When is enough, enough?

timbuck

timbuck

At what point do youth soccer customers (IE - us), say "screw it." We'll play a 12 game fall season. We'll do State Cup. We'll play in 2 or 3 tournaments in the Summer. And if one of those tournaments happens to fall during a weekend that we have planned our family vacation - Too bad. We'll play a bit in Spring. And we're going to do it without having to ever get on an airplane. Oh and- We aren't going to pay more than $2,000 for the basic needs of soccer (fields, leagues, refs, coaches, uniforms).

Between DA, DPL, ECNL, ECNL Reserve, CRL, Discovery League, Super Y, Flight 1, Flight 2, Flight 3, Premier, Gold, Silver Elite, Silver, Bronze, Governors, Presidents, National Cup, Far West Regionals,yada yada.... Why not just play in the highest tier you can in either SCDSL, Coast or Presidio and call it a day?

Is this really all being done to make it easier for college scouts to give a kid a partial college scholarship? Or for a player to become a National team player? Do you know how many senior national team players are added each year?
Seriously- Seems all of these new leagues are there for a "Pathway" - A pathway to what? What was the "pathway" 6 years ago?
Has it gotten easier for players and parents to get to whatever level they are trying to get to?
Why do youth soccer clubs care about making it easier for college scouts to see top players? Is it just for marketing purposes so they can say "we placed 12 kids in a D1 program over the past 3 years?"

A good coach, is a good coach. Regardless of what acronym league they are playing in. A jackass coach is a jackass coach.

Rant over (for now)
 
/ranton

Marketing 101.....if its new or improved has to be better, right?

Youth sports suffer from "Grandiose delusions"

The perceived reality is really much different than all the labels, marketing, and "special" categorizes we try way too hard to fit into.

page1-220px-Grandiose_delusions_cat_lion.pdf.jpg


The #1 reasons kids play sports is to have fun, when the game is not "fun" anymore they don''t play
http://changingthegameproject.com/kids-play-sports/

"When asked what made sports fun, here were their top answers:
  1. Trying your best
  2. When the coach treats a player with respect
  3. Getting playing time
  4. Playing well as a team
  5. Getting along with teammates
  6. Being active
Doesn't matter what league they are playing in but what does matter is the above, take the game back and make things fun again so they get more enjoyment out of playing.
 
timbuck said:
At what point do youth soccer customers (IE - us), say "screw it." ..........Rant over (for now)
Click to expand...

Bad day Timmy?

Sounds like you're describing a case of parent burnout syndrome (PBS).... We only talk about the player but parents can suffer too.

PBS can strike any parent at any time. It is especially common when their child is rostered on a team that plays at a higher level than the kid's ability, resulting in lack of playing time and starting to hate going to practices and games. Other kids on the team sigh when this kid is put on the field and parents hate other parents. Also feel why is my kid not playing at the out of town tournament, when we've paid all these extra costs to be there. The least a coach can do is to provide adequate playing time...

To seek cure for PBS, the child is moved from team to team, but never at an appropriate level team. Parents gasp at the notion of "moving down" a tier or two. But NOOOO. What would the parents say to their friends? What would the child say to his/her friends? Not a chance.

"Why not just play in the highest tier you can in either SCDSL, Coast or Presidio and call it a day?"

You do realize that vast majority of the club teams do just what you've said, right? Only the higher aspiring teams (try) do more than fall, state tournament and 3~4 local tournaments the entire year.

Seriously for moment, though, the main reason why most kids play beyond/other than, the basic league (all the other alphabets you'd listed) is because they want to. Those players want to compete against better players and teams, especially as they get older. Its the competitiveness within that drives them to seek opportunities at higher levels than they currently are in. Its not about college recruiting. That just happens to be a windfall for those players.

So more options we have for those players, the better.
 
mirage said:
Bad day Timmy?

Sounds like you're describing a case of parent burnout syndrome (PBS).... We only talk about the player but parents can suffer too.

PBS can strike any parent at any time. It is especially common when their child is rostered on a team that plays at a higher level than the kid's ability, resulting in lack of playing time and starting to hate going to practices and games. Other kids on the team sigh when this kid is put on the field and parents hate other parents. Also feel why is my kid not playing at the out of town tournament, when we've paid all these extra costs to be there. The least a coach can do is to provide adequate playing time...

To seek cure for PBS, the child is moved from team to team, but never at an appropriate level team. Parents gasp at the notion of "moving down" a tier or two. But NOOOO. What would the parents say to their friends? What would the child say to his/her friends? Not a chance.

"Why not just play in the highest tier you can in either SCDSL, Coast or Presidio and call it a day?"

You do realize that vast majority of the club teams do just what you've said, right? Only the higher aspiring teams (try) do more than fall, state tournament and 3~4 local tournaments the entire year.

Seriously for moment, though, the main reason why most kids play beyond/other than, the basic league (all the other alphabets you'd listed) is because they want to. Those players want to compete against better players and teams, especially as they get older. Its the competitiveness within that drives them to seek opportunities at higher levels than they currently are in. Its not about college recruiting. That just happens to be a windfall for those players.

So more options we have for those players, the better.
Click to expand...

so a basic structure looks like this:

Current_Level = money + skills + coach_opinion + parent_opinion; //weight of parent opinions, money offset
Real_Level = skills + parent_opinion + coach_opinion; //money would NEVER play a factor here
Stress_Level = Current_Level - Real_Level;
if (Stress_Level >0){ PBS = true; rant = false; Current_Level = 0; coach_opinion = 0; player_happiness--; recruiting = 0; tournaments = WHATEVER; coach_opinion = 0; parent_opinion = 100; }
else
{PBS = false; rant = true; tournaments = 25; Current_Level++; player_happiness = COMPETITION; recruiting = COLLEGE; coach_opinion = 100; parent_opinion = 0;}

return 0; //always returns nothing

lucky im not a programmer, seriously flawed code. havent even factored in club_hardsell or parent_madness_factor
 
So true! As a parent just over 1 year into club, the whole club scene here is pure madness. Different leagues everywhere, all overlapping themselves in quality. In the past three scrimmages, we have played a flight 2 team and won (yes I know it doesn't matter about winning in scrimmages, especially at U-Little), a flight 3 team and tied and an AYSO Extra team and been destroyed. Simply put, there are so many players who are in the wrong level based on their current development status.

There is no need to have so many leagues, divisions and sub-divisions. My buddy in England has a kid who is playing, all of the local teams are in the same league pyramid. His kid plays in Division 6, and everyone is fine with that, if they do well, they can go to Division 5 and if they smash everyone they can petition for a double promotion to Division 4.

Pick a coach you like, be patient and work with the child and coach. Pick a club who put development over $$$ and be loyal. Obviously there are lots of clubs who need to change their stance by the sounds of things on this forum.
 
timbuck said:
At what point do youth soccer customers (IE - us), say "screw it." We'll play a 12 game fall season. We'll do State Cup. We'll play in 2 or 3 tournaments in the Summer. And if one of those tournaments happens to fall during a weekend that we have planned our family vacation - Too bