# A youth coach’s playbook — practice plans, rules and a season parents can read Recipe No. 50, Hobbies and play. From The know.sh Cookbook: https://know.sh/cookbook/coach-playbook - For: a volunteer coach of an under-10 recreational soccer team - You bring: the league’s rulebook and safeguarding policy, the practice and game schedule, your own notes from the parents’ meeting, and the AI assistant you already use - You get: a season shelf with a practice plan for every session, the league’s rules and a match-day checklist, positions and a playing-time rotation by shirt number, and a parents’ guide on one read-only link - Time: an evening before the season, then fifteen minutes before each practice and after each game - Keep it: private while you work; share one document by a read-only link You said yes at registration because nobody else would. Now there are twelve eight- and nine-year-olds, two practices a week on half a field, eight Saturday games, and a league rulebook forty pages long. The practices you remember from your own childhood were laps and lines, and the league wants something else: small-sided games, everybody touching the ball, nobody heading it. This recipe builds the season as a shelf. Whichever assistant you use, Claude, ChatGPT or a local model, reads the league's rules and your notes, researches session plans from U.S. Soccer and your state association, and files it all: a finding per practice, the rules and a match-day checklist, positions and a rotation. You fix it up in the editor, because you know your field, your players and how long a nine-year-old will stand still. Parents read one page, from one link: the schedule and what to bring. The children themselves stay out of the library. Players are shirt numbers, and names, photos, medical forms and phone numbers stay with the league. ## What you will use - **Shelf**: One shelf for the season, *Comets U10, fall 2026*, whose line gives the league, the age group and the field. - **Research document**: *Practice plans*, *League rules and match day*, *Positions and rotation*, and *Parents’ guide*, the one you share. - **Finding**: A session per practice, a rule or checklist per finding, the rotation per game; what went wrong at practice filed as *Problem*. - **Your AI assistant**: Reads the league’s rulebook and your notes, researches session plans with sources, and builds the season’s documents at scale. - **The editor**: Where you cut drills to fit your space and your twelve players, reorder the sessions, and mark the ones worth repeating **Key**. - **Public link**: A read-only link to the *Parents’ guide*, with no child’s name, photo, medical detail or phone number on it. - **Quiz**: A quiz on the league’s rules, written by your assistant, taken before the first game. - **Revisions**: Keeps each version of the rotation, so a question about playing time can be answered from the record. ## Method ### 1. Give your assistant the league’s rules and your notes Connect your assistant to know.sh once, following the support page. In Claude or ChatGPT, attach the league's rulebook and safeguarding policy, and paste the schedule and your notes from the parents' meeting. Ask it to make a shelf, *Comets U10, fall 2026*, and a document, *League rules and match day*, with a finding for each rule you will need on a Saturday: the 7v7 format, the size 4 ball, the build-out line, no heading, the playing-time rule, the concussion policy, the weather policy. Ask it to quote the rulebook's section number in each finding. When the league's rule and a national guideline differ, the league's rule is the one you coach to. ### 2. Have it research and draft a season of practices Next, ask your assistant to research session plans for 9- and 10-year-olds on the web, from U.S. Soccer's grassroots resources and your state association, and to draft a *Practice plans* document: one finding per practice, titled with the session number, the date and the theme, "Session 6, Thu 24 Sept — Turning away from pressure". Each session follows the same parts, which U.S. Soccer's Play-Practice-Play model fits: a warm-up game as players arrive, one or two activities on the theme, a small-sided game, a cool-down, and the equipment list. Each session lists the plan it was adapted from as a source. Sixteen sessions arrive in one evening. This needs an assistant with web search. ### 3. Fit each session to your field in the editor Now make the plans yours. Press **Edit** on a session and check it against what you have: half a field, twelve players if everyone comes, eight if it rains, one bag of balls. Shrink grids, cut the activity that needs three coaches, and swap the drill with lines for one where everyone has a ball. Any drill that has players heading the ball goes. Drag the sessions into the order that builds the season: dribbling before passing, passing before playing out from the back. Change a session's type to *Question* if you are not sure it will work, and after practice add a line on what happened. The ones that worked get marked **Key**. ### 4. Plan positions and a fair rotation Ask your assistant for a *Positions and rotation* document: a finding explaining a simple 7v7 shape, such as two defenders, three midfielders and a forward, in words a nine-year-old can follow, then one finding per game with who plays each quarter. Use shirt numbers, never names; the list that matches numbers to children stays on paper in your bag. Then check the rotation against the league's playing-time rule. Twelve players and seven places over four quarters means everyone plays at least two quarters, and every child gets a turn in goal if they want one. Revisions keep each version, so when a parent asks about playing time you can show what was planned. ### 5. Build the match-day checklist and quiz yourself Add a finding to *League rules and match day* called *Match-day checklist* and mark it **Key**: arrival forty minutes early, the