Gérard Jones
Sporting Director Sporting Kansas City | PhD using Feedback to guide search | US Soccer Coach Educator
From York, England, Gérard Jones is a highly experienced coach with nearly two decades of expertise spanning all levels, from grassroots to professional, across the UK, US, Italy, Norway, and New Zealand. Gérard has held prominent roles, including being a former Elite Coach Educator & DTN Executive with the Royal Moroccan Football Federation and Head of Coaching at Bristol Rovers & Academy Coach at Rochdale within the EPPP Academies. Currently, a Director of Coaching in the Youth Department at MLS Sporting Kansas City and is the Founder of CoachesClubHouse.
A Coach Educator with U.S. Soccer & The Football Association, Gérard has mentored coaches nationally and regionally, representing continental bodies such as UEFA, AFC, CAF & CONCACAF. His extensive qualifications include an FA UEFA 'A' Licence, a PhD in Coaching Feedback at Sheffield Hallam University, a Masters in Sports Directorship from Manchester Met University, an MSc in Performance Coaching from Stirling University, and a teaching qualification from Huddersfield University. Gérard is recognised for his forward-thinking and innovative leadership in high-performance environments.
Other: Business Owner, Author, Public Speaker, Coach Educator, Teacher
How would you define a parent’s role within the youth sports environment?
Parents have a significant role to play where they have to offer unconditional support and ‘attention’ to their children and others which means, praise and encourage effort not the ability or performance outcome primarily. The focus should be on encouraging learning, enjoyment, friendships and seeing youth-sports as a vehicle to promote healthy activity, competition and challenges.
Parents should avoid placing unnecessary pressure on children to perform and see their role as the supporter and encourager of their love for sport.
What are the benefits of being a positive youth sports parent?
Young players playing sport for life! Retention is key! Whatever the game, it’s the players game to own, therefore if the parents are positive – we can hopefully achieve lifelong participation in sport which is huge across any format, level or role.
Positive encouragement will reinforce better communication between the coach-player-parent, foster greater relationships and enjoyment, creativity and recruitment of others into the sport.
What advice would you give any youth sports participator who has the ambition, drive and commitment to reach the highest level?
Offer unconditional support and attention, share advice when asked and only when you consider the following questions (will this hinder or help?) and encourage a relentless obsession and challenge them to be better and work hard but not at the detriment of learning, enjoyment, fun, or other factors in life that they may feel are important.
It’s their life, they are in the driving seat, we can guide but ultimately it’s the child who has to take ownership if they want to reach the highest levels! You can’t do it for them!
Advice to the player
Identify what your strengths are and what areas you want/need to develop and create a plan to work on them! Identify who you may need to help you and seek them out, find support from whereever you can and surround yourself with individuals who are performing at higher levels than you, so that you can study their behaviour, rituals/habbits and actions to situations and see what you need to do to reach that level and above.
Never stop working at your strengths and areas of development, never stop learning! Build and manage key relationships with people, have a vision/target – write it down and stare at it every day to work towards it! Be aware of how others perceive you and how you can manage your reputation!
Advice to the parents
Do what you think is right, trust your ‘gut instincts’ and try not to the be expert in everything
In your experience as a coach, how does negative approaches from the parents, affect the players short & long-term?
Ultimately you can become a distraction and turn the kids away from playing which is what we don’t want to do. Avoid coaching from sidelines, leave it to the coaches – let the kids figure out for themselves.
What advice would you give coaches regarding youth sports parents?
A lot of clubs talk about ‘Parent Education’ and this should be rephrased as Parent ENGAGEMENT, it’s not about telling parents what you want, talking at them and treating them as if they are the enemy or naive, instead recognise that some of these parents are highly skilled and intelligent, some may be professors in their own right in skill development? Business leaders, lawyers or whatever. Use their experience, communicate with them regularly, don’t shut them out of the child’s life and engage with them!
What advice would you give youth sports parents for the car journey to and from youth sports practices and/or games?
Be specific with your information, encourage and tell them how proud you are and praise their attitude and effort and check their attitude and effort if it needs to be improved. Avoid focusing all your effort and attention on their ‘talent or what they did technically/performance wise’ as if you only praise the ‘no. of goals they scored for example and in the next game they didn’t score, you’re telling them that they didn’t play well’.
It’s all psychology! I would focus on setting them a ‘specific task’ within the game that is measureable and aligned with what the coach is working on and the Club wants as this is a great way to help your child meet the expectations of that program.
What types of behaviours/mannerisms/comments would you encourage parents to demonstrate? Pre-During and Post training/match.
Pre: Work hard, if you make a mistake don’t worry it’s all learning, see it as credit, if you make a bad pass for example, how can you get yourself back in credit? By making a simple pass or action next time and build your confidence in the game.
Post: How did you think you did? Did you achieve your objectives? What did coach say? well done, I love how hard you worked, proud of you! Love you! etc
