Part 2: Evaluating performance standards

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This is part 2 of our interview with USSF Development Academy Director John Hackworth.

Part 1 can be read here

In our conversation, which will we share throughout the week, Hackworth discussed the methods by which Academy clubs are being evaluated, how the Federation arrived at standards of player development to be implemented, what the enforcement mechanism is for clubs and coaches who can't follow through, and what the future holds for the program.


TopDrawerSoccer: How do you arrive at the standards to which clubs and coaches are being held?

Coaches will meet with Academy staff and discuss their development and progress.

John Hackworth: "The standard can be a little bit subjective. Obviously you have different people looking and evaluating and you need to have a little bit of variety and range in soccer. It's critical to have imagination and creativity and different ideas being taught and executed. So when we talk about parameters and standards and guidelines, what we want to try to do is have some core fundamental philosophies that we want clubs to adhere to. When we ask any scout to go in to a training session, we don't want to say ‘Did they have this curriculum and did they go through this progression in their session?' But rather, "How was the training session? How was it set up? How did it fit into a yearlong plan that they have to allow their players to reach another level?' We want to be able to break it down on what is best for players in their careers, and see how well did they do that.

"We don't approach it, say, if you do small-sided games, conditioning and technical work for so many minutes each that's the perfect recipe. We can't say that's exactly what we want. When we set it up we told the technical people, ‘Tell me from the warmup to the end, was there good coaching going on? Were the players engaged? Was the intensity right? Was the volume of activity right? What were they trying to accomplish?' If we can get club coaches to accomplish these things in their cycles of training in a proper way, that's what we're trying to get out of this.

"What our scouts want to do is go in and spend time with the whole coaching staff. They will observe some of the training at various age groups. In most cases guys will do a session as well, but mostly they observe. This year currently 70 percent of every game is scouted, which is awesome. So when we look at the actual competitive component, our eyes are out there. That's a pretty good number, but now in the final part of the season especially we need to see the training environments, what's going on in the classroom if you will, then we can make adjustments. That's where we get their technical criteria from them and give them some feedback. Every time we ask a scout to go in, at the same time we receive some concrete empirical data from us on facilities, player ID and development. We'll get some numbers they can look at and if we've been there before, it will be relative to the first time. It's a process to push our message so more and more people not only understand but try to implement it."


TopDrawerSoccer: What has been the response of the clubs to the evaluation and feedback you are giving them?

John Hackworth: "In general, the response has been excellent. One thing all good soccer coaches love to do is to talk about soccer. Most coaches feel if they can share ideas and have an honest conversation, there's going to be some exchange there that is very positive. What is critical to that process is that there is true trust and respect for the big picture that we're trying to go through. There are some coaches who believe their way is the only way. That's ok, and they might be right, but at the same time we are going to be critical of that as well unless they have it nailed down and can prove to us they are developing players systematically and are excellent in that. I don't thing anybody is in a place where they can ignore this process or the education that goes along with it."

Tomorrow: What happens to those clubs and coaches who fail to meet the standards set in place by the USSF Technical Staff.