Internship in Soccer Mania - Paper Example

Mission and History

Soccer Mania was established to promote talent development in indoor soccer for children and adults of all ages. With an aim of providing families and individuals the chance to experience great fun and enjoyable soccer in a climate controlled friendly environment, soccer mania has been running Central Virginia's premier indoor soccer leagues for individuals between 5 to 18 of age ("Lynchburg Soccer Mania | About Us", n.d.).

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The indoor soccer leagues are conducted at Liberty University at the Thomas Indoor Soccer Center. The facility was made to have grass-like playgrounds and surrounded by dasher boars. Besides the facility has developed free internet connection to all the clients as well as wide view on the televisions mounted on walls. The essence was to make the facility a modernized facility which offers comfort and luxury throughout the year while focusing on building family values, community participation, and fantastic customer service delivery.

Background and Goals

The programs provide leagues, birthday parties, clinics, camps and other activities which are related to soccer. The name Soccer Mania was developed by Thomas' children who believed that soccer is an enjoyable game and should be used to offer families an opportunity to delve into extensive fun while learning in an enabling environment. The facility provides both winter and summer leagues which give applicants the chance to apply all through before the spots are all taken. The winter league registration starts every September while the summer one commences from April to August. A coach is expected to fill a registration form and pay a registration fee then fill spots of the players. In case an individual is interested, an indoor registration form is issued to them and their credentials are sent to relevant coaches every week for them to stand a chance to fill vacant spots in various teams.

Job Description

Job Requirements

The internship period is developed to offer learners discern their passion and career whereas familiarizing them to various aspects of soccer management, day to day operations of Soccer Mania, facilitating coaching process with the coaches and players during trainings, participation in resource mobilization through selling of the products and goods during the games time, preparation for the summer camp and assessment of players, assisting the referees and assistant referees (Pain, 2008). Interns are not considered as employees and are not entitled to equivalent compensation as employees for the production of their work. However, they receive a nominal stipend for upkeep and other expenses in the internship program.

Support/Leadership

The internship experience varies from department to another but the main aim is to present each of the interns with a valuable avenue to develop their understanding via the stipulated activities through effective training. The program is quite helpful for any intern since all information is available via the staff members linked to the internship department. The playoffs schedules and season standings are announced regularly and put on the website and social media platforms for easy access to all the interested parties.

Strengths, Weaknesses, Improvements

The initiative presents various strengths, for instance, it is an opportunity to share knowledge and enhance partnerships in soccer and learning. As such, it promotes sports-based learning as well as leaners collaboration through soccer, camps, and parties. It facilitates the personalization of learning goals via access to sports facilities and high content of sports activities. The programs nurture young talents and help learners build passion in these fields. Moreover, the organization is able to control the environment in which leaners play and make it family friendly. Indoor soccer presents players with extra training sessions even during the off-season period. One major strength is that the games are not affected by weather changes since all the games are played indoors. Besides, the games are fast paced and the coaches can focus on developing ball skills, more touches, great defending and transition exercises.

Despite its great benefits to the players, institution and other stakeholders, some of the weaknesses associated might derail activities and make programs inefficient. For example, one weakness is limited space in which players might not prove their shooting power appropriately. Some players even utilize these walls to their advantage by pushing the opponents to the walls as a defensive approach since they find it hard to score from such positions. The facility is small and cannot host multiple games and events since it creates extra traffic. The organization should make pertinent improvements in its facility's capacity by expanding on the parking to allow for simultaneous activities.

Academic Application

Time management is a key element which is utilized as an academic concept at the Lynchburg Soccer Mania ("Lynchburg Soccer Mania | About Us", n.d.). Guardians, parents, coaches and other stakeholders in the program are advised to ensure that the children do not cause harm to themselves by ignoring deadlines. The coaches are usually provided with particular time to put a team together and apply for a sports slot which has to be conducted within particular deadlines. This approach instills a time management skill among the learners and helps them make quick decisions as well as become effective problem solvers.

Soccer Mania is a program which promotes self-actualization and talent realization. During these games, children can make lasting decisions which affect the games as they are taught. It is learning which influences their decisions making process in life which is also a tool to help them comprehend what happens in the process and to know when to intervene and most primarily the opportunity to know when one should retract.

Significant Learning Experience

The internship period was quite a vital avenue to enhance my skills. Working in the conditioning and strength department of the Soccer Mania, I managed to assist in establishing a high-performance environment. I was able to work during the summer schedules with the organized teams in managing their activities which is coupled with intensive training. I managed to create an effective rapport with many teams and progressing my career skills and improving learners' talents. The activities were slower in the middle of the summer period. In this period, I had small research projects which focused on the potential effectiveness of various exercise sessions and evaluating techniques.

Towards the end of the internship, there were more activities in the training camp because the season was drawing closer and these tasks were channeled towards preparation. It was time for me to balance learning and exercising my skills learned during the internship. I started off by running multiple monitoring programs which were a challenging task for me but I later enjoyed working with the teams. Monitoring programs lead to the creation of team players databases that can be used to access team members information in developing and tracking trends. Staff members are allowed to access this information to share with the coaches which help them to enhance their training skills to maximize effectiveness.

Conclusion

I had various fieldworks which I enjoyed the most including writing their reports. I was not quite prepared to use excel but I also did not use PowerPoint program in my reports as I never made many presentations. Soccer Mania present every player with the opportunity and atmosphere to advance their skills and become successful. This spans from, proper nutrition, exercise and lifting period, education on rest and sleep for the athletes. One area I emphasized and built my skills tremendously in is the application of my skills among the group members. My techniques and activities varied but it was such a remarkable experience establishing pragmatic relationships with all different kinds of teams and working with people from different cultural backgrounds and also attempting to modify my communication to be effective with them (Waalkes, 2016).

After my studies, I would like to work with such a highly competitive setting which challenges my ability daily giving me room to expand and grow as an individual and professional. It is my passion to work in such a setting under pressure coupled with all the support from my colleagues, it was quite fantastic as it brought the very best out of me. However, one area that requires change is the marketing department in how they conduct their marketing campaigns and efforts channeled towards soliciting for the audience. The organization requires to establish strategic partnerships with relevant stakeholders to help champion in its activities. Besides, the organization should also focus on less fortunate individuals by developing street-based talents programs for the homeless and vulnerable but talented individuals.

References

Lynchburg Soccer Mania | About Us. Retrieved from http://www.lynchburgsoccer.com/about-lynchburg-soccer/.

Pain, E. (2008). Making your summer research internship a good one. Science. doi:10.1126/science.caredit.a0800179.

Waalkes, S. (2016). Does soccer explain the world or does the world explain soccer? Soccer and globalization. Soccer & Society, 18(2-3), 166-180. doi:10.1080/14660970.2016.1166782.