September 24 2011

Mid season DOC update

Congratulations to CWSC for a great 1st half of the fall 2011 season !   Our teams and players are doing very well and CWSC is continuing to build on our reputation within CUSL as a competitive, technically based club who understand both winning and losing with "professionalism".  If you are playing a CWSC team, you are in for a good hard, fair battle.
 
I see our teams and players making significant strides in improving our technical play as well as improving our decision making and tactical reads during the game.  So to our coaches and trainers, keep working hard on the goals and priorities and providing our players with the technical foundation that is critical to being a successful player in CUSL, high school and even on to college.
 
A couple of items:
 
1.  we still can accommodate guest training sessions for teams so let me know if you are ready to have a CWSC staff trainer help you finish your fall season strong.   So send me an email and we will hook you up !
 
2.  I am beginning our planning for the after-fall season tryouts in November and need your assistance.  As we have done before, we will accommodate players of any age that attend, but we specifically will target those age groups in which a team or teams say they need players to fill open roster spots.
 
      -  remember that you are committed to all players on your roster for fall and spring.  you cannot replace or "cut" a player.  only that player can quit your team. 
 
      -  so you need to be "inventorying" your current players to assure that they are returning or not for the spring so you can plan, and you can:
 
      -  EMAIL ME BACK WITH YOUR NEED.   I need an email asap from any team that will need a player or players for the spring 2011 season so that we will plan a session for that age group.  That is, any age group that is not needing players will not have a designated tryout time on the November tryouts club schedule.  It will be 1 session per age group.
 
      -  No, I do not have the specific dates and times set yet, but it will most likely be 11/12, 13 and or 11/19, 20 unless I secure an indoor facility for during the week sessions....... 
 
3.  I want to reiterate Lauren Stutler's reminder about the codes of conduct and their importance.  It is critical that, as a coach,  you assure the codes are being adhered to.  It would be great if everyone "enthusiastically" supported and lived within the codes but we recognize that is not the case.....  but either way, you are responsible as the coach.  And, to you I remind you that as
a coach, you are working in a fish bowl --  you have players, parents, officials, other games all watching and listening to you all the time.  So, make sure you would be proud of everything you say and do !?!?!?!   If you were videotaped and that was shown on TV, would you be pleased ???? 
 
As always, questions, comments, input, feedback, concerns,   email me.
 
See you on the field, and at our tourney in a few weeks.
 

March 15, 2011

 Thanks to all who attended The Playing College Soccer and the Recruiting Experience Workshop.  We hope you found the information offered useful. The material covered is available in the table above.  The following list the names and emails of the panelists from Sunday night.  Feel free to email them with any questions.

Bill Spraul at billspraul@zoomtown.com
Bryan Warman at bryanw@fuse.net
Keith Combs at keith.combs@zoomtown.com
Jinnee Enders at jinene08@msn.com
Jackie Esterkamp at esterkamp_1414@hotmail.com
Mindy Cooper at mscoop00@alumni.thomasmore.edu

If you missed this great opportunity and have questions about college soccer, contact Bill Spraul at billspraul@zoomtown.com

 

November 1, 2010

     Cincinnati West Soccer Club Player Training Program
 

CWSC is proud to offer a wide array of multiple training programs to our players to enhance and maximize player  technical development.  Managed by the Director of Coaching, the Player Training Program provides high level training to both individual players and teams through out the season.  These programs focus primarily on improving player technical skills but also include tactical skills, all to supplement the tactical and game skills provided by coaches, and most importantly, by playing the game. 

Training Guidelines 

1.  CWSC trainers and coaches follow the CWSC Training Guidelines for all training sessions.  These standardized training session outlines provide consistent training and development opportunities for our players. 

CWSC Player Training Priorities and Goals for 2010-2011 Soccer Year 

For the 2010 fall and 2011 spring seasons, the following are the Training Priorities and Goals for all CWSC players and teams.  Our Training staff and coaches will be focused on these priorities during training sessions, player development and matches.  

Technical Training Priorities 

1.  Improve Possession:  the ability of players and team to collectively maintain possession by making it a high priority through combination play.

2.  Improve Speed of Play:  the ability of our players to make good and quick decisions, play 1 and 2 touch when needed and play effectively when under pressure of time and/or space.

3.  Improve our technical skills:  players use proper technique in game situations due to proper training focus and play with purpose. All training sessions are at least 50% technical skill-building training.   

