Day 1

Well Day 1, or should I say evening 1 is in the books.

After a nice relaxing train ride first down the Hudson river, followed by the Delaware river I arrived in Baltimore on time and ready to go!

Checked into the hotel, nice room, not such a nice view of the demolished building across the street, but otherwise a fine place to call home for a few days.

Headed over to the Convention center less than a half mile away and took a lay of the land! NSCAA registration was of course on the opposite side of the center from where I entered, but that allowed me to get good vantage points to become familiar with my surroundings. Although the registration line was a couple hundred people deep, it moved fairly fast, got my badge, my T-shirt and welcome packet and made it just in the nick of time to the first clinic of the night!

6:15 Full Squad Attacking Activities" Ian Barker, Director of Coach Education, NSCAA . As usual, Ian did a great job working with some Maryland elite U12 Boys and gave us all something to think about as he worked on a developing session that included goalkeeper involvement and building the session, simple to complex, allowing these boys to have a great deal of fun trying to score on their fellow keepers. You can see the full session on Ian's twitter page: (https://twitter.com/barkernscaa) .

Then at 7:30, my buddy Tony DiCicco held a session on "Advanced Goalkeeping" Tony DiCicco, Director, Founder, NSCAA Goalkeeping Academy, Soccer Plus. I have had the pleasure of getting Goalkeeping education from Tony for about 5 years now. He is truly one of the worlds best GK coaches and tonight he did not disappoint. He worked with a full team of U16 Maryland elite Girls including 4 Goalkeepers and progressed them through 'Saving the Point Blank Shot'. It was reassuring to see that some of the activities Coach DiCicco used in this session were the same ones I used. But I guess that makes sense since I have learned a lot from him in previous years. What was really great to see in this session was how Tony worked with each of the girls to help them coach themselves so they could each improve in the areas they needed to, to become great goalkeepers! I look forward to continuing this type of training in my Just4keeper training sessions as well as all positions for my U17 Team.

So back to the hotel for some dinner and some rest. I feel a cold coming on.... worse possible timing!!! I hope it doesn't get worse and in the way of tomorrow's full day of activities!!!

Hope to talk to everyone then!

Coach Knight