Soccer Camp
(summer 2024)
Sign up:
(One-week all day summer camp )
Date: August 5th-9th
Time: 8:30 am - 3:00 PM
Where: North Boulder Park
Ages: 8-12
Cost: $350
About the Camp:
Welcome to the Blazing Black Panthers Soccer Club!
(name borrowed from Ryan's first YMCA youth team, chosen by the kids themselves)
This is an all-day camp where our 8 to 12 year olds will learn soccer strategy and skills, and hone their fitness. The camp takes place at North Boulder Park from 8:30 AM to 3:00 PM. Kids should bring lunch, snack, and water.
Your camper can look forward to scrimmages, ball handling lessons, running challenges, advanced soccer skills, passing, and shooting lessons. There will be breaks throughout the day in the shade of the shelter where we will do whiteboard work to understand strategy and view clips from professional soccer games.
The camp is fully insured and sanctioned by Boulder Parks and Rec.
Strategy:
Strategy: If a beginner lacks fitness and skills in soccer, they can still jump into play as long as they are taught strategy - this is coach Ryan’s secret to teaching newcomers. He teaches the kiddos to communicate on the field so that the more experienced players can help the beginners. Each player learns the basics of getting positioned to receive the ball and exactly what to do when it comes to them. Advanced strategies centered around moving to space and anticipating the flow of the game are increasingly instilled as players improve.
Skills:
This is one of Ryan’s favorite elements to soccer. Not just the basics of passing accuracy and dribbling, but also the fancy stuff like curving the ball, advanced fakes, kicks, turns, and yes, even rainbows. Ryan loves teaching all of these to his enthusiastic players. The more advanced players can go as far as they dream in terms of learning these skills and beginners get to find out that there are actually some really cool moves to learn even on day one.
Fitness:
Many kids come into soccer lacking the endurance to run for long periods and the explosive power that soccer can hone. Being explosive is the result of building muscle as well as improving response time. Exciting sprint games are Ryan’s favorite for building explosive play. He uses the fun of scrimmages along with distance challenges get the kiddos into soccer shape with strong legs and lungs.
Culture:
It’s a pity that soccer culture is notoriously competitive and discriminating, even at the introductory youth level. The reality is that soccer is an awesome team sport that can turn a group of different people with different talents into a team with a magical sense of oneness on the field. This is the goal of Ryan’s soccer coaching. Friendships built on the field translate to confidence and unity beyond the game.
Though a veteran player for decades who graduated from Boulder High's Varsity soccer to pickup leagues as an adult, it was actually thanks to his nine year old son, Fox, that Ryan Fenson-Hood began coaching in 2023. Because of COVID, Fox got a late start in team sports. Ryan knew soccer’s tendency toward over-competitiveness could scare off beginners, so he signed up to coach Fox’s YMCA co-ed youth league team to ensure a welcoming entry into the sport instead of a stressful one. During his first season as coach, Ryan’s attention to the individual needs of the players and his ability to use the accessible parts of soccer to draw kids into to the harder parts was enough to inspire his team of beginners to come back for a second season as intermediate players. Now in season two with the Blazing Black Panthers, his players inspired the decision to put on an all-day summer camp in August of 2024. Off the field, Ryan works as a writer and director in the film industry and enjoys skateboarding and playing folk music.
Coach Ryan, circa 1984
Meet Coach Ryan: