I'm sure anyone who's raised an adolescent or teenager can attest to the idea that teenagers don't get as much sleep as they need.

U.S. midfielder Michael Bradley, who on Tuesday lines up against Mexico in his 22nd World Cup qualifier and 75th game for the USA, is the subject of the Youth Soccer Insider's latest edition of "When They Were Children."

My college experience was studying at Parsons School of Design in Manhattan from 1980 to 1984 -- the same years as Ronald Reagan's first term in the White House. Near Parsons was a renowned positive thinker, Norman Vincent Peale, who was completing his wonderful 52-year ministry as Pastor of the Marble Collegiate Church and who had authored the best-selling "The Power of Positive Thinking" decades before. I learned more from reading the title of Peale's sermons on the church sign every week than I did in four years of studying at Parsons.

It's perfectly reasonable that children who show up to soccer practice might have a difficult time paying attention when the coach has something to say. They have, after all, spent an entire day at school listening to adults. And now it's playtime.

Coach Tim Mulqueen answers questions about goalkeeping gear and warmups.

According to Jimmy Obleda, the 2011 NSCAA Youth National Coach of the Year, the U.S. Soccer Development Academy has made the youth soccer landscape an "absolute mess."

When I was asked to lead a discussion on "The Many Benefits of Refereeing" to help recruit refs at the recent Long Island Junior Soccer League Convention, it was easy to put together many talking points, such as:

"Everything that goes on in a match, except shooting, you can do in a rondo. ..."

One area of coaching that is occasionally overlooked is how we present ourselves to our players at training.