraging cliques to form on teams. Mocking and encouraging kids to mock players who are less physically fit as a way to “encourage” them to get into shape. Pulling players after one-minute shifts if they did something she didn’t like. Not everyone who starts with FA learns to love soccer, some give it up or look for a different environment.

7. Mercy and sportsmanship are not part of her lessons. Once I came over to watch a friends’ daughter in a tournament game. Her team had locked up their half of the bracket and was up 10-0 in the game against a clearly overmatched team with c. 5 minutes left. Her starters were still in and playing very physically to the point that the other team walked off the field rather than finish the game after this resulted in an injury to one of their defenders. Made me think of Cobra Kai.

To some this mix makes her a good coach. To others it’s not the environment for their DD.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So she's a terrible coach but she makes the girls feel welcome and the girls are happy to be part of the group... such a horrible person.

How dare she not put pressure on these 6-7 year olds to become professionals and earn those badges.

I hear the futsal program had a lot of kids there, so while GFR might keep their best coaches, hard to coach when you don't have kids to coach

you have never seen her coach if you don't think she is putting pressure on those kids. maybe not PTA, we never did that, but at U9 and U10 she was a monster.

a monster? 🤣🤣 but you stayed w/ her for 2 years? and now people saying she’s coaching 100 girls and none have left….weird.

FA is a very good coach. Our daughter loves her. She is easily the best in-game coach of all the soccer coaches that all of our children have had.

Between my two DDs, I have spent a lot of time FA-adjacent, although never directly on one of her teams. Coach F is a complex character, and many things can be true at once:

1. She pushes her teams to play with aggressiveness, tenacity, and quick decisionmaking. As a result, at U8/U9, they win a lot of games. Winning at these ages is not necessarily the most important thing, but a lot of parents are happy to have their DD on a “good” or “winning” team.

2. There will be a handful of players on the team who will be her favorites (and, in fairness, who will often be the biggest, most athletic, and/or most talented). She will script her games to play through these players up front. They will get a lot of touches on the ball and a lot of positive and constructive feedback. These kids will develop and their parents will likely be big fans of FA.

3. Everyone on her team, if they stick it out, will learn to play efficient, tenacious soccer and make quick decisions on the field. This decisionmaking & tenacity will benefit them as they get older. Her teams will also be well-conditioned.

4. They may not get the strongest foundation in technical skills often taught at this age and it may not be the best environment for everyone’s individual development, although they’ll learn to play under pressure. Also not the place for smaller & even faster players to develop unless already very talented with the ball.

5. The style of play that wins the games for FA will not necessarily translate to older ages. They won’t necessarily learn how to play a possession game or develop a field sense for that style of play.

6. I’ve seen or heard of behavior that, to me, crosses the line for coaching 8 y.o. & 9 y.o. players. Picking favorites and encouraging cliques to form on teams. Mocking and encouraging kids to mock players who are less physically fit as a way to “encourage” them to get into shape. Pulling players after one-minute shifts if they did something she didn’t like. Not everyone who starts with FA learns to love soccer, some give it up or look for a different environment.

7. Mercy and sportsmanship are not part of her lessons. Once I came over to watch a friends’ daughter in a tournament game. Her team had locked up their half of the bracket and was up 10-0 in the game against a clearly overmatched team with c. 5 minutes left. Her starters were still in and playing very physically to the point that the other team walked off the field rather than finish the game after this resulted in an injury to one of their defenders. Made me think of Cobra Kai.

To some this mix makes her a good coach. To others it’s not the environment for their DD.

This is 100% accurate. And those who think she's a good coach for doing all of this, may your daughters psyche survive it as many parents and girls do not even realize the amount of damage this causes until years later when they have to relearn the game under technical coaches who play possession and don't care to win every single game at the detriment her players who spend their time on the bench being ridiculed, put in games for a minute (seriously, A MINUTE!) just to be pulled out for no good reason and then not even spoken to about it. Anyone calling her a good coach of 8 and 9 year old girls for this behavior and backing it up by saying she wins games as justification for it is exactly what is wrong with player development in this club. Anyone who defends this coach should be ashamed of themselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So she's a terrible coach but she makes the girls feel welcome and the girls are happy to be part of the group... such a horrible person.

