Shoelace issues:
our Caterpy Club
Here’s a situation we see play out almost every practice or game day, sometimes multiple times per event.
- A player’s shoelace comes untied.
- The player immediate kneels down, putting her head at knee height of the other players, who may still be playing. Danger alert!
- The player starts trying to tie her lace(s), but she’s nervous due to the hectic situation, so she struggles. She’s had practice at home in a calm environment. But very little practice in a hectic situation where other girls are running around her while she tries to tie her laces.
- A smart coach or referee will either stop the practice or game and go into shoe-tier mode, or usher the player off the field so she’s out of harm’s way as she tries to tie her own shoes. While this is happening, all of the other players stand and watch. (Even worse if it’s a game day: all of the players on both teams stand and watch, while their parents sit and watch. (“Are we here to watch soccer, or watch shoelaces?”) If the player wasn’t nervous before, she is now!
A solution: Caterpy laces!
Caterpy laces
A simple $12 solution? Caterpy laces! Funny name, funny look, available in crazy colors, but most importantly, they work! They work so well that one of our Junior Academy coaches replaced the stock laces on three pairs of turf shoes with Caterpy laces. (He remains a big proponent of the product, without having any attachment to the company.)
The most common parent “con” comment: “I want my daughter to know how to tie her shoes!”
The coach’s rebuttal: “We do too!” But executing a fine motor skill in the middle of the chaos of a U8 soccer game — without having practiced the skill over and over in the chaos of a U8 soccer game — isn’t exactly the easiest environment.
The soccer shoe makers don’t help matters by shipping soccer shoes with slippery laces, or laces that are too long. Laces with some friction (and the right length) are so much more effective. But until the shoe makers come around, Caterpy laces can prevent these problems.
Sizing: https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0456/9550/0440/files/Sizing_Chart_Bumps_600x.jpg (The key stat is the number of eyelets on the shoe, not the shoe size.)