Tactical Training Goals 

1.  We defend as a team  -  every player defends and we defend to win possession.

When our teams win possession in the defensive third, we maintain possession from defense thru the midfield to the forwards.

2.  We attack as a team.  We use possession and combination play to build our attacks and involve the midfield in the attack.  

CWSC Training Staff  

CWSC’s Director of Coaching has recruited and assembled an outstanding training staff of experienced and expert trainers.  CWSC’s training staff includes former and current college and high school players, former and current college coaches, former and current high school coaches and other experienced long-time soccer educators.  The Director of Coaching and CWSC’s training staff provides the following training programs:  

            Team Training  

Most CWSC teams use a team trainer who provides technical training to the team and players either once or twice a week.  A few teams are trained by the coach as the coach is also a qualified, experienced technical skills trainer for the club. 

            Guest Trainer Program

CWSC’s guest trainer program is a unique and innovative player training program that places  experienced CWSC trainers with teams for specific individual team training sessions during the season, providing CWSC’s players with a wide array of soccer perspectives and new training methods.  

            Specialized Field Player Training Sessions 

The SFPTS provide supplemental, targeted, more intensive technical training sessions for individual CWSC players during the season.  The sessions combine CWSC players from throughout the club and target specific technical needs, such as  

            -  Improving Speed of Play

            -  Maintaining Possession Under Pressure

            -  Striking and Creating and Converting Goal Scoring Opportunities

            -  Defending in 1 v 1 Situations 

            Goalkeeper Training 

CWSC’s training staff includes multiple keeper trainers who provide weekly goalkeeper-specific training to enhance CWSC goalkeeper technical and tactical skills.  The weekly sessions are in progression and focus specifically on keeper skills.

            The Edge, Speed and Agility Training 

CWSC has partnered with Rex Currin’s The Edge Speed and Agility Program to provide special off season training opportunities for CWSC players and teams.

Bill Spraul
Director of Coaching
CWSC

 

June 1, 2010

I am sorry this is l belated, but I want to say thanks to each of you on your
vote of confidence in me as the club's Director of Coaching.  I am excited to be
able to continue to work for and with our players, parents, coaches, teams and
you as the board in providing a high quality, high value soccer environment and
product.  The two year contract is outstanding and I also of course appreciate
the increase in compensation. :)
 
We have a great program that provides a needed, valuable alternative to players, coaches and parents who are looking for competitive select soccer with the big club benefits without the nameless, faceless big club approach.  I hope that we continue to be that alternative, and as we have said so many times, we don't want to be the biggest, dont want to be the best at all costs, we want to be the best for many -- and, with over 700 players this spring, we are meeting that challenge.
 
Thanks again for your support and confidence.  As always, please let me know of
concerns and ideas you might have for programming, etc. 
 
Bill Spraul
your Director of Coaching thru June 2012.

**************************************************************************

August 2009 

Director of Coaching Update

New to the DOC links are the updated CWSC 2009-2010 Training Goals  

The training goals are very similar to last year's program with minor 
adjustment.  As well, I have also added Tactical / Match Play Goals for this 
year.  These goals are to provide you with focus and priorities for your tactical 

training and match play to build on the technical priorities. 
 
You will see in the new Tactical Goals section that there is a focus on using a 
more intentional build-up thru possession for attacking opportunities.  This is 
not to say that we don't want our teams to take the quick counterattack when its 
available.  Yes we do.  Rather, this is to focus on the fact that sometimes we 
do too much "poke and hope" attacking --  poke it forward long, and hope that 
one of our players can run to it and go to goal.  We want sustainability and 
possession in the offensive 3rd, not just a long ball, and then we are back on 
defense again.... 

As always, your comments, input and debate are welcome.  :) 

 *********

Some of our coaches have expressed interest in discussion about CWSC recommended systems of play.  I strongly encourage the age group coaches and trainers to have regular discussions about tactics including systems of play.  Sharing positive and negative experiences is an excellent learning experience.  And, of course I am always ready, willing and interested in discussing  tactics, systems of play, etc . with you and working with your teams to be even more successful.
 
My recommendations concerning systems of play are included in the System of
Play link above.  There are no right and wrong answers here.  There are teams at every level of competition and age group that use a wide array of systems of

play and are successful.  I have outlined the most common systems of play at

6 v 6, 8 v 8 and 11 v 11 and a few general comments about each. Obviously, there is much more about each option.  Books are written about each system of play and others.  This is intended to be a guide for our teams and coaches, to provide a point of discussion and to provide our coaches with the Director of Coaching’s recommendations and direction on the subject. 
 