How dare she not put pressure on these 6-7 year olds to become professionals and earn those badges.

I hear the futsal program had a lot of kids there, so while GFR might keep their best coaches, hard to coach when you don't have kids to coach

you have never seen her coach if you don't think she is putting pressure on those kids. maybe not PTA, we never did that, but at U9 and U10 she was a monster.

a monster? 🤣🤣 but you stayed w/ her for 2 years? and now people saying she’s coaching 100 girls and none have left….weird.

FA is a very good coach. Our daughter loves her. She is easily the best in-game coach of all the soccer coaches that all of our children have had.

Between my two DDs, I have spent a lot of time FA-adjacent, although never directly on one of her teams. Coach F is a complex character, and many things can be true at once:

1. She pushes her teams to play with aggressiveness, tenacity, and quick decisionmaking. As a result, at U8/U9, they win a lot of games. Winning at these ages is not necessarily the most important thing, but a lot of parents are happy to have their DD on a “good” or “winning” team.

2. There will be a handful of players on the team who will be her favorites (and, in fairness, who will often be the biggest, most athletic, and/or most talented). She will script her games to play through these players up front. They will get a lot of touches on the ball and a lot of positive and constructive feedback. These kids will develop and their parents will likely be big fans of FA.

3. Everyone on her team, if they stick it out, will learn to play efficient, tenacious soccer and make quick decisions on the field. This decisionmaking & tenacity will benefit them as they get older. Her teams will also be well-conditioned.

4. They may not get the strongest foundation in technical skills often taught at this age and it may not be the best environment for everyone’s individual development, although they’ll learn to play under pressure. Also not the place for smaller & even faster players to develop unless already very talented with the ball.

5. The style of play that wins the games for FA will not necessarily translate to older ages. They won’t necessarily learn how to play a possession game or develop a field sense for that style of play.

6. I’ve seen or heard of behavior that, to me, crosses the line for coaching 8 y.o. & 9 y.o. players. Picking favorites and encouraging cliques to form on teams. Mocking and encouraging kids to mock players who are less physically fit as a way to “encourage” them to get into shape. Pulling players after one-minute shifts if they did something she didn’t like. Not everyone who starts with FA learns to love soccer, some give it up or look for a different environment.

7. Mercy and sportsmanship are not part of her lessons. Once I came over to watch a friends’ daughter in a tournament game. Her team had locked up their half of the bracket and was up 10-0 in the game against a clearly overmatched team with c. 5 minutes left. Her starters were still in and playing very physically to the point that the other team walked off the field rather than finish the game after this resulted in an injury to one of their defenders. Made me think of Cobra Kai.

To some this mix makes her a good coach. To others it’s not the environment for their DD.

spot on. x1000.

[Anonymous]

Yep, this was my daughters experience with FA. Best thing that ever happened to her was moving to Alex's team where she learned technical skills and even though they were still a very good team, they lost a few games, which, guys, believe it or not, is a good thing!

[Anonymous]

For a couple years now, it seems like there has been significant disruption as a team ages out of FA's age groups (U9 and U10), with many players leaving GFR before U11 begins.

That seems very disruptive for the club, and for a couple of years, the U11s have ended up in a rebuilding stage (almost seems like they are starting from scratch).

It seems like it would be in the best interest of the club and the players for coaches to do the best they can with a team while they have them and then push that team forward to the next coach, encouraging their success. Some players will naturally leave for other clubs or quit soccer entirely, but when it's repeatedly a significant number of players leaving, what is the explanation? What could the club do to minimize this disruption while still developing strong, resilient AND technical players and building the foundations for a strong ECNL-RL program for those who want that? What is going to happen with that same age group transition next year?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For a couple years now, it seems like there has been significant disruption as a team ages out of FA's age groups (U9 and U10), with many players leaving GFR before U11 begins.

