Richmond FC has been producing soccer players since 1955, and more recently established a program to allow teenage players to become paid referees.
This season they added a new wrinkle to those two player paths – the ability for kids to become coaches, with national accreditation, that allows them not only to be paid for their time but also use those skills to receive university places.
Popular RFC youth coach uses volunteer hours to launch into university program
In the post above, RFC coach Delgado Carvalheiro-Nunes managed to become the youngest coach in Canada to achieve his C license accreditation, and used that to coach at UBC and in Vancouver Whitecaps camps before landing a spot in the kinesiology program at the University of British Columbia.
Delgado, who also dabbles in robotics, leads a new crop of young players being put through their paces by shadowing RFC Technical Director David Thorburn, who has built national champion clubs in his past and sent dozens of players to professional clubs as a coach, and as a player agent in Europe.
As parents, we applaud this move to help our kids not just play soccer well, but to turn their passion into actual careers. This long term thinking shows RFC is concerned less about winning individual games, but more about building our football community.
Much credit.