Using the Developmental Framework Model to Assist a Middle School Soccer Coach

By: Steve Farver

A difficult decision for a middle school soccer coach to make is whether to put a player
on the more advanced A team or help them develop on the B team. A middle school soccer team
can have such a wide range of differences between athletes. Although athletes are often
classified by age or grade, these characteristics don’t take into consideration skill level or
physiological development. Many times a sixth grader can be more skilled than someone in the
seventh grade because they have put in more practice time. Whereas there may be an athlete that
is fourteen who is smaller than someone that is twelve because they haven’t developed
physiologically yet. These disparities can be make the selection process hard to distinguish
which players should be placed on the A team and which players should be placed on the B
team. In order to make a knowledgeable decision, the coach can use a developmental framework
to understand where the athletes may be in within their sport (Starkes & Ericsson, 2003).
The Developmental Model of Sport Practice (DMSP) has three stages that are specific to
sports (Cote,1999; Bloom, 1985). The first stage is refers to the sampling years where an
athlete’s age can range from 6-12. During this stage, athletes tend to participate in a lot of sports
at the same time, but generally don’t spend much time practicing each sport. The athlete does
this because they are testing to see if they enjoy the sport as well. Additionally, they may be
testing to see if they are good at it. For example, one athlete may play baseball, basketball, and
soccer all at the same time. The athlete is exploring sports to see which they might like best. As
a coach, the sampling stage is important because you may have some athletes who may not seem
very skilled, where in fact, they could just be in the sampling years to see if they like playing
soccer. With practice over time, these athletes could become very skilled in soccer if given the
opportunity.
The next stage of development is specialization, where the athlete’s age can range from
13-15. Throughout the specialization stage, athletes begin to increase the number of hours that
they practice a particular sport as well as reducing the number of sports they participate in.
Athletes on a soccer team in the specializing stage will typically begin to stop playing baseball or
basketball and start focusing more on just playing soccer. Although they may be engaged in
another sport, the athlete’s will begin to dedicate more time practicing each of those sports. As a
result, they will more likely become more proficient. As a coach, recognizing if athletes are
specializing in soccer can help determine if they would be able to succeed on the A or B team.
For example, if you have a sixth grader who may not technically be ready but is specializing in
soccer, it could mean that they are going to dedicate more practice hours towards soccer and will
be able to learn more quickly and see improvements.
The final stage of an athlete’s development is the investment years, which typically
includes those ages 16 and above. The investment stage would be when an athlete becomes
exclusively involved with soccer on a full-time basis and the athlete commits themselves to
becoming a professional. Athletes most often won’t reach this stage until high school. However,
as a middle school coach this can be important because you are trying to develop them into better
soccer players. Understanding what the next stage is in an athlete’s development will allow you
to give advice on how to prepare and go about it.
Aside from the developmental stages, another aspect of the developmental framework is
the difference between deliberate play and deliberate practice. Deliberate play is seen as fun and
enjoyable, done because the person wants to, and not taken too seriously (Smith et al., 1986).
Athletes may engage in deliberate play simply to have fun and to enjoy the sport but not really
competing or trying to win. In contrast, deliberate practice is described as having outside
motivation, strict rules, and a primary focus on improvement (Starkes, 2000). Athletes that
participate in deliberate practice have the goal of improving their performance and even winning
a competition. Both types of practice are important for athletes in their development of skill in
soccer. As a coach, understanding these two types of practice can help you better structure your
practices to better suit your athletes. For example, the A team may be more advanced and would
require more deliberate practice in order to improve their skills. Whereas the B team may need
more deliberate play simply to gain enjoyment of the activity to keep them interested in playing
soccer to develop them for the next year. However, deliberate play can also be used for the A
team when they become too stressed and needs to get that enjoyment of playing soccer back.
The real importance of deliberate practice comes from the number of hours that a player
