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Albert is a high school student and coach apprentice at SWB Boston. He joined the program in 2012. This past fall, a group of students from SWB Boston's new high school program teamed up with adult volunteers to be coaches of Little League- an in-house league for elementary school-aged participants of SWB Boston. Below, Albert shares his reflections of his first season of coaching.
Overall my experience with Soccer without Borders was better than I expected. When I first heard about the job, I was hesitant about joining. I then thought that it would be a fun experience. The first day of the job my opinion changed drastically. On my way towards the field I asked myself “ Why did I even sign up for this, what was I thinking”? I arrived with no facial expression, but I left with a huge smile. Turns out that helping the kids practice and learn soccer was really enjoyable. After that practice, I was eager to return to the field, except this time with my own team of children that I had to coach. The kids were very energetic; even when I was in not so good of a mood, my team would manage to bring a smile to my face. At first they were very noisy, but as the season went on, the kids enjoyed listening to Sam and me. The kids came to trust us a lot; whenever they had a bad day they knew that they could come and talk to us in order to feel better. Hopefully the kids learned as much from me as I learned from them.
If anyone has the chance to work with younger kids, I say take it and learn how to become a role model and a leader to the new generation. It was a huge learning experience; I learned how to control and engage crowds of children while still making practice fun and enjoyable for them. I hope the other coaches had a similar rewarding experience.