By Annette Nardi
At a soccer camp last week in a field behind the Bellerose-Floral Park School, a jolly young coach had her little toddler-aged athletes, captivated perhaps by her soft, very British accent, singing well-known nursery rhymes as they learned the game.
The first day of a weeklong experience in a Major League Soccer camp had officially begun.
At several such neighborhood camps conducted in Queens, hundreds of children learn the fundamentals of soccer from college-age coaches in a non-competitive environment.
It was obvious that Coach Celena Deli, a 19-year-old university student from London, loved working with her small group of 2- to 3-year-olds, referred to as Nippers, with their moms standing by as silent partners.
Another 300 boys and girls, ages 8-15, pranced around the field led by their coaches, playing Star Wars and other such games familiar to their age group.
To the casual observer, it might seem as if they had wandered into “Sesame Street.” When the kids slowed down for their compulsory water break, a serious young man who seemed to be in charge sorted out what was happening.
Mark Hodson, 26, captain of the 15 coaches on the field, said “we're just having fun. We don’t want the kids to get all uptight about winning and scoring. The game will start now that they’re all warmed up and relaxed.”
Hodson explained that the coaches, all university students or graduates with degrees in sports therapy or teaching, also held soccer coaching certification in both the United States and England.
In addition, they were hand-picked to complete an additional 60 hours of “KIDriculum” training devised by an American child psychologist, Dr. Gary Russell, of Mystic, Conn., who founded the Major League Soccer camps 30 years ago.
At that time only European coaches, mostly from England and Ireland, were trained to teach soccer.
“We continued with them because both the children and their coaches enjoyed the cultural exchange as a positive learning experience,” Hodson said.
“It is essential to create an atmosphere for kids to play — play is like oxygen,” Russell explained in a telephone interview from his office. If a student coach has not mastered “our goal is fun” credo, he is asked to withdraw from the program.
Competitiveness enters the picture when the child is older, explained Dr Chris Kitson, camp coordinator and host, and George Silva, director of the MLS camp in Little Neck-Douglaston. Both are longtime soccer players who want the youngsters to know the joy of the game. Technique comes later.
“The child’s development as a person is our first priority,” said Susan Burgos, camp coordinator and host from Bellerose/Floral Park and the mother of two avid soccer players. Burgos shares Russell’s opinion that soccer is the best first sport. “Kids develop from the legs up,” he said.
By the end of the week, most of the Nippers, and the next oldest group, the “Munchkins,” had learned how to move into space, to kick and trap the ball with their feet, dribbling it sideways and backwards.
The 13 young men and two woman coaches had done their job well that week. Perhaps that’s why they have been invited back every year for the past seven seasons by the youth sports coordinators in communities from Forest Hills to Floral Park.
As for the host families in all the towns, the affection they share with their foreign guests is evident as many return to the same families year after year.
“After five years, I’m now an official member of the Esposito clan of New Hyde Park,” proclaimed Hodson, who hopes to remain in the United States as a coach.
Annette Nardi is a free-lance writer from Bayside who writes for and about children.