As always, feel free to contact me and discuss, debate and share ideas as there
is no universal answer to these types of tactics issues.

 

*******************************************************************

May, 2009 

Director of Coaching Update

First and foremost, I am pleased to be completing another year as CWSC’s Director of Coaching and I am equally pleased and excited to be returning for next year as well.  As you can see from our website, we have continued to build our training and development programs for our teams and players as CWSC focuses on providing the best of these opportunities to ALL of our players.   I emphasize all --  at CWSC every player and team is important to the CWSC training staff and I as the DOC, not just the top teams that tend to get the focus and resources at other clubs.  We understand that the over 600 players in our club all deserve to benefit from our club and our experience and expertise. 

This has been and continues to be an exciting time for the teams and players of Cincinnati West Soccer Club.  This past fall and the current spring season, CWSC teams are again having excellent success on the field.  At CWSC, we don’t measure success just by the team record --  we also measure it by player and team technical and tactical development.  We challenged our teams to focus on our 3 training priorities this past year and we have seen exciting and significant improvement in our club play as a result.  Our coaches and training staff have done a great job, but we also know that its our players that have done the most work, and I am very proud of every one of our CWSC players.  

CWSC players have a wide variety of training programs available from the Club and the CWSC training staff.  Through our innovative Guest Training Program, our teams benefit from the expertise of our CWSC training staff, supplementing and enriching the work of our team trainers and coaches.  Our coaching and training staff adhere to our CWSC Training Guidelines providing consistent training techniques for all of our players.  Our weekly Goalkeeper Training Program has become a mainstay of our training program, providing CWSC with the best group of keepers in CUSL.  Special player training opportunities such as the Winter Player Training, the Specialized Field Player Training Series, the CWSC/CCU Mini Camp and the CWSC Players Summer Skills Camp in July are outstanding additional opportunities for CWSC players to build their skills.  Many CWSC teams implemented winter indoor training programs to supplement their player skills training.   And, there is more to come in the future as we find ways to help CWSC players reach their potential.    

As we prepare for our club tryouts in June for next year’s teams, we will again be challenging our players and teams to achieve even better success next year.  If you haven’t done so recently, look around our website, see what all we have to offer and join us at tryouts to also become a member of our exciting, growing soccer community.  CWSC provides an outstanding, competitive program, focused on players and teams without compromising quality, soccer training and development and also teaching the life skills of soccer including sportsmanship, team work, playing hard and playing fair.  

*******************************************************************

August, 2008

Letter from the Director of Coaching 

I am excited to be returning, and in a permanent capacity, as CWSC’s Director of Coaching for this coming year, 2008-2009.  Thanks to the CWSC Executive Board for the opportunity and I am looking forward to continuing to work with our outstanding  teams and players in continuing to improve our play, our technical and tactical skills and learning life skills through the game of soccer. 

My primary role as DOC is to provide technical and tactical assistance and resources to our players, coaches and teams.  Below are some of the tools and resources that CWSC and I provide for our players. 

As many of you know, I am passionate about Cincinnati West Soccer Club and CWSC soccer.  I believe that our unique club model is one of the primary reasons why we are one of the best select soccer programs in the area.  Every season, not only do we return almost every player, we gain more teams, players, coaches and families into the bigger CWSC Family.  Once you experience CWSC soccer, you are hooked.  We provide opportunities to train and play at all levels in different environments, while understanding the importance of our roles as coaches, teachers and role models.  CWSC’s emphasis on teams, competition and yet being family friendly are significant benefits as well.  CWSC is the best of both worlds – we provide the look, feel and results of a “big club” while offering all of the added benefits of being in a club where we know our players and teams and can focus on each team and player. 

Included on this Director of Coaching link are several resources for our coaches, trainers, players and parents.  As well, we provide these resources on our club website so that potential players and teams can also easily see our focus and what we do for player and team development. 

Whether you are already in CWSC, or just checking us out, feel free to contact CWSC’s Director of Coaching , Bill Spraul if you have any questions or would like to also become a member of CWSC, or even to become a part of CWSC’s training staff. 

 See you all on the pitch ! 

