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The Importance of Play: Development's Missing Ingredient

Changing the Game Project on why free, unstructured play builds better players.

Cam Jolley

Cam Jolley

Co-Founder & Academy Coach, Coach Central

One of the quiet truths of development is that a lot of what makes great players great didn't happen in a coached session at all — it happened in unstructured play — and as youth coaching gets more organized, we risk coaching that ingredient right out of existence.

The idea

Changing the Game Project's long-running argument is that free play — pickup games, the street, the backyard, kids organizing themselves with no adult running it — develops creativity, decision-making, problem-solving, and love for the game in ways structured training can't fully replicate. When every hour a kid touches a ball is adult-organized, they lose the space to experiment, fail, and invent without a coach watching.

What it means for how I run a session

It makes me want to get out of the way more. Coaching is for the players, and sometimes the most developmental thing I can do is set up a game and then be quiet — let them argue over the rules, try the outrageous thing, figure it out. I try to make part of every session feel like play: joyful, competitive, low-instruction, high-freedom. And I say it to parents too, because the answer to a kid who wants to get better usually isn't another paid session — it's a ball and some free time. The joy is not separate from the development. The joy often is the development.

How I'd use it this week

End one session with ten minutes of pure play: a game with minimal rules and no coaching. Watch what the players try when nobody's correcting them — that's development happening on its own.

Takeaways

  • Much of what makes great players is built in free, unstructured play, not coached sessions.
  • Over-organizing every hour with a ball removes the space to experiment, fail, and invent.
  • Build play into sessions — set the game, then get quiet — and tell parents free play beats another paid session.

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