General Expectations:

  • Be on time for training, games, and for paying your club fees.
  • Share our Player Expectations with your son or daughter and make sure they understand them.
  • Anything you or your child brings to the field, please make sure you take back with you. This includes all soccer equipment as well as any plastic bottles, food wrappers, or other trash. If you’re sending snacks, please be aware of any possible food allergies, including those of others. Please don’t send nuts or peanut butter.
  • Please refrain from using any tobacco products or alcohol at the training facility and at games.
  • Cincy SC will only use our email and phone lists for Cincy SC-related communications. We ask that you do the same and refrain from using them for solicitation of any kind.
  • If you have a question, please first ask your TA or your coach. If you don’t get the proper resolution, please contact one our directors.
  • Club soccer follows an annual cycle which includes a fall season and a spring season.
  • If you believe there is an issue with a coach’s behavior, please contact Russell Lewis.
  • Share your excellent Cincy SC experience with your friends. If you have a less-than-excellent experience, write about it in your diary. 🙂

Game Expectations:

  • At Cincy SC, players play, coaches coach, refs ref, and parents watch.
  • Do not yell, direct, or try to provide instruction to players during a game. It’s not your job, and at best it’s just an annoying distraction for the players and at worst you may be contradicting the coach’s instructions. Players don’t enjoy it, and neither do the parents next to you.
  • Players are under a significant physical, cognitive, and emotional load. They need to process their current situation (What’s the game scenario? Where am I on the field? Where are my teammates? Where are the opponents?), try to remember what they learned in training, recall their coach’s most recent instructions, and try to perform a difficult physical task under pressure. Part of the process is for them to try to figure things out on their own. Failures will happen because they are trying something new or possibly because they made a poor decision. Let them learn from their failures so they get better and more confident.
  • Be nice to the other team’s parents and coaches. They are just like you: parents of kids that love soccer. If they’re yelling, ignore them.
  • Do not yell at or try to make calls for the referees. They’re human and they generally try their best. They don’t deserve to get abused, and without them, there would be no game. You can thank them after the match, but unless they ask for your feedback, you should not critique or evaluate their performance. The other referees on the crew do that for them.
  • Avoid confrontation with a coach immediately following a game – try to wait about 24 hours to allow any emotions to calm down and then have a positive discussion.
  • After the game, don’t dissect your child’s performance in the car ride home. If you want your child to develop confidence and a love for the game, the best thing to say is “I love watching you play.”
  • If you believe in our player development approach, when someone asks you about the game, see if you can list three things your child or the team did well before saying the score or the result.