Force Academy Zone, By OSU Force Academy
Friendly and welcoming people, a diverse community that mixes well together, and the potential for the club to be on par with the country’s top professional academies – those are Paul Harris’s initial impressions after two months on the job as head coach at Ottawa South United.
It’s a big change in scenery for the former Everton FC International Football Development Officer and Coach who was born in Barnsley, grew up in Stoke, and then moved to Liverpool for work. But he couldn’t be more pleased that what he observed in half a dozen trips to OSU – made possible thanks to the club’s association with Everton – is the reality.
The club’s plans for the George Nelms facility and the ambitions OSU carries were the big selling points for Harris, who’d been encouraged by the club’s leadership headed by President Bill Michalopoulos to take on the role for some time.
“They said it’s great when you come to town for a week or two – it’s really positive, but then it dwindles when you go away,” recalls Harris, a UEFA A licensed coach.
He also looked forward to the possibility of really putting his own stamp on a club.
“When you’re working for a professional club, you’re almost a cog in the wheel,” Harris highlights. “Being the head coach at Ottawa South United was almost like a blank canvas. It was an attractive proposition.”
Harris is using his first few months as an observation period, trying to meet people involved at all levels of the “vast” club – from recreational to competitive, in the grassroots academy starting at age six to men’s and women’s premiere teams – in order to identify priorities and then put programs in place to address any deficiencies.
He suspects that education will be his primary focus – teaching a proper understanding of the game, structuring training sessions, establishing a continuity towards the next age group through an overall curriculum, and ensuring players receive proper instruction at the younger ages instead of in their later teenage years when the task is then to break habits.
“I’m definitely not saying that there’s not some knowledge here, because there certainly is,” notes Harris, who would also like to help top coaches achieve their career ambitions in soccer. “But if we can look at it in terms of a professional mindset instead of maybe an amateur, it might just help drive the standard up a little bit.
“It’s the little things – how you look, being organized, being on time – that might make the difference.”
Another area to target may be the amount of time competitive teams spend training. He suggests 10,000 hours as a required figure to truly learn any craft, while players might only get 1,500 hours of practice throughout their youth careers at the moment.
“How are you supposed to be competent when you’re that many hours short?” Harris wonders, noting that the George Nelms facility will be a big help towards increasing training time. “The ones that want more, we could cater to that because we have the space and the staff.”
It’s not quite the same landscape for Harris as back home, where there are 20 professional teams within a half-hour of each other in the north of England.
“The biggest difference is the culture,” explains the Chapman Mills resident. “Here, obviously hockey would still be the #1 sport, and because of the weather, there’s certain limitation on soccer – thank God for the domes and bubbles.
“But in England, football is everything. It’s the #1 sport that pretty much everybody grows up playing.”
Harris does observe the shift that’s taking place in Ottawa and Canada, however, as more young athletes are playing soccer because it’s less expensive, and many families from elsewhere in the world where soccer is the main sport have come to Canada and want their children involved.
“We want them to fall in love with it,” Harris smiles. “We understand that we’re competing with hockey, but we’ve got to give the boys and girls such a good time that they see soccer as their favourite sport and where they want to go.”
Progress will take time, Harris acknowledges, and perhaps the best way to evaluate his impact will be the long-term success of the club’s youngest players at the moment since they’ll have the most time to be influenced.
The overall objective is to produce players for the next level – in college, MLS or Europe. He’d like to see the OSU Force Academy have a high professional-like orientation in terms of program curriculum and delivery, coaching, and a culture of continuing improvement and expectation.
“I’d love for it to rival Toronto FC and Montreal Impact,” Harris says. “I want the best for the soccer here in Ottawa, and especially at OSU.”