During the last four days Diamond have been at the NSCAA convention in Philadelphia, USA.
The event included sessions, which incorporated field, classroom and interviews. The 2014 convention was titled "Activities to increase Speed of Play and Speed of Thought".
Thursday - Marked the beginning of the Exhibitor section. This included over 300 exhibitors in a room of 600,000 square foot making it the largest soccer trade show in the US. During the exhibitor show Diamond's booth was located next to AC Milan and opposite Real Madrid. Thursday also included hangouts which featured presentations from Donna Fishter (Leadership Specialist) and Amanda Cromwell (Head coach of the UCLA Women's Soccer team). Plus the Major League Soccer SuperDraft also took place.
Friday - The day began at 9:00am with a speech from the gold medalist Heather Mitts. The Exhibitor hall opened at 10:00am and lasted till 6:30pm this was followed by the Exhibit Hall Happy Hour which gave exhibitors the chance to network and connect, which allowed Diamond to meet up with Just 4 keepers who gave us some friendly advice on the American Soccer Market.
Saturday - The Saturday session had a huge variety of different events from a field session led by Neil Bradford (National director of Coaching, Soccer association for Youth) to a lecture on Practical ways to Manage fitness given by none other than the Physical Trainer for Real Madrid, Carlos Latin. During the Saturday Diamond were able to meet Head Coach Mark Parsons from the Washing Spirit Soccer Team.
Overall the NSCAA convention attracted over 10,000 people, we really enjoyed our time there and made a lot of good friends and will be definitely be in Baltimore for 2015! For a look back at our time during the convention visit our Twitter.
