When you surround yourself with people whose personal drive is pure passion for life and desire for self improvement, you cannot help but be swept along on the wave of enthusiasm. In this past week I can recount many examples where my colleagues at IFS have blown me away.
I’d like to share two stories that provide an insight into what happens behind the scenes at IFS. Matt O’Neil, one of our assistant coaches and our fitness and conditioning expert, always has white buds in his ears. It’s not music he’s listening to, it’s always an audio book or podcast. A while ago he encouraged me to read Outliers, a book by Malcom Gladwell, well known in the area of success and elite performance. Andre has also repeatedly encouraged me to read this book. I finally downloaded it and began listening to it a few weeks ago. Without going into too much detail, I can simply say, mind blowing! There are so many aspects that Gladwell points to which are integral to success. I am so excited about the opportunities our students have before them. Beyond the simple concept of 10,000 hours (as revealed by Gladwell), when you add ingredients such as opportunity, cultural legacy and timing, our college is a potent mix of success bubbling away. I am confident in the next few years many people in this country’s footballing community will be scratching their heads wondering why so many incredible footballers are coming from the Central Coast.
The exciting thing is that our coaching and teaching staff are continually looking at how to improve their work. They are constantly talking about best practice, challenging each another and looking at how to improve what we do on a daily basis. The energy that this culture creates is stimulating to say the least. It fills me with so much joy to go to work with these professionals each day. Our students are truly blessed.
The next story provides a prime example of the competitive advantage our staff offer. If you’ve ever discussed youth development with our coaches you’ll have a sense of their passion. Recently Julie, Andre and I have been discussing the ideal ball for our Futsal clinics that are starting this week. Andre called us into the coaches’ staffroom, Brad Porter got involved, then Damien Brown then with Julie’s arrival a one hour debate exploded. Andre told us about a research paper he had read which led us to go outside and do some drop tests. Andre had discovered that the ideal ball for development is a size 2 ball with 10% bounce. Why you might ask? I might leave that to Andre to reveal in a future blog, however, after the conversation I was convinced. I spent the entire week trying to source this ball. You would not believe how hard it is to find a size 2 futsal ball with 10% bounce.
Where else would coaches have the opportunity and freedom to discuss something as basic as the ball they use? No, not the brand of ball, the actual size and bounce of the ball. Where else do coaches have the audacity to challenge the status quo and question why we use the tool we have always been told to use? After some research and having allowed each person to be heard, we came to the conclusion that a better ball was needed to ensure our players benefit from the most appropriate development tool. While we run the risk of having our decision questioned, we are confident it is based on sound research with a demonstrated benefit for our students’ development.
I love that these conservations occur almost daily at IFS and who benefits? The students!
Good discussion Paul, last time I recall a hearing a discussion so passionate about ball size was a while ago, but you maybe interested Simon Cliifford Darcy, foumder of BSS and also stronger believer iFutebol De Salao, using the ball Andre prefers and many Braziluan stars grew up with, I think FIFA changed the ball size to make it easier to watch the game on TV. Anyway might be good to contact Simon in the UK, also a teacher and an innovator for football education.
^ Simon Darcy Clifford @SimonDClifford
Many years ago, in Sth. Aust., we were told that the NSW players were so good because they trained with tennis balls instead of full sized footballs. The reason being, that if they can pass and play well with such a small ball, then playing with the large ball would be so much easier. I don’t know if that is ‘fact’, but it made me think how limited in our thinking “we” were at the time.
Well done team for breaking down barriers and trying something new.