Brian Hall became a referee at age 13. He earned his FIFA badge at age 31, officiated at a World Cup and numerous major international tournaments, and earned MLS's Referee of the Year honor four times. But most teens who take up refereeing don't last very long.

It's one of the greatest delights of parenthood. I don't recall it mentioned in any of the guide books while preparing for fatherhood or that it came up in the words of encouragement from friends or family. It's the magic of seeing the world through your child's eyes.

Spend a little time with a youngster, and you're fielding questions about the sky, the moon and the stars that you may not have thought about for years. Watch the eyes of children when they play with a dog, see a fire truck, or marvel at the way soap bubbles soar and pop.

Put together a train set, build Lego cities, goof around with dolls and stuffed animals. At some point it will hit. You feel like a child again. You're rediscovering joy and magnificence where you long ago forgot they existed.

And you get to play ball! If you're lucky, you might coach your child's soccer team.

By Mike Woitalla (from the November 2008 issue of Soccer America Magazine)

Lisa Torres relishes the part of the weekend when she sits down in her East Texas home to watch Mexican soccer on television, because that's when she gets to see her son, who left home at age 16.

For more information on Nick Lusson's study about pickup play and organized soccer ...

By Mike Woitalla (from the November 2008 issue of Soccer America Magazine)

By Dr. Dev Mishra (From Soccer America's Youth Soccer Insider)

Imagine you're undertaking a fairly difficult task: assembling a piece of furniture with hieroglyphic instructions, filling out IRS Form 4562 on April 14, or standing on the highest rungs of a ladder painting the crown moulding in your living room with 14-foot ceilings. Think it would help if someone yelled at you during the process? Of course not.

Yet when a child tries to control a bouncing ball in a crowd of other kids, adults often believe it's perfectly acceptable to scream "advice." The shouting at America's soccer fields is so epidemic one wonders if adults ever reflect on their behavior. Adults who would never shout at children while they're enjoying the playground, drawing in a coloring book, or rearranging their dollhouse, loudly instruct from the sidelines without hesitation.

-- Kaz Tambi, coach of the U.S. U-17 girls national team.

Tambi was profiled in the October 2008 issue of Soccer America by Mike Woitalla

By Mike Woitalla, Soccer America Magazine

By Mike Woitalla, Soccer America Magazine

Of course, it's wonderful that there's so much soccer on American television. Young players watch high-level soccer, then take the field trying to emulate it.

Let's just hope they're not listening too closely to the commentary, which frequently encourages the kind of soccer that we don't want from our young players - or from any players, for that matter.

By Mike Woitalla, Soccer America Magazine

The annual Dallas Cup attracts top youth clubs from around the world, but it's not always easy to tell from which country the teams hail, based on their name or uniform.

By Mike Woitalla, Soccer America

Check it out HERE.

The 2008 Olympics will mark U.S. Soccer goalkeeper coach Tim Mulqueen's fourth world championship, following last year's U-20 World Cup and two U-17 World Cups. Mulqueen, perhaps best known for training Tim Howard from age 12 through the pros, also coached keepers such as Tony Meola during MLS stints with the MetroStars and Kansas City. Soccer America's Mike Woitalla spoke with Mulqueen about coaching America's young keepers, how to spot great keepers at an early age, and when youngsters should specialize at the position.