As one of only two Julie Foudy Sports Leadership Academy's full time partners, Cajun Rush is committed more than just soccer. We strive to impact our players off the field and instill characteristics such as leadership, in each one of them. JFSLA helps us stay at the forefront of youth sports with innovative ways to connect with players and coaches.
The leadership curriculum has 5 areas of focus:
1 - Players and coaches are provided fun, hands on monthly activities that put leadership concepts into action. In addition, teams get an opportunity to debrief the activities and discover that leadership is personal and everyone does not have to fit into a leadership mold.
2 – Parents are sent strategies to help keep their child’s soccer experience in perspective. Topics include talking points on the car ride home, helping your child deal with failure, tryouts, etc.
3 – High School aged players are the target of the college program which includes insight into selecting a school and soccer program that is the best fit for their needs. JFSLA gathers first hand knowledge by speaking to current coaches and student athletes about aspects of the college selection process that cannot be found in a college recruiting manual.
4 – Captains’ meetings provide activities and discussion points for captains to reflect on their leadership style and better serve their teammates throughout the year.
5 – Choose to Matter book study takes a deeper look at Julie Foudy’s best selling book for young women, Choose to Matter. The book study gives players an opportunity to discuss the book and share personal stories of how they demonstrate leadership in all areas of their life, not just the soccer field. It also offers a wonderful opportunity to have older club players mentor younger players during the book study “sock talks”.