In the Midwest Conference our off-season has three pretty distinct parts. The first part is sandwiched awkwardly between the end of the season in November and finals/Christmas Break. It involves a lot of administrative tasks, the Awards Ceremony, decompressing from the season, and heading home for the holidays.
Part Two begins once the students return to campus for the second semester. It is largely player and captain organized and almost all of the responsibility lies with the individuals. The team gets together for optional runs, weight lifting, workouts, and pick-up games on our on-campus indoor turf. Some kids play on IM soccer teams too. Recently a group of 12 current players and alumnae got together and road-tripped to Madison. WI for a competitive Women's tournament over President's Weekend. It's in these months where the team really starts to set the tone for what THEY want out of the next season: they can motivate themselves and their teammates to bigger and better things or they can slowly watch the winter slip past without much self-improvement at all. Whichever option they choose is usually pretty evident in Phase Three...
In March and April the coaching staff is allotted 20 hours to train with the team. This can take all sort of different forms: working in small groups on specific skills, playing full games, fitness, position-specific practices, etc...These sessions are scheduled based on player availability and desires and are far more sporadic than the everyday, full-team practices we have during the season. These sessions take us up right up to finals and the start of the summer holidays.
Every year it is surprising how quickly it all flies by and before we know it we'll be back on campus in August for the start of another season. Yay!
