James Jackson

James Jackson founded LaceUp Soccer to solve a problem he kept running into across youth clubs: coaches had strong instincts about player development, but no consistent way to capture, track, or communicate what they were seeing. Parents were paying thousands of dollars a season with almost no visibility into whether their kid was actually improving. And the cadence that drives real development, consistent evaluation and feedback over time, was missing entirely at most clubs.

LaceUp is built around a single insight from sports science: development is not an event. It is a loop. You measure. You teach to what you measured. You measure again. The clubs that do this consistently produce players who improve. The ones that rely on once-a-season showcases produce data that tells you who is already good, not who is getting better.

James built LaceUp to make that loop the default, not the exception, for every club, coach, and family who cares about real development.

Expertise

• Youth soccer player evaluation frameworks and rubric design
• Cadence-based player development methodology
• Coach-to-parent communication and progress reporting
• Club operations, team management software, and evaluation tooling

About LaceUp Soccer

LaceUp Soccer is a youth soccer player development platform. Clubs use it to run consistent 29-skill evaluations across every age group, generate AI-powered training plans for individual players, and send monthly progress reports to families. Parents can see exactly where their player stands, what the coach recommends next, and how the numbers are moving over time.

LaceUp is free for clubs up to 30 players. No credit card required to get started.