Soccer season starring the Seaton Stingers, Part IV: Learning positions

Do you remember your first time on a team? Learning how to play a sport? DC SCORES intern Luiza Kieffer is spending this fall with the Seaton Elementary School Stingers, documenting the team’s progress on a weekly basis as Coach Blake teacher the kids basic skills, the rules of soccer, and how to be on a team. For more, follow @DCSCORESinterns and watch Luiza’s videos on YouTube.

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Written by Luiza Kieffer
Digital Media Intern

Nov. 17, 2015

The fall soccer season for the Seaton Stingers is nearing its end. Coach Blake is very impressed with the improvement these young athletes have shown the past couple of weeks, but he is not done with them yet. Starting off the practice with their usual routine of stretching, the Stingers then go straight into practice.

Coach Blake sets up the field with a straight line of cones on either side.

“1, 2, 3, 4...” Blake yells out.

Automatically the kids know it’s time for the Stingers to come together around their coach. Once Coach gets to 10, if the kids aren’t there they must complete 10 push-ups ... “8 .. 9 .. 10." Some of the kids still trickling in, Coach Blake looks at them and they immediately know they have to complete their push-ups.

While the kids are completing their push-ups, Blake starts to explain the first drill of the day.

“Everybody line up with the cones!” he tells the Stingers. “Dribble the ball with your left foot to the cones, then circle around and switch to your right foot.”

All the kids line up, and Blake yells, “Go!” and the kids begin. As the drill began, it was complete chaos, everybody running into each other as though they didn’t know what to do. After a couple of run-throughs, they finally get the hang of it and complete the drill well. One of coach's main focuses for the Stingers is improving their dribbling, so they continue the drill for several minutes.

By the end of practice as light wanes from the field, the kids eagerly wait to scrimmage once again -- it never gets old for them. Coach splits the Stingers into two teams, and assigns each team a different color. Once the scrimmage starts, it's a joy to watch the progress the Stingers have made since mid-September.

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From the very beginning of the season up to these last couple of practices, the kids have not only grown their soccer skills, but also their team bonding.

While they scrimmage, I can hear more communication on the field than from the first couple of weeks -- kids telling their teammates to pass the ball or congratulating each other on scoring. The kids are quick to encourage each other to play better.

The younger kids who have never been on a soccer team before DC SCORES have improved immensely. There's no way you could tell this has been their first real team experience.

“The kids are starting to get soccer, and learn to love soccer," Blake says. "And I’m really proud of them.”

As practice finishes up, Ryan, one of the leaders on the team, screams out, “This is the best soccer team ever!”

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Previous posts

• Part I
• Part II
• Part III

Soccer season starring the Seaton Stingers, Part III: Learning positions

Do you remember your first time on a team? Learning how to play a sport? DC SCORES intern Luiza Kieffer is spending this fall with the Seaton Elementary School Stingers, documenting the team’s progress on a weekly basis as Coach Blake teacher the kids basic skills, the rules of soccer, and how to be on a team. For more, follow @DCSCORESinterns and watch Luiza’s videos on YouTube.

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Written by Luiza Kieffer
Digital Media Intern

Nov. 3, 2015

This week Coach Blake’s main goal is focusing on transitioning and being aware on the field. Coach starts the practice with playing a game of “Harvest soccer," which requires everybody to be a different vegetable. So Blake starts yelling out vegetable to different kids

“Lorenzo you’re a carrot, Gabby you’re a squash!” After everybody receives their vegetable name, Coach Blake explains the game to them. Setting up the cones in a rectangle, he then puts a goal on the side and everybody grabs a soccer ball. The instructions: Everyone starts running and then when Blake calls out a vegetable, whoever that vegetable is must use their techniques to run around other players and shoot in the net. This helps the kids improve on looking up before shooting and paying attention to their surroundings.

After playing a couple games of Harvest soccer, they start a new drill of small-sided soccer. Coach splits up the team into girls and boys, and they both have their own scrimmages so Blake can really help individual kids when needed. And of course at the end of the practice, he brings the team back in for a big game of scrimmage -- boys and girls.

Throughout the scrimmage whenever someone makes a goal, everybody screams out, “Goal, goal!” -- happy for whichever team scores.

In just the span of a couple weeks, the Seaton Stingers have transformed into a wonderful team and it has shown through their hard work and improved skills.

“My team is really good at playing, we win almost every game," says Taylor, 10. "I think it’s because of how we are working together and the positions we play. And we’re really good at defense.”

“They're getting a lot more aware of where their teammates are,” says Coach Blake, talking about the little improvements they are making that will affect games in positive ways.

After the game, I ask Lorenzo, 10, “Why do you like playing soccer so much?”

“I always wanted to play because my cousin and my friends play," he responds.

The community that these kids are building through playing soccer goes far outside the games and practices. It translates to their homes as well.

I can’t wait to see how much more these kids will improve in the last few weeks of the fall season.

