Coaches come in all shapes and sizes, can be aged 13 to 100, and are either caring community volunteers or fully certified paid experts – or even something in between.

There is the saying, “no ref, no game,” well, they could also say “no coach, no game,” and it hold true in organized competitive sports.

It’s National Coaches Week 2025, a celebration of coaches organized by partnering Canadian coaches associations and programs, and it’s a time to share some love for a coach you know (although any time is a good time). The week runs from September 15 through September 21.

Speaking of coaches, I coached for many years, as did so many of my friends: from Ted Maduri to Dave Caplan to Scott Wood and Anthony Asturi, Matt McKay to Chuck Lefebvre to Mark O’Dell, Kate Kerr to Stephanie Nasturzio and Kayla Bauer. Oh, and the dynamic duo of Steve McCallum and Jason Kuehnen, plus a couple amazing coaches who are no longer with us – Graham Pollington and Carlos Burmeister.

Literally, the number of awesome coaches I know could go on and on. It would include people in my own club as well as many from other clubs I’ve had the pleasure of meeting over the years.

Rewarding Experience

Chatting with my good friend Ted the other day and he commented that he misses coaching and I replied that I do too. We both stopped coaching once our daughters were nearing or at the competitive soccer stream in Ontario (U13 and up).

We had both coached our sons’ respective teams for years (sometimes at the same time as our daughters’ teams) and watched a lot of kids develop over the years into pretty good soccer players.

One of my biggest accomplishments – other than being able to spend lots of time with my own kids and help them grow – was to instill a love for soccer in a lot of children who are surrounded by hockey, lacrosse, and even basketball in Muskoka.

The fact there are several kids still playing feels good. One of my former players still gives me a hug when he sees me.

Sure there are those who are focused on other sports, but when you’re a volunteer coach in a small town, getting even half the kids on your teams to keep playing late in their teenage years is a huge accomplishment.

It was such a rewarding experience watching kids learn and grow . . . in fact, it helped me learn and grow as a person dealing with all these different personalities and learning types.

Will I ever coach again? Probably not in a full-on capacity. Unless it’s as one of my kids’ assistant coaches to help out, or in a pinch if there is an emergency need for a house league-style program in my community.

Though, as I mentioned to Ted, we would probably be way better coaches now with everything we learned while doing it before.

On that note, I recommend that all the players and parents and soccer club boards reading this participate in National Coaches Week by celebrating one of their coaches – or more than one.

Follow along with National Coaches week and join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and X (formerly Twitter) using #CoachesWeek and #ThanksCoach . . . use those tags to celebrate your favourite coach or coaches.

Also, check out the participation guide: Access social media graphics, templates, and ideas to help celebrate the coaches in your community.

And, of course, say Thanks Coach after practices and games – which hopefully the kids have already been doing their whole lives.

In case you missed it, John Cowan and I discussed this topic on my last podcast. The Chris O Show Podcast is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. Here’s a short clip from the episode . . .

https://videopress.com/v/ZKyxn141?resizeToParent=true&cover=true&preloadContent=metadata&useAverageColor=true

That’s it for me! Ciao for Now!