Contact Information:  grady.vicente@gmail.com

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Coach Bio:

Credentials: USSF National “C” (2009) and USSF “D” (2008), “E” (2007) and “F” (2006) licenses

Former Titles: Assistant coach Trinity High School girls varsity (2008)

Coaching Experience & Background:  Vince has worked as a youth soccer coach since his daughter began playing soccer about 5 years ago, after having spent most of his childhood and adulthood playing competitive soccer, both in high school and college. His most significant learning experiences outside competitive soccer have been in the streets of South America and the multicultural informal games in NYC where you are only as good as your last game and respect is something you earn every game. His coaching experience has been limited to the Big Apple: Loisaida Youth Soccer (LYS), Tompkins Middle School, Trinity High School and GGFC/DUSC.

Coaching Philosophy:  The core truths that guide coach Vince are (1) children are children, not mini-adults, and as a youth coach you must love working with children and believe in their inherent good, (2) play is a vehicle for self-expression, autonomy, creativity and democratic and just social relations, with the youth coach’s primarily as facilitator, and (3) winning games is a narrow indicator of success and youth coach’s job should be the developmental of character (in a positive sense), skill (technical acquisition), soccer intelligence (decision making) and autonomy. Coach Vince believes that competitive sport too often fosters an over dependence on adults, thus limiting a child’s capacity to think, act, play and reflect critically on his or her life. To counter this trend in late modernity he is a big advocate of free play, freestyle juggling, and small sided games.