Soccer season starring the Seaton Stingers, Part II: 'Fruits and vegetables'

Do you remember your first time on a team? Learning how to play a sport? DC SCORES intern Luiza Kieffer is spending this fall with the Seaton Elementary School Stingers, documenting the team’s progress on a weekly basis as Coach Blake teacher the kids basic skills, the rules of soccer, and how to be on a team. For more, follow @DCSCORESinterns and watch Luiza’s videos on YouTube.

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Written by Luiza Kieffer
Digital Media Intern

October 20, 2015

“Ready, set, go,” Coach Blake yells out, as the kids eagerly get ready to run -- anxiously waiting to grab someone’s red penny from someone else’s belt, while trying to secure theirs.

Coach Blake starts the practice with a fun game of tail tag, with the objective being to steal someone's “tail,” while protecting yours and collecting as many “tails” as you can.

“You’re running too fast!” yells Erika, running after Giovanni and trying to steal his penny.

“Catch me if you can,” he yells back to Erika.

After the first game of the season, Coach Blake now has a better idea of what the team needs to work on as a whole and individually -- as well as what they are doing well.

“Throughout just a couple weeks of practice, they have improved on spreading out and thinking about plays instead of just dribbling straight into the defender,” he says.

“For most of the kids, they are still learning their fruits and vegetables,” Blake adds, referring to the basics of soccer.

To practice those fruits and vegetables, Blake uses the practice to work on passing drills. First he instructs everyone to find a partner, then move around while passing the ball and keeping heads up.

Coach Blake sets up random small goals on the field, and the kids are asked to make a goal whenever they stumble upon one. During this exercise, Blake goes around to each partner pair and helps them improve their technique.

By the end of practice, the Seaton Stingers are ready to scrimmage! This is the Stingers’ favorite time of practice. This is when you see the pure elation on the faces of the children when they assist a goal or make a perfect pass, and the satisfaction that they feel. Scrimmages and games are when you can really see how this group of children comes together and doesn’t just look like a team, but plays like one.

Sitting on the sideline with Lorenzo, 10, Gabriel, also 10, says of him, “When he’s in goalie nobody scores.” Just a month into the season, it’s clear how these kids bonding with each other and the game they’re learning.

While talking to students about how their game went the previous Thursday, most responses were, “We won, we won!!” Tykia M. started to talk about how the game went and winning, and then suddenly turned and exclaimed, “It turns out I’m pretty great at soccer, and I didn’t even know that.”

Seeing the confidence in Tykia’s face, you could tell just how much pride she already takes in being on a team.

More coming next week!

Soccer season starring the Seaton Stingers, Part I: Learning teamwork

Do you remember your first time on a team? Learning how to play a sport? DC SCORES intern Luiza Kieffer is spending this fall with the Seaton Elementary School Stingers, documenting the team’s progress on a weekly basis as Coach Blake teacher the kids basic skills, the rules of soccer, and how to be on a team. For more, follow @DCSCORESinterns and watch Luiza’s videos on YouTube.

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Written by Luiza Kieffer
Digital Media Intern

October 6, 2015

With the first game of the season for the Seaton Stingers just days away, Coach Blake has the kids working hard to prepare. Several DC SCORES participants last year were fifth-graders, so Blake is working with a very young team made up of many third-graders. For most of the younger kids, this is their first time playing on a team and learning how to work together with peers on the field.

Mere seconds after taking the field for Tuesday practice, the kids are off kicking the soccer balls and shooting on net. The first order of business? Blake calls everyone in for a huddle to explain the rules of the drill we are about to begin.

I can see the eagerness and impatience of the kids wanting to get back on the field; it’s fun to just kick the ball, and listening to coach isn’t that -- but it’s needed.

Coach Blake demonstrates the drill of shielding and ball control by calling up a child to assist him. Immediately after asking for a volunteer, all hands shoot up. These kids, even if inexperienced, aren’t shy.

After picking a volunteer, Blake tells him what to do, then proceeds to demonstrate. As soon as the ball hits the ground, though, he loses it and everybody starts laughing. Hey, humor is a part of having fun, right?

“Learning as a team the general behaviors and rules of the game,” Blake says afterward in summarizing this early season practice. “And how to be on a team.

“A lot of the kids on this team are pretty young compared to the players from last year, and they are going to need more help with the basic rules of soccer.”

With only about half of the kids playing on a team before now, Blake’s main focus is teaching the kids what it means to be on a team while learning good sportsmanship and how to help out.

Before the end of practice, the Seaton Stingers begin to scrimmage in preparation for the first DC SCORES Game Day. This is easily the part of practice when the kids have the most fun while exercising. The beautiful thing about this game is how creativity is encouraged and there’s a role for everyone.

Turning around for about a minute, all of a sudden I start hearing screaming and cheering as if it’s the World Cup. Everybody's going wild because one of the teams made a goal!

Practice ends, and I can see that while it will take time, this group of children spanning three grades has already begun the process of building a team. With Blake’s leadership, the rate of progress will only increase.