That seems very disruptive for the club, and for a couple of years, the U11s have ended up in a rebuilding stage (almost seems like they are starting from scratch).

It seems like it would be in the best interest of the club and the players for coaches to do the best they can with a team while they have them and then push that team forward to the next coach, encouraging their success. Some players will naturally leave for other clubs or quit soccer entirely, but when it's repeatedly a significant number of players leaving, what is the explanation? What could the club do to minimize this disruption while still developing strong, resilient AND technical players and building the foundations for a strong ECNL-RL program for those who want that? What is going to happen with that same age group transition next year?

Could have something to do with FA not being a team player not only with her teams but with other coaches. I’ve heard her badmouth ML and NM repeatedly and they are the coaches that tend to be coaching U11-U13 right now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So she's a terrible coach but she makes the girls feel welcome and the girls are happy to be part of the group... such a horrible person.

How dare she not put pressure on these 6-7 year olds to become professionals and earn those badges.

I hear the futsal program had a lot of kids there, so while GFR might keep their best coaches, hard to coach when you don't have kids to coach

you have never seen her coach if you don't think she is putting pressure on those kids. maybe not PTA, we never did that, but at U9 and U10 she was a monster.

a monster? 🤣🤣 but you stayed w/ her for 2 years? and now people saying she’s coaching 100 girls and none have left….weird.

FA is a very good coach. Our daughter loves her. She is easily the best in-game coach of all the soccer coaches that all of our children have had.

Wow. I am sorry for all the shit coaches you have had. She literally does nothing but tell kids to kick the ball down the field. If you think that is good coaching, that is a sad state of things.

Your comment is wildly inaccurate. But I also don’t care. We like her. Our daughter likes her. Nearly every parent on the teams we have had with her as coach has liked her.

She’s coaching 8 and 9 years olds in their first years of travel soccer so saying she’s the best in game coach someone has ever had is crazy. But glad you’re happy with her.

agree with that statement being absurd, but compared to opposing team
coaches this season who got yellow cards in her games for screaming at refs- she’s tame. and somehow this horrible coach has a team with 2 fall tournament wins- one undefeated. I have zero skin in this game but have seen them play on adjacent fields and kids/parents/refs seem happy.

The coaches screaming at refs statement is accurate. Happened at Revolution Cup. Opposing coaches -- won't name the team but it's easy enough to narrow it to three choices -- chased the ref (who appeared to be a teenager) across the field at halftime and then kept berating her in the 2nd half. Ref finally showed them yellow midway through the half. It was incredibly inappropriate behavior. I have never seen FA even approach that line.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: 7. Mercy and sportsmanship are not part of her lessons. Once I came over to watch a friends’ daughter in a tournament game. Her team had locked up their half of the bracket and was up 10-0 in the game against a clearly overmatched team with c. 5 minutes left. Her starters were still in and playing very physically to the point that the other team walked off the field rather than finish the game after this resulted in an injury to one of their defenders. Made me think of Cobra Kai.

I have not seen this. We had one game this fall against a clearly overmatched team -- score was something like 8-0 at halftime. She had the team spend the whole second half focused on possession and passing, with no shots unless possession first went back through our GK. The better players sat for much of the second half.

I thought she did a good job of balancing sportsmanship and respect for the other team.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: 7. Mercy and sportsmanship are not part of her lessons. Once I came over to watch a friends’ daughter in a tournament game. Her team had locked up their half of the bracket and was up 10-0 in the game against a clearly overmatched team with c. 5 minutes left. Her starters were still in and playing very physically to the point that the other team walked off the field rather than finish the game after this resulted in an injury to one of their defenders. Made me think of Cobra Kai.

I have not seen this. We had one game this fall against a clearly overmatched team -- score was something like 8-0 at halftime. She had the team spend the whole second half focused on possession and passing, with no shots unless possession first went back through our GK. The better players sat for much of the second half.

I thought she did a good job of balancing sportsmanship and respect for the other team.

