LITTLE ROCK — Weaver Gilbert consoles his tearful 3-year-old daughter, Ayanna, and one of her teammates after a minor collision on their first day of soccer practice March 11. The players recover quickly and promptly forget about their mishap.
They've got some kicking to do.
That's the way of it with Little Kickers, a program for 3- to 5-year-old soccer players with a big love for fun. Little Kickers operates under the umbrella of the Arkansas Soccer League, which has 450 players ages 3-18 from Little Rock, North Little Rock, Bryant, Conway and Maumelle.
Brad Shock, the league's director of coaching, says he began the Little Kickers program in 2003 because he wanted to introduce very young children to soccer. The point, however, isn't competition.
"At age 3, it's not so much about soccer, it's about being in groups, being able to listen to and follow instructions, and weaning them away from the parents," Shock says. "Bottom line is that you wantthe kids to have fun and you're teaching the kids to have fun with other kids." Soccer seemed a natural for Ayanna, who had watched her father play soccer for fun since she was born. Gilbert enrolled her to foster her independenceand athleticism.
"For me, I see my kid exercising," Gilbert says, "but for her, this is her own little club, this is her own little sorority/ fraternity. She comes and hangs out with friends her age doing the things they enjoy doing. I just love it when her face lights up when she gets in front of the ball."
At the first day of Little Kickers practice, the players gather in groups and are told to wait for the whistle to sound, then stand up, run to an area filled with bright orange traffic cones and pick one out. The cones are used as a fun first targets on which the kids can hone their kicking technique.
After complying with this first round of instructions, the whistle blows again and the kids scramble into a circle around coach Heath Lehman. He instructs them to again wait for the whistle, then return to their cones and kick them over.
The whistle sounds, the kids leap to their feet.
"Only one cone!" Lehman shouts, an instruction the kids don't seem to hear. Parents and Lehman chuckle and try to contain the chaos as cones fl y in every direction.
By the third practice session, these same children are exercising a little more restraint. They're still kicking over cones but arealso learning to set the cones back to the upright position using only their feet. This is how the coaches teach them the foot control and balance essential in soccer.
The coaches have to adjust their instruction to their players' limited attention spans. To do this, practice sessions are broken up into short segments with plenty of drills and water breaks.
Little Kickers won't play actual games with other teams, Shock says. The ultimate goal is to involve the kids in short threeon-three scrimmages with each other on a condensed fi eld of play. The kids practice and play at Burns Park in North Little Rock and Pinnacle Mountain State Parkin western Pulaski County.
Shock says he recruits former and current soccer players to help him coach the youngsters. Practices are Monday and Saturday during nine weeks of training in the spring and summer. There is also a weeklong summer camp.
Parents agree that teamwork and socializing are the main reasons they enrolled their kids in the program. Among them is David Kell, whose 4-year-old son, Gibbs, started last year. This year, Gibbs' sister, Isabella, 3, is playing on the Little Kickers.
"And what a difference between the two," says mom Tiffany Kell. "He actually wanted me out there [on the fi eld] and she just went right out there alone."
At a recent practice session, the whistle signals the start of controlled chaos on the fi eld.Now the Little Kickers are using a soccer ball to knock over their cones. It's just another step to working with the fun in the sport's fundamentals.
Ayanna is on the fi eld, this time for a collision-free practice.
"She gets a little nervous when the whistle blows and everyone runs everywhere," her father observes. But Ayanna is now on top of her game.
Gazing at the field of happy 3-year-olds, Gilbert says, "I wish more adults could do this, just forget the day and play."
For more information, visit www.arkansassoccerclub.com.
Family, Pages 33, 38 on 03/26/2008