STOP BREAKING MY FUTURE PLAYERS
Otterbein women’s soccer coach Brandon Koons ’94, MAT’98, P’23.
Brandon Koons ’94, MAT’98, P’23 is no stranger to success on the soccer field. His 347 victories over 26 seasons as head coach of the Otterbein women’s soccer team is proof of that. He has also proven to be a strong leader and steward of the sport of soccer. But recent worrisome trends in youth sports have driven him to try out a new role — published author.
“I take it seriously because the content is important to me, but I kind of accidentally got into it,” Koons said of his new book.
70% of kids drop out of organized youth sports by age 13, and nearly 10% of youth athletes experience burnout.
The book, Stop Breaking My Future Players: A College Coach’s Plea to Coaches, Parents, and Referees, was published in May 2024 and sheds light on the traps that parents and coaches push their children toward while highlighting healthier pathways in youth sports. It was borne simply out of Koons’ desire to make people more aware of the increasing dropout rate in youth sports, the reasons behind it, and how it can potentially be reversed.
“I just sat down one day and wrote down every cliché and every ridiculous thing I hear that people don’t understand the path they’re going down when they say it. I wrote down about 55 comments and organized them into things that parents say, things that coaches say, and things that refs say, and they kind of looked like chapters, so I decided to put it into book form,” Koons said. “I don’t think people fully understand that what they say can damage their kid, and the number one reason kids quit sports is that they’re not having fun anymore.”
A frequent contributor to NSCAA Soccer Journal and author of eight DVDs on soccer fundamentals for Championship Productions, Koons is also heavily involved in coaching soccer at the youth and club levels, making him an authority on the issues addressed in his book.
Koons Sharing An Emotional Moment With GK Tara Carter After Advancing To Final Four Through A Shootout In Iowa.
According to a report released in January 2024 by the American Academy of Pediatrics, 70% of children drop out of organized youth sports by age 13, and nearly 10% of youth athletes experience burnout.
While it was initially a venture in venting, once Koons had everything typed, printed, and sitting on a shelf in his office, Otterbein head volleyball coach Monica Wright MBA’13 stumbled upon those 98 pages and encouraged him to get them published as a book. He did just that, and the impact has been far-reaching. He had sold roughly 160 copies as of mid-December, and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.
Simply put, according to Koons, the focus in youth athletics needs to return to things kids can control such as effort, learning, and development rather than on rankings and a win-at-all-costs mindset.
“We need to stop focusing on things that are out of our control and start focusing on all the wonderful benefits you can get from participation in athletics,” he said.
The women’s soccer team circles around Coach Koons.
Koons, the winningest coach in Ohio Athletic Conference women’s soccer history, has a deep connection to central Ohio, Otterbein, and the sport of soccer. A Westerville native, he earned both his bachelor’s degree in psychology in 1994 and master’s degree in teaching in 1998 from Otterbein. He played four years on the varsity soccer team at Otterbein and then served as an assistant coach on the men’s soccer team from 1995 to 1998 before taking over the women’s program in 1999.
In 26 years as head coach of the women’s team at Otterbein, Koons has never had a losing season, picking up 11 OAC regular-season championships, seven OAC Tournament championships, and seven NCAA Tournament appearances along the way. His 2010 team was the first OAC program to make the Final Four.
His secret to this success? Recruiting good students with positive attitudes who were raised in supportive family cultures that also happen to be good soccer players. Instilling the program’s six core values of camaraderie, class, competitive edge, discipline, empathy, and pride has helped as well. At its core, the Otterbein women’s soccer program is one that embodies the positive elements of sports that Koons discusses in his book, and the success speaks for itself.
“I polled our women’s soccer players at the end of the season and asked them why they play soccer. I gave them about 10 choices to rank, and winning was fourth or fifth on that list for the team as a whole,” he said. “So even for players whose goal it is to win a conference championship every year, winning is fourth or fifth on their list. They’re getting so many other benefits from playing.”
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