accumulates. According to Starkes and Ericsson (2003), athletes that have put in more hours of
deliberate practice will more likely to have better skills that those with less hours. To gain
perspective about how much deliberate practice is required, experts are said to have accumulated
around 10,000 hours of deliberate practice or 10 years. Athletes in the sampling stage may not
have the same skills as athletes in the specializing stage because they simply have not put in as
many hours of deliberate practice. When an athlete limits the number of sports they play in, they
will be able to dedicate more time to practice soccer. This becomes critically important when
evaluating if a player should be on the A or B team. If the athlete will be able to put in more
hours of deliberate practice, they should see more improvements in their skill development.
Within the developmental framework, there are a few social variables to consider.
Perhaps the most important influence on the life of a middle school athlete is their parents.
Understanding how the parents interact with the child could help you determine where the athlete
is at developmentally. Generally, parents have more of a leadership role during the sampling
years of an athlete because they are putting their child into the sport. Knowing this will allow
you as a coach to understand why the athlete is playing, whether it is because they want to or
because the parent wants them to. As an athlete progresses to the specializing years, parents
generally tend to take a more supportive role. They are still driving the athlete to practice, but it
is the decision to play and to focus more exclusively on a particular sport. As a coach, this can
help you understand if your athlete is being made to come to practice or if they want to show up
and try to get better.
Another major social influence on an athlete is their peers. Middle school is a time that
teenagers are trying to find out who they are and can base that on friendships they have made in
school. Schools are separated by grade, whereas you may want your soccer team to be separated
by skill level. Sometimes friendships can develop between players with drastically different
playing levels which can make separating them very difficult. Many athletes continue their
career in a sport such as soccer because they are able to be with their friends. Additionally, when
athletes play a sport with a friend, very often they will play the sport in their free time allowing
for more practice hours to accumulate (Abernethy, 2002). If a coach can group friends together
on a team, it could help them develop at a faster rate because when the athletes hang out, they are
playing soccer.
The final major influence on an athlete is that of the coach, you. Being able to adapt your
coaching style to the stage that an athlete is at can be critical for their overall development.
Coaches for the sampling stage are seen as the best when they are kind, helpful and happy
(Monsaas, 1985). If their coach is always yelling at them or making them do drills that are not
fun, they probably won’t progress into the specializing or investment stages. This is because
during the sampling stage, athletes just want to have fun and enjoy the sport. However, once the
athlete has moved into the specialization stage, they typically seek coaches that are more
knowledgeable about the game. At this stage, the athletes are looking to get better and want a
coach to help them get there.
Coaching a middle school team can seem overwhelming at times because the athletes can
be so close in age and grade, yet so different in skill and body shape. If you to use the
developmental framework when assessing athletes on your soccer team, you will be able to
understand what stage they are in and help them get to the next stage. Then you can give
encouragement to those in the sampling stage and push those who are in the specializing stage.
As a middle school coach, it’s not always about winning or losing. Rather, it’s about helping
your athletes develop.

References
Abernethy, B., Cote, J. Baker, J. (2002). Expertise decision-making in team sports. Canberra,
ACT: Technical Report for the Australian Institute of Sport.
Bloom, B. S. (1985). Developing talent in young people. New York: Ballantine.
Cote, J. (1999). The influence of the family in the development of talent in sports. The Sports
Psychologist, 13, 395-417.
Monsaas, J. A. (1985). Learning to be a world-class tennis player. In B.S. Bloom (Ed.),
Developing talent in young people (pg. 211-269). New York: Ballantine.
Smith, P.K., Takhvar, M., Gore, N., Vollstedt, R. (1986). Play in young children: Problems of
definition, categorization and measurement. In P.K. Smith (Ed.), Children’s play:
Researc, developments, and practical applications (pg. 37-54). New York: Gordon and
Breach.
Starkes, J. L. (2000). The road to expertise: Is practice the only determinant? International
Journal of Sport Psychology, 31, 431-451.
Starkes, J. L., Ericsson, K. A. (Eds.). (2003). Expert Performance in Sports: Advances in
Research on Sport Expertise. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.