Despite having one of the elite national teams in the world and certainly the largest market, this is the second time that women’s professional soccer has stumbled in the United States. We can all be sad, but what’s the point?

If you ran the WPS, how would you create such a remarkable experience to engage fans that they would regularly choose the WPS over American Idol on TV and attend games in droves to support the teams (complete with tailgates) and create a standing room only atmosphere? How do you connect the league to the masses of fans who could potentially support the league?

Volunteer turnover is a problem in almost every youth sports organization.  Most youth sports leagues are 501 (c) 3 non- profit organizations and rely heavily on volunteers to handle most mission critical tasks ranging from registration, communication, team building, board members and the list goes on. At Blue Sombrero, we work with thousands of youth [...]

The concept of “Mental Toughness” is a tried and true rallying call for most teams. Every coach wants players who are ‘mentally tough’, but really what does that mean? I had the opportunity to interview Simon Hartley, our resident Soccer Psychology Advisor, about this hot topic. Simon provided his thoughts in an earlier article about “What [...]

Directing the largest coaching organization in the world is a big deal. Those reigns were handed over to Ian Barker today when the NSCAA concluded its year long search to replace Jeff Tipping who resigned last January. We’re delighted to see the NSCAA finally replace an influential figure in its organization. After all, it is [...]

Many coaches talk about mental toughness, but do we really know what true mental toughness looks like? Simon Hartley, Soccer Psychology Adviser to Soccer Classroom, tackles this topic.

  This morning I woke up and did my normal Wednesday routine; hit snooze about three times, made way to the kitchen for my shaker and my pre-workout supplement, and hopped on Facebook before going to the gym.  Usually I scroll through and read dozens of posts from people I don’t even talk to anymore, shake my head thinking [...]

Occupy Wall Street, political upheavals of countries around the world…and now, a soccer revolution. We like it. The guys over at Soccer Plus, led by Tony DiCicco, have put together an amazing series of webinars with truly the best minds in the game – check the resumes of these guys. These free webinars cover a [...]

At Soccer Classroom, we love to see great things happen to great people! It’s why we invest so much time in creating a resource that is useful to the community. We wanted to share a great thing that has happened to “one of our own” and a great guy. Simon Hartley, an expert in sports [...]

Soccer Coaching is 2 words. The first, obviously, is ‘soccer’. The second is ‘coaching’. I’d argue that the two words have equal importance and equal weighting. However, all too often I do not see them being given equal focus. Over the years I have seen many coaching programmes and coach education programmes. The majority of [...]

A truly inspirational story about a girl who’s playing time diminished but her hard work did not. Through God, Stephanie Cleaves was able to fullfil her wildest dreams as she played for the Honduras women’s National Team.