first-aid kit and ice packs, the roster and medical release forms in the league's folder, size 4 balls, pinnies, the rotation, and the concussion steps written out. A week before the first game, ask your assistant for a quiz on *League rules and match day*. It writes five to ten questions with know.sh's quiz tools, each citing the rule it came from, and you take it in know.sh or the iOS app (in TestFlight beta). It comes back under *Revisit* in three, seven or twenty-one days, depending on how you did. ### 6. Write the parents’ guide and share it Ask your assistant to draft *Parents' guide — fall 2026* from the schedule and the rules: a finding for practice times and the field, one for game days, one for what to bring, one for how playing time works, one for the concussion policy, one for weather cancellations. Then rewrite the overview yourself: who you are, how to reach you through the league's team app, and what the season is for. Read every finding for anything about a particular child, and take it out. Then press **Share**, copy the link as it appears, and send it through the league's team app. Parents read it on their phones; they cannot reply on the page, so questions come to you the usual way. ### 7. Keep it up through the season After each practice, add a line to the session: what worked, what dragged, who needs more touches (by number). After each game, file anything that went wrong as a *Problem* in *League rules and match day*, and fix the rotation if a child missed time. When the schedule changes, edit the *Parents' guide*; the same link shows the change, but nobody is told, so post a line in the team app too. In spring, ask your assistant to start *Practice plans, spring 2027* from the sessions you marked **Key**. ## Prompts to try Your assistant, connected to know.sh (Claude, ChatGPT or a local model): > Using know.sh, read the document “Practice plans — fall 2026” on my shelf “Comets U10, fall 2026”. Draft sessions 9 to 12 as new findings in the same document, on passing and playing out from the back behind the build-out line. Adapt them from U.S. Soccer grassroots session plans for 7v7 and cite each plan. Use the same parts as session 6: warm-up, activity, small-sided game, cool-down, equipment. Plan for 12 players, half a field and 60 minutes, and include no heading. Your assistant, connected to know.sh (Claude, ChatGPT or a local model): > Using know.sh, read “Positions and rotation” and “League rules and match day” on my shelf “Comets U10, fall 2026”. For each game finding, check that every shirt number plays at least half the game under the league’s playing-time rule and that nobody sits out two quarters in a row. List any game that breaks either rule. Do not change the rotation. Your assistant, connected to know.sh (Claude, ChatGPT or a local model): > Using know.sh, write me a quiz of eight questions on the document “League rules and match day” on my shelf “Comets U10, fall 2026”: the format, the ball, the build-out line, heading, playing time, the concussion steps and the weather policy. Cite the finding each question comes from, and publish it so I can take it. Your assistant, connected to know.sh (Claude, ChatGPT or a local model): > Using know.sh, read the document “Parents’ guide — fall 2026” on my shelf “Comets U10, fall 2026” and list every place it names a child, mentions a medical condition, gives a phone number or email, or describes one child’s behaviour. Leave a proposed note on each; do not change the text. ## Variations - Coaching basketball, softball or flag football? The shape is the same; the rules and session plans come from that sport’s governing body and your league. - For a second coach, share *Practice plans* as its own read-only link. They read the sessions; changes come back to you to make. - Running a whole age group for the league, not one team? Keep a shelf per season with the rules document once, and give each team’s guide a document and a link of its own, much like a [group trip guide](/cookbook/trip-guide). ## Where it falls short - No diagrams. Drills are described in words and tables; a drawn diagram stays in the session plan your assistant cites, one click away. - No messages or alerts. Editing the *Parents’ guide* changes what parents see next time they open it, but nobody is told; urgent cancellations go through the league’s app. - Parents read; they cannot reply, sign up for snack duty or confirm attendance on the link. Use the league’s team app or a sign-up sheet for that. - Web research needs an assistant with web search. A smaller local model can log a practice note or check a rotation, but it calls tools less reliably; check what it writes in Revisions. ## A note on children’s safety, concussion and the league’s rules This recipe is for the adult coach. Keep children's names, photos, medical details, dates of birth and contact details out of know.sh altogether, and above all off any shared link. Medical release forms and the roster stay in the league's system or the folder it gives you. Follow the league's safeguarding policy, including its rules on one-on-one contact, and complete the background check and training it requires; many US leagues ask for SafeSport training every year. If a player may have a concussion, follow the CDC's HEADS UP steps and your league's protocol: take the child out of play, tell the parents, make sure a health care provider checks them, and do not let them return until a provider says so in writing. When in doubt, sit them out. This is not medical advice; the league, your state's law and the child's doctor decide. U.S. Soccer bars heading for players ten and under, and most leagues follow it. Playing-time rules are the league's; apply them as written. Assistants make mistakes. Where anything they filed differs from the rulebook, the rulebook wins. Indexed under: Youth soccer, Practice plans, Coaching, Concussions, Playing time, Small-sided games, Safeguarding.