By Neto Baptiste
Director of Coaching at America FC United and former national striker, Conrad “Boast” Whyte, said that the 100-plus young players that took part in the Gray’s Green X-Max Soccer Camp which concluded on Friday were not just being taught basic football skills.
Speaking on the Good Morning Jojo sports show, Whyte, who is based in the US, said that the coaches took up the mantle of teaching players the necessary life skills.
“Everything is not perfect, and you won’t expect it to be, and the reality is that he [Micah Samuel] is trying his best. The kids are enjoying themselves and there are some fantastic young little players here, and I use the word ‘fantastic’ because they are, and they just need to be honed and nurtured. We think about teaching them skills every day, but the biggest thing we’re not teaching them is life skills. We are teaching them how to trap a ball, how to pass a ball and I am trying to help out the coaches in terms of this, and he is saying listen, I used to think that way too, I don’t think that way anymore,” he said.
The former Empire FC player added that he sought to focus on one key aspect of the game during this year’s camp.
“Once you get to 10 or 11 you start talking about space and how to find space on the field, and if you are a 98-pound-player and playing against 114-pound players, then how do you become successful; certainly not playing 50/50 balls so you have to find space on the field, so my job and the coach’s job is to teach them how to find space on the field because you can’t tell me that if you take a kid at 10 years old, and from three or four years you have him in a system teaching him how to play, then you can’t tell me you are not going to develop a fantastic player,” he said.
The camp, in its third year, ran from December 18-22 at the Keithley “KS” Sheppard Recreation Park, formerly King George V Grounds, and catered for both boys and girls between the ages of 8-17.
