TOM ZWINNEN - Central Football

My drive is to be a great parent and a good role model within the community. Coaching soccer for my kids and the club was the perfect way to do that. I started coaching my kids’ teams 5 years ago when they were age 5, My focus was to make sure that every child felt safe, had fun, and came back for more, no matter their skill level.

I learned coaching by trial and error and watching online videos. We used the parent messenger page to share videos for upcoming training with the kids so they could see what we would be training. I planned our training based on the previous game’s challenges and opportunities.

I never imagined that it would be so rewarding and that I would look forward to each training and game.​​​​​​​

Key factor was to celebrate the player of day with quotes that matched their strengths, challenges, or achievements.

We made it such a part of our team culture to celebrate every success and every challenge as an opportunity, that the kids (& parents) never really looked or felt like they had lost