Maybe one of the directors finally reeled her in then because this is definitely changed behavior from years prior when I was witnessing her “coaching”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: 7. Mercy and sportsmanship are not part of her lessons. Once I came over to watch a friends’ daughter in a tournament game. Her team had locked up their half of the bracket and was up 10-0 in the game against a clearly overmatched team with c. 5 minutes left. Her starters were still in and playing very physically to the point that the other team walked off the field rather than finish the game after this resulted in an injury to one of their defenders. Made me think of Cobra Kai.

I have not seen this. We had one game this fall against a clearly overmatched team -- score was something like 8-0 at halftime. She had the team spend the whole second half focused on possession and passing, with no shots unless possession first went back through our GK. The better players sat for much of the second half.

I thought she did a good job of balancing sportsmanship and respect for the other team.

That’s fair. I take back the last point—I only saw a few minutes of the game, not enough to draw that much from, and not necessarily under her control, and regardless everyone has bad days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow. Great news for GFR. We have been with MYS for a while now and I know they had their issues in the past but it's a well oiled machine at this point and I am sure PA will bring a lot of that to GFR.

Too bad all this wasn’t pulled off last spring

It was attempted, by the guy who is now starting his own club. lol Hopefully he doesn't make the same mistakes he did with GFR there. Thankfully the remaining/newer board members seem to have pulled off a great hire in this new ED and some of these coaches who are attempting to leave should be regretting it or changing their minds. New leadersship is exactly what GFR needed.

Club Super Mario is gonna be LIT. You don't even KNOW.

Did they hire TD with a wow factor? Even if did, if end of day if it’s same GFR coaches and those coaches bringing over their existing players, how is it different?

Not that I've heard. I don't think this new club even actually exists yet? Would they be registered as an LLC or something that could be searched?

Connect the dots for name and easy search on CIS SCC brings it up and name history gives dbas

[Anonymous]

These kids are 6-7 year olds. Your daughters are not all going to be T. Rodman. If the girls are happy being there and a coach/adult/teacher/parent asks a child to work harder it's not the end of the world.

Also to expect teams to play down or pass the ball around is absurd. If your team isn't good enough then maybe you should work harder, or be in a different division/bracket. Also if your team is that bad that they're down 10-0 at half, maybe it's time to play softball.

All I know is that there are many clubs at those ages who struggle to get girls to come out and play, I've never seen GFR struggle to get girls of that age to come out and play.

Has anyone heard RS yell at the boys last year at pre-travel? So it's OK for the boys' coaches to be demanding but not the girls?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These kids are 6-7 year olds. Your daughters are not all going to be T. Rodman. If the girls are happy being there and a coach/adult/teacher/parent asks a child to work harder it's not the end of the world.

Also to expect teams to play down or pass the ball around is absurd. If your team isn't good enough then maybe you should work harder, or be in a different division/bracket. Also if your team is that bad that they're down 10-0 at half, maybe it's time to play softball.

All I know is that there are many clubs at those ages who struggle to get girls to come out and play, I've never seen GFR struggle to get girls of that age to come out and play.

Has anyone heard RS yell at the boys last year at pre-travel? So it's OK for the boys' coaches to be demanding but not the girls?

I hope you’re not a lawyer because you make exactly zero good points or arguments here

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These kids are 6-7 year olds. Your daughters are not all going to be T. Rodman. If the girls are happy being there and a coach/adult/teacher/parent asks a child to work harder it's not the end of the world.

Also to expect teams to play down or pass the ball around is absurd. If your team isn't good enough then maybe you should work harder, or be in a different division/bracket. Also if your team is that bad that they're down 10-0 at half, maybe it's time to play softball.

All I know is that there are many clubs at those ages who struggle to get girls to come out and play, I've never seen GFR struggle to get girls of that age to come out and play.

Has anyone heard RS yell at the boys last year at pre-travel? So it's OK for the boys' coaches to be demanding but not the girls?

I hope you’re not a lawyer because you make exactly zero good points or arguments here

You think there are Lawyers on this forum?