This week was the last time to organize the soccer equipment since we already had received all the materials from Nike. We checked all the bags again to make sure someone was not missing any equipment. we put all the bags in the lock room and left them inside of it. We organized a list with the player's name and the locker combination so the head and assistant coaches had the control of it. We also divided the names and locker combination to give to each player individually, no one would see the combination of the other.
Unfortunately, in my last of internship the instructor and his assistant were most of the time in a meeting, then they did not say good bye "properly". I left a note in they office's board saying thank you words. However I kept meeting them around the campus during the summer, and I sent a "properly" thank you card to my instructor. I felt that I had my job accomplished and I was very satisfied with my experience. I felt the same from my instructor, and even him said that I improved a lot during the whole internship. He said I gained more maturity during the internship.
As usual this week I organized the weekly soccer magazine in the folders. The folders were already full, so the instructor asked me to get new folders and organize the magazines again in order to distribute them between all the folders. We watched more videos from students interested in playing soccer at Tiffin university. The Instructor required me to make a list with the names of the recruits who were certainly coming to Tiffin on the offices's board. After that I had to make another list with the players who already were in the team and divide them by position. This visual distribution of the names on the board made it easier to see how the team looked like to the next season. It also helped to know what positions the team most needed to recruit more.
During this week, we also worked organizing everything for the preseason on Canada. While my instructor and his assistant coach made calls to hotels, and clubs where the team would stay for the trip. I had to search places of entertainment and restaurants around each hotel that they were taking information from. It was very interesting because I learned a lot from Canada besides to learn how works the whole process to travel with a college team. It was not easy to my instructor to get the access to the visas from the international players who play at Tiffin university soccer team. My instructor did not think it would be that hard to get the visas since it was being requested from an University, however it was.
These 2 days I spent working with the water bottles that my instructor gave to me. He gave me 60 water bottles, number stickers and a marker. He required me to stick the numbers in the bottles and write the respective player's name on the bottle. It was a little hard since the stickers were rectangular and the bottles were a little oval shaped. I was struggling to not get air bubbles under the stickers because of the different shape between the bottles and the stickers. After I finished it, I had to write the names on the top of the each bottle. When I done with it, I had to open all 60 bags again and put the bottles inside. I took 2 days to do it because 60 players is a big number, also the instructor did give me enough stickers, so I ha to wait for him buy more.
This week I pretty much spent it working in the IDs for the soccer bags. This project was a new idea that my instructor had. He never had did it before, and he asked the new assistant coach to create these IDs. The assistant coach started it but he could find a way to do it how the instructor wanted. The assistant coach asked me for ideas, but I also never had did this type of project before. However, I wanted to know ho to do those IDs, and I wanted answer to my instructor expectations. The first day I did not even touched this material, I was just observing the assistant coach trying to do it. After the second day, when he asked for my help, I started to search ways to accomplish it. My instructor talked to the communication department from Tiffin University and someone gave to him a model in the photo shop. However that model was not exactly what he wanted, so I had to learn by my self how to work in a photo shop. I took the whole week to make all 60 numbers because it required individual rosters picture, name and jersey numbers. Then I had to do manually and learn how to pass it to a Word document in order to print everything together instead of one per time. After printing everything, the IDs were sent to be plasticized. When they came back, I had to cut them individually. After being cut, I had to make a hole in each one and then annex a cord on them. After I finished to annex all the cords on the ID cards, I had to put them annexed each Id to the respectively number of the soccer bag.
In this weekend we did the High School Camp. It was a really big event during the summer. We received around 15 players from 6 high schools. We received the schools Friday in the morning and introduced them to their dorms on campus. We did a presentation about the schedule for the camp to make sure they understood the program. They had lunch afternoon and practice after that. We divided the soccer field in 6 small fields so each coach could have a private space to practice their teams. During whole weekend, the teams had conditioning practice in the morning, short practice and scrimmage afternoon, and scrimmage in the evening. The teams played two games for each scrimmage, and they played against a different team each scrimmage. I helped supporting one these teams because they did not have a coach to practice. Some players from Tiffin University team and I coached the team that did not have its own coach. It was a good experience for me because I could work as coach, which is very different from being a player. I needed to explain things that for me was very automatic and obvious, and it was really hard for me.
This week I worked with the last preparations for the high school soccer camp. Since it is a huge event on campus during the summer, it requires a lot attention to details. My instructor required me to make signs to put in the dorms where the recruits would be leaving during the camp. These signs had a little map of the campus and the schedule of the activities for the week. Also we made a portfolio talking about the camp. It explains what is the purpose of the camp, the information from the people involved in the camp, and the schedule of activities. This portfolio was made to each coach responsible for the teams. We also had to make sure that the cafe from the school would be able to serve the students during the camp. We ha to give all the information about number of people and time required to cafe be open to serve the students.
Most of these 3 days the instructor, his assistant, and I worked in order to discuss about the recruits observed and the possibility of recruit others who they would like to recruit from other countries. Most of the recruits who participated of the recruits's camp were from America, only couple of them were from Canada. The instructor was interested in some players from England and Brazil. We watched some videos from really good players who wanted an opportunity. However most of the attempts to a negotiation were cut because of grade report issues. We also watched videos from players who would not have chances to play at Tiffin University soccer team because their skills were very low. The instructor finally got very good chances to recruit some England players at the end of this week.
In this day I worked in the recruits soccer camp. It was a really interesting experience because I could follow whole recruitment process and how it works. In the morning we met the recruits in the Heminger and introduced them to each other. We did practice technical practice with a little conditioning together in the morning to analyze their skills. After lunch we did a tactical practice to prepare them to the scrimmage in the evening. In the evening we did the scrimmage. Some players from Tiffin University and I played together, and it was really fun. I was helping to develop the practices, but also, I was practicing with them most of the time in this camp. Besides I played with the high school students, at the end of each day, I played with the coaches. The coaches's scrimmage were always really fun because the quality was high, and I really liked it. Of course I was the only girl between the guys, and it was reason for admiration from them about my soccer skills. I really had fun.
This week we did the soccer camp for kids from 6 to 14 years old. It was really fun to teach them basic things about soccer. we had around 7 boys and 4 girls. Some of them were Tiffin University staff's children. We teach them things as pass, control of the ball, and positioning in the field.
It was fun when one day I showed them a trick with the ball and they though I was doing some kind of magic. It was a really interesting experience because I could realize how the kids improved in 5 days of camp.
At the end of the camp week the kids were more organized inside of the field, and they were paying more attention to the instructions during the soccer activities. Girls and boys played together independently of the age because we did not have a big number of children. In the last day of camp, they received a shirt from the event, they really enjoyed it.
In these two days I worked with the preparation for the kid's soccer camp and the recruits' soccer camp. For the children's camp, I had to collect all the names from the participating kids and make a list of them. After that I had to separate the shirts to be distributed to the kids at the end of the camp week. Also I had to report for the instructor what were the ages from the participating kids, so we could have some idea of how we would work of them. We wanted to make sure that everyone would enjoy the camp without exclude anyone because of the difference of age.
For the recruits camp, I had also to collect the name and other personal information from the recruits. I had to contact volunteers to help during the camp. All the volunteer were soccer player from Tiffin University who were spending the summer around the campus. I had to check the soccer materials to make sure they were in a good condition to be used during the camp.
These were interesting experiences with event organization. I had never did it before, and I really enjoyed it.