Bill Spraul

Director of Coaching

CWSC

billspraul@zoomtown.com

 

*******************************************************************

February 19, 2008

Above are two links to documents for you to use this spring as references. I hope that these are helpful to you as you begin to prepare for the spring season.  These plans follow established practices and guidelines from out trainers, other soccer experts, and the USSF licensing program and most importantly, they work.  They work in providing a consistent, positive, productive, effective and successful training, development and learning environment for players and teams --  what we all should want for our players. 
 
Some of you may see this information as very basic and many of you already are
following these principles and plans already, but having all of our teams
trained in a more consistent way will improve the overall training experience
and effectiveness for your players and teams, and bring better consistency to
our club. 
 
Our guest trainers follow these guidelines, and the guest trainers and I are
available to help you establish and build training sessions that are built
around these guidelines.   During the season, we will share training ideas and
tips for you to consider.
 
As always, your questions, comments and input are always welcome and
encouraged.
 
Finally, for now, get your guest training requests in.  Its not too early, as
the more notice we have the better we can accommodate your request and the guest trainers' schedules.
 
Bill Spraul
Director of Coaching
CWSC

*******************************************************************

February 2, 2008

Click below to fill out a request for a Guest trainer. 

Email request to Bill Spraul

Team Guest Trainer Training Session Request

This spring, CWSC is implementing our CWSC Guest Trainer Program.  This program will allow a team to request a guest trainer who will then come on a specific individual practice night and conduct the team’s training session that night.  The purpose and goal of the program is not to reinvent your team, completely overhaul your team’s skill and ability or, on its own, take your team to the “next level”.   Obviously, an individual training session will not do that.  This program is to provide your teams with an additional resource to help you take your team to the next level. 

The purpose of the Guest Trainer Program is twofold:

1. To expose your team and players to another soccer perspective and provide them with a training session with another expert.   There is great benefit to occasionally exposing your team to another perspective, another soccer voice and seeing and experiencing a possibly different training method.  Using a guest trainer can re-focus your players and typically reinforce with your players the very things that you are focusing on with them.

 

2. To provide our teams with an option should you need “coverage” for a training session due to an absence by the coach or trainer.  

We have assembled a team of over 20 experienced trainers who are available to provide guest training sessions this spring.  Some of these folks are current coaches and trainers with our club, and we also have some additional resources specifically available to our club for this program.   

The Guest Trainer Request form is available on the club website to request a session.  

Note the following guidelines for the program:

 

-          Requests can now be made.  Use the request form on the club website.

-          Sessions are available to be conducted when spring team training

           begins in March thru May.

-          You will be notified via email when your session is scheduled.

-          The club will pay the guest trainer not the team having the session.

-          The guest trainer will conduct the entire training session.  He/she is in

            charge of the training session.

-          Coaches are asked not to participate in the session unless as requested

           by the guest trainer.

-          If available the team’s coach and trainer should attend the session.  A

           responsible adult from the team must be in attendance.

 

 

*******************************************************************

January 14,2008

Just a quick note to say that I am excited to be our club's Interim Director of
Coaching for this spring season and I am anxious to get started and see you all
on the soccer field in a couple of months !
 
I want to thank the Executive Board for their support and for providing this
opportunity.  Just as important, I am thankful to the Board for providing the
DOC resource to all of our over 600 players and 50 or so teams this coming
spring.
 
As most of you know, I am very proud of CWSC and our success in our short 5
years of existence and so I look forward to continuing to be able to help keep
CWSC moving forward and growing and improving the play and skill levels of our teams and players.
 
As Bill Mitchell outlined in his announcement, my major priorities as your
Director of Coaching are:
 
-  Provide a visible presence to our teams and players.  You will see me at team practices as I will be spending at least 1 night a week at team training
sessions, rotating locations and days of the week, not to run a particular
team's training session, but to be available and assist any team on that night,
and to of course, talk soccer....
 
-  Support CWSC teams and provide feedback to our coaches.  You will see me at CWSC team matches on Sundays and maybe at a local tourney and provide you with post-game feedback that can assist you in coaching and training your players and team.
 
-  Provide additional training for your team/players.  Along with our club
keeper training program, we are developing a club trainer program that will
allow all CWSC teams to access and use a guest trainer from time to time to help improve your players' skills and abilities.
 
- Provide on going technical and tactical assistance to our teams and players.
 
So, stay tuned for more information as we all start to get ready for a great
spring season.  Don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or want
to talk soccer.
 
Finally, if your team is in need of a team trainer for the season, please let me
know asap so I can assist in finding someone for your team.
 
See you all soon !
 
Bill Spraul  
Director of Coaching
CWSC
 

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