“It blew my mind.”

Paul Holocher has been around the game of soccer for decades. He currently holds the title of Academy Director for Houston Dynamo, the MLS franchise in Texas. Prior to that, he had experience coaching at the youth club, college, and every other level in between. 

What blew his mind was a presentation from Tom Byer, one of the most famous names in the soccer player development world. Byer grew his fame following a successful stint in Japan, which drew attention from U.S. media. 

The meeting between Holocher and Byer was setup by Houston Dynamo legend Brian Ching. 

“I got an email from Brian Ching literally the second month I was here,” Holocher told TopDrawerSoccer in an interview earlier this month. “He said that he had emailed with Tom Byer and Tom was coming to Houston and asked if I would like to meet him. I knew about Tom from the Social Media and the articles. I understood what he was talking about - from a distance. I thought it was really forward thinking and I told Brian that I would love to meet him.”

Byer came out to the Houston Sports Park, and the Dynamo Academy invited their partners in development plus the whole staff to see the Soccer Starts at Home presentation.

“I think every soccer leader in the country should watch it,” Holocher said. “It was that enlightening. It resonated with me because I have two boys and I essentially did what Tom did. With my sons, I had little soccer balls around the house. I discouraged him from just kicking it. I had him dribble the ball, tap the ball, do the magic turn. I had him starting that at 4, 5 years old because you can do that. That’s essentially the philosophy (of Soccer at Home). The skill acquisition doesn’t just start at seven or eight years old. Development begins when you are ready to begin. That is the philosophy. Can we educate more and more parents around the country to start with the simple things like a small ball for small feet, discourage just kicking, try these ball masteries? And get these kids to fall in love with the ball early.”

The presentation motivated Holocher to immediately get a plan in place. He met with Dynamo General Manager Matt Jordan, who was immediately on board with the idea. The two of them met with Dynamo President John Walker.  

“We told him that we think this is a game-changer for our country, but why not for Houston,” Holocher said. “We developed a partnership with Tom [Byer]. He comes out four times a year, but we are in conversation almost every day about different programming that we starting to implement around Houston to get this word out.”

The partnership with Byer is in an early days, but Dynamo is fully committed to this project. The franchise developed an easy to use website to help educate any parent who wants to know more information about it. Dynamo has also donated mini soccer balls to various schools and programs in the great Houston area. 

“During this quarantine, it’s allowed us time to get a lot more stuff going,” Holocher said about reaching out to schools. “It’s given us a breather. We are in contact with different schools districts. Today, we had a call with Fort Bend. We’re going to be working with their Early Learning Center (ELC). It’s 1800 kids, 25 schools. Tomorrow we are on a call with Avance, which is 27 schools.”

Holocher was quick to caution that this is not a microwave to developing professional players. It’s part of a long process to help grow the game in the area and give parents the best tools possible to help their children fall in love with the ball and sport. 

“It’s a long-term play because it’s young kids, but the idea is to spread the message,” Holocher said. “We created a platform for parents to go see and use. It’s about educating the schools, the PE teachers, and the parents. We’re trying to get that message out in different ways and different mechanisms. The reach is growing. It’s going to the thousands of people.”

Dynamo and Holocher were able to set up these opportunities with the community and local schools thanks to their prominence in the area. 

“This is much easier for a professional club to do,” Holocher explained. “We have the support and presence. One of the first meetings we had was with the Director of Education, Juliet Stipeche. Chris Canetti, the former President of the Houston Dynamo, set that up. We met with her at the City Hall. Immediately, she got it. She understood it. She said maybe my favorite quote of this so far. She said, 'Paul, the ball is like a book.'"

Stipeche saw the value in introducing this philosophy to schools in the area. This philosophy was massively beneficial from a number of standpoints. 

“You can go out and read with your kid for 20 minutes a day, but you can also play soccer with your kid for 20 minutes a day,” Holocher said. “There is physical and coordinative development going on. There is massive cognitive development going on. And there is emotional bonding going on between parent and child.

“It’s not just about creating pro soccer players,” Holocher continued. “It’s about developing kids that fall in love with the ball. They learn to focus, they learn to acquire a skill. They gain confidence from that. There is a lot of neuroscience behind it too. John Ratey, a professor at Harvard, wrote the foreword on Tom’s book. When you have those types of people backing this program, realizing that a young child at the age of five, six, or seven can master the slide. Before that, you were thinking eight, nine, or 10. That’s the flying start for the child before entering the game.”

One of the major hurdles with the growth of the sport in the United States has been retention. Soccer Starts at Home is not a magic pill to end that, but it is beneficial to giving players the correct building blocks before starting in organized soccer. 

“You can go to a local parks see the kids playing 9v9 from U4-U8 so it’s one ball for 18 kids. There’s no development going on, and the kids are quitting,” Holocher said. “It’s not the good kids that are quitting. It’s not the kids who are falling in love with the ball who are quitting. We get the kids to enter into the game, but we don’t teach them about the ball. It’s in and out. But when you go to other countries, the ball is introduced right away. The comfort level is really good. These are the kids that end up staying in the game forever.”

“The key is one child, one ball from the early ages. And then you fall in love with the ball. You learn these motor skills that are kind of hardwired to your brain so you get the automation and comfort on the ball. You can see videos that we doing now in Houston. Four, five, six years old doing stuff and they haven’t even crossed the line into competitive play yet. Imagine if our country with millions of kids that are crossing that line into organized play and already had this comfort and relationship with the ball.”

The Soccer Starts at Home program had been set up in Washington State as a test pilot in the United States with funding from the U.S. Soccer Federation, but USSF pulled the funding after six months.  

Houston Dynamo’s commitment is for the long-term. The initial phase has been expansion of the program to reach more parents, but the videos that parents are already sending into Holocher show the immediate progress of it. 

“I think it’s something that is scalable around the nation. It would be wise for U.S. Soccer to jump all over this. If not, Major League Soccer should,” Holocher said. “It can help every club. It can help everything. It’s not just an easy thing to do. It’s not a program. It’s not a curriculum. It’s a philosophy. It’s about spreading the word to the parents of the youngest kids.”

Reaching that group has its own challenges. Holocher explained that the work with schools is usually with first grade classes. 

“That’s not always the easiest market to hit because you are trying to hit a market that hasn’t crossed the line into organized play,” Holocher explained. “It can be anywhere from two to eight year olds. That is where kids may choose what sport to go into. You can go to a first grader and they don’t know what dribbling is. The first time they see a ball, they are put into a team.”

“When a kid can master skill, when they learn these things early they start to identify as a soccer player. That gives them the flying start into the game that could potentially give them the love for the game that could last forever.”