Robert Baird || back to coaches list

U9 Boys East and West Head Coach

BACKGROUND: I was born in 1961 in Oklahoma, where I grew up playing baseball, football, and basketball, riding my Yamaha motocross cycle and the first BMX bikes. My hometown of Oklahoma City, in the late 60s and early 70s, offered little in the way of recreational soccer. In high school at Putnam City West, my athletic career focused on cross country and track, and included trips to the state track meet in the 200 meters and the 800 meter relay. For the next decade, as an undergraduate at Oklahoma State, while living in Los Angeles, and as a graduate at UIUC, I became a gym rat and played pickup basketball 3 to 4 times a week. In 1993, having kicked a soccer ball on a handful of occasions, I was told by a Champaign Park District staff member that my daughter’s 1st grade Park District soccer team was in desperate need of a coach, any coach. Not anticipating the potential life-altering implications of coaching a first grade recreational soccer team, I agreed.

PLAYING CAREER: In order to coach young children, one must at least demonstrate the basic skills and movements of a sport. Since I was not fortunate enough to grow up with soccer, when I began coaching in ’93 I realized I needed a crash course in learning the player’s side of the sport and so I essentially exchanged my weekly pickup basketball regimen for a weekly, often daily, soccer regimen of practices, scrimmages, and games. Having basically fallen in love with the sport at such a late stage I was trying to catch up and regain lost time as quickly as possible. When I first began playing it was with a number of UIUC campus recreational teams, including The Ancient Tilapia Fish, who won the open division of the UIUC campus league in 1999. Around the same time I competed with an over 30 3v3 team that took 1st place in the local 3v3 Shootout Tournament. For the last five or so years I have played with a local group that fields two teams: Flatville and the Flatville Highlanders. Over the years I’ve played 3v3 tournaments, indoor soccer in tiny gyms and the now-defunct YMCA facility and even under the old UIUC “bubble” that was inflated each winter over Memorial Stadium for winter practice and recreational leagues. When I travel I like to play with locals, and have played pickup games with Jordanians, Costa Rican kids, Danish fans, Brits from Newcastle, and Oklahomans (who now in the 21st Century enjoy soccer like the rest of the world!).

COACHING: Over the years I have coached and assisted with many youth sports at the recreational and grade school level: t-ball, softball, baseball, basketball, track. I have coached or assisted with soccer teams and camps run by LISC, Champaign Park District, Urbana Park District, Savoy Recreation, Central High School, and the YMCA. For LISC I have coached teams from U8 through U12 ages, specializing in the youngest players in the club. A number of years ago I took the lead as LISC took over the curriculum and coaching of the Champaign Park District’s Micro Soccer program, which serves kindergarten aged players. In the winter of 2006 I helped Savoy Recreation develop their first indoor soccer program. I currently hold the NSCAA National Youth Diploma, a USSF "D" license, and a IYSA U10 Youth Module.  I am also a member of the National Soccer Coaches Association of America.

PHILOSOPHY: Given my late start with soccer my physical and mental understanding of the game developed within the context of my adulthood and my coaching duties, which were largely concerned with developing skills and imparting knowledge to very young players. Consequently, I easily relate to players just beginning the game and can also balance textbook knowledge and traditional coaching techniques with my own personalized strategies I used to learn the game late in life. I combine an empathetic and conscious appreciation for what it takes to learn soccer, and develop quickly, with life-long professional experience as a teacher, trainer, and consultant. Ultimately, the bedrock of my soccer coaching philosophy is based on a love of the game itself and a belief that anyone, at any level, can play the game with joy and creativity. In training I frequently combine older and more skilled players with younger and more novice players, and will often join in and have other adult players join in scrimmages. I believe younger players learn best in the flow of the game by seeing and playing with older and more advanced players who model more advanced skills, field awareness, and inventiveness. Scrimmages are kept fast, fun, and flowing. Every practice combines hundreds or thousands of touches on the ball within playful games and contests. My goal with young players is to introduce them to soccer in such a way as to inspire them to still be playing the game well into their adulthood.