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In our latest episode of Soccer Geeks, we interviewed Joe Pehanich: player, coach, innovator. Joe grew up in SoCal and has been coaching since he was 19. Along the way, he’s coached collegiately and has worked with several other soccer organizations, including LAUFA and LAFC. Joe and his wife both have soccer in their blood. She has played for Cal State, professionally in Germany, and now serves as head coach at the University of LaVerne. Today, Joe runs a program called JPS Training and is the inventor of the Heads Up Vest.
Living Chess
One of the ideas that permeated our conversation was the concept of soccer as living chess. In the US, many parents, students, people off the street, etc., think of soccer as a game of athleticism, perhaps with an individual running across the field. However, according to Joe, we need to start thinking more about the game as a live-action chess game, where we marry the intellectual aspect of the game and the physical side rather than separating the two.
In Joe’s own words, “When they hear soccer or football, they’re gonna start thinking, chess… moving off the ball… spatial awareness. So, when we can start to go away from a race and move into more of an image of the brain, I think that is when we can safely say, okay, we’re moving in the right direction.”
To help encourage players to think more spatially about soccer, Joe and his wife came up with the Heads Up Vest. The Heads Up Vest is a training vest that helps promote the importance of players looking up, rather than keeping their eyes on their feet or the ground. How does it facilitate this? The vests are all the same color, except for the collar, unlike your traditional pinnies. To identify which players are on their team, a student has to look up and check the color of the collar. Many players and coaches are trying out these vests, including the Austrian National Team.
If you’d like to hear more of our conversation, check out the episode on YouTube or on your favorite podcast platform.