Two days' notice and a bag of flat balls

2026-10-07 · Rory Callahan

The email arrived on a Thursday. The under-7s needed a coach by Saturday, and I was the only parent who hadn't stepped back fast enough.

I'd never coached anything. I went into the garage and found a mesh bag of soccer balls, half of them flat, and a stack of orange cones from a birthday party. That was my entire plan.

The first practice was chaos. I'd copied a passing drill from the internet: two lines, kids waiting their turn. Within five minutes, half of them were lying on the grass looking at clouds.

So I threw the drill out and played a game. Every kid with a ball, everyone moving, everyone laughing. They didn't learn a perfect pass that day, but they all came back the next week. That turned out to be the whole job.

I kept notes all season on what worked and what flopped. Those notes became the First-Season Coach Kit: the week-by-week plan, the parent meeting and the emails I wish someone had handed me that Thursday.