Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Griff at the Soccer Clinic

Real Salt Lake has been doing free soccer clinics in SLC lately, and we finally made it to one! Griff did really well on most of the skills, juggling was a challenge, as it was for all the kids his age. He was really good on passing and the power on his shot was very strong! Shooting accuracy needs a little work and dribbling was OK - can work on keeping the ball a little closer as he runs with it - he did get through the cones pretty quick though. But, as always with Griff, he just smiled, laughed, goofed around and loved it!

Waiting for the coaches to divide up the kids. I would say there were 200 kids and about 20 - 1 Mexican to White kid ratio. It was a bit annoying, they had everything in Spanish and even had a Spanish language radio station broadcasting non-stop and it was SO annoying. ANYWAY, here's Griffin-bug in action! The best part was when one of the coaches asked for the kids' "Papers" (actually, the scoring sheets keeping track of each drill) and all the Mexican kids got really nervous...

This is the power shot test, Griff performed very well in his age group! Good looking form there!

The passing drill, again Griff was very solid with this skill.

In line for he dribbling station. The scratch on the nose is from a spill he took earlier in the day. He's a tough kid when he needs to be!

Start of the dribbling drill, in and out of flags to a cone and sprint back!

Looking solid! Good concentration!

Sprinting to the finish line!!! GO GRIFF!!!

Run up to the shooting accuracy drill, looks really good.

Looks like the foot plant is a little early, but he did hit the 20 point marker on the money! (there were 30 and 40 pointers too)

Ugh, toe poke, but he got it off the ground to hit the target.


Fabian Espindola of the MLS Champion - Real Salt Lake. Really nice guy! Signed a t-shirt for Griff too. Griff gave him a high five and got this pic. Pretty good!

Really cool that RSL is getting involved in the community like this, now they need to develop an academy like they do in Europe!

Some of my favorite Griff pics - pre-blog