Coaches
Coaches Corner Resources
Game Information & Layout By Age
Mission Sports Field Layout
To view a map of the Mission Sports Field layout click for map here.
This map shows Mission 68, 69, 71, 72, 73, 74 & Turf field. Map is here.
Coaches’ Rules Toward Referees
Coaches may speak to a referee: at the start of the game, during stoppages in play and at the end of the game and only to ask questions — never to criticize a referee. The questions must relate to clarification; checking the time or score. A coach may never criticize a referee, call or question his judgment or in any way challenge the referee.
Coaches who criticize referees or other players will be warned by the referee and if they fail to heed that warning will be ejected from the game. If a coach fails to leave, if ejected, the referee will stop the game at that point and record the score as at the stoppage in play.
Coaches should stay within 10-15 meters of midfield. They are not allowed to cross the midfield line and follow their players. Nor can an assistant coach go past the midfield line.
Coaches cannot go on the other side of the field from their players while the game is being played.
Parents’ Rules
Parents must sit on the opposite side of the field from the players (U11 – U18 only).
A referee can ask parents to move or refuse to start the game if they do not follow this rule.
Coaches must control the parents of his/her kids. If a parent is abusive toward the referee or kids, the referee will give a warning to the team and the coach must deal with that.
If the abuse continues, the referee has the right to ask the coach to eject the parent or the referee may stop the game and record the score as at the stoppage in play.
Divisional Game Sheets And Scores
Game sheets are to be completed for all U11-18 games (including pre-season AND all cross-over games). Please complete ALL sections, including the GAME #, printing clearly and pressing hard enough to go through all copies. Coaches must sign the game sheet at the END of the game to confirm the score. The first team listed on the schedule is to provide the game sheet for the game. It must be completed by both teams and given to the referee before the start of the game. The Columns marked “Y/R,” “ID Card,” the sections for the Final Scores and the Misconduct Summary section are all strictly for Referee Use Only.
Within 24 hours of a game, the winning coach is to email the score to
– please put the game number in the subject line. Please do not phone in your score. In the event of a tie, both coaches should send an email.
The game sheet is used to update the web stats — the emails are used in an event of a dispute/discrepancy/ missing official/missing game sheet.
Feed Back From Training Sessions
To: Neil MacNeil (and the OMYSA Directors)
Hello Neil, I have just finished attending the second of three scheduled soccer coaches training sessions given by Shaun Flannigan and Tom Flannigan (I do apologize if I have misspelled their names). Anyway I would like to offer some feedback at this time to you and to the OMYSA Directors.
1. The two coaching instructors are absolutely outstanding in every aspect! They are totally professionally in their presentation, appearance, demeanour, venue/equipment and lesson plan preparation, etc. Their knowledge and skills at instructing and facilitating the learning process are exceptional. I dare say they have exceptional soccer skills on the field.
2. The sessions are fast-paced, intense, jam packed, inspiring, and fun, fun, fun! The instructors are always respectful of the course participant’s various levels of skill and experience in soccer and coaching. Everyone is made to feel valued and essential – all questions are answered fully and clearly.
3. The sessions offer so much in practical ‘hands-on’ learning – something that is impossible to gain from a video or textbook – only ‘live’ sessions can offer instant feedback to participants. This type of teaching is so important to address any misconceptions or counterproductive habits that may have already crept into the coaching styles of the participants (all of us are volunteer non-professional coaches).
4. Personally I am surprised that more of the volunteer soccer coaches in the OMYSA are not attending the sessions as they are missing out on exceptional soccer coaching instruction. A further benefit of the sessions is the coaching skills being taught apply equally to many other team sports such as hockey, ringette, basketball, etc (a bonus for multi-sport volunteers!!!). It may very well be that some coaches are already very busy on the same nights as the scheduled sessions. Perhaps some (like me) may have felt they could forego the instruction as they already had lots of soccer experience. Perhaps some might have felt intimidated as they are new to soccer and have never played competitive. To those people I would say: YOU have stepped forward to fill a much needed role as coach for your son or daughter’s team which is truly awesome. You would have to agree that we owe it to the children on our sports teams to pick up as much as we can to pass on and instil in them the necessary skills for them to fully enjoy their chosen sport. To that end I can only say that the soccer coaching sessions offered by OMYSA are truly worth their weight in gold!!!
Neil and the Directors, please offer the sessions again as we all need refresher training no matter what level of coach we are. I would also like to suggest a few things that might help you for the next series of coaching sessions:
6. I would also offer that someone be assigned the role of coordinator to receive e-mails or telephone calls from the participants (when they cannot attend a specific session due to a family emergency, etc.) The instructors for these latest OMYSA coaching sessions are giving so much to our local soccer teams via their dedication and quality of instruction, it behoves all participants that ‘sign up’, to ensure they communicate their intention to attend or not, ahead of time. This is a common professional courtesy that we team coaches would expect from our player’s/parents before each game/practice.
Thank you for taking the time to read my comments. I hope in some small way they might help to re-enforce the need to continue the excellent coaching sessions you are offering (Note: The sessions are free of charge to our volunteer coaches – what a great deal!!!)
A final note: To give you some background and perspective on the comments above, I have attended various national and provincial sports instruction clinics and symposiums across Canada over the past 30+ years in both soccer and squash, I have played, officiated and coached at various times at those same levels. I believe I am quite familiar with, and experienced in, the areas of sports philosophy, playing and instructing. In other words I know a good thing when I see it . . . . and our OMYSA organizers rock!!!
Have a great soccer season everyone . . .
André Cabuché
More Feed Back From Training Sessions
Hello to all the Okanagan Mission Youth Soccer Staff & volunteers.
I am writing to say thank you, firstly for the awesome web site, you have done a fantastic job of restructuring the web site, there is so much info and the field maps are great so easy to find.
Secondly, I just completed the three coaching clinics presented by Shawn Flannigan & Thomas Flannigan, I have to say in my 20 plus years of coaching various other sports and the numerous coaching clinics I have attended & participated in over the years do not even come close to comparison to Shawn & Thomas’s clinic.
With all honesty this was by far the most thorough, fun & practicle coaching sessions I have ever participated in. As a seasoned coach, I learned so much from these two I can’t begin to describe it all. I have put there teachings to use already and have seen a marked improvement in my coaching skills as well as an excellerated understanding & execution of skills in my young players. I know I will use all these new skills in all of the sports I coach from now on. I would say I learned more in this three days than all the past 20 years of coaching clinics I have attended.
Please pass along my sincere thanks to Shawn & Thomas oh yeah & Mark
too!!! And please, don’t stop there. Let’s have more of these fellows,
our Association will only get better because of it. Thanks Again and
keep up the great work.
Kevin W. Birnie, U9 Coach
Byte Size Coaching
COYSA has arranged for access to Byte Size Coaching. This is an excellent source for coaches at all levels and the OMYSA would like to encourage all their coaches to take advantage of the valuable resource.
Message from Tony Waiters
OMYSA,
I’m very Delighted to have you on board with the Byte Size Coaching program. You will gain access to Bytesize Coaching at www2.bytesizecoaching.com/COYSA by using the login arranged for access to Byte Size Coaching.
User Name omysacoach and Password soccer. Remember the login is case sensitive so you need to enter the information exactly as it is shown here.
The Byte Size Coaching program welcomes any observations, criticisms and suggestions that will help us improve the service for you and your fellow coaches. You can contact me at
Best Wishes,
Tony Waiters
Learn to play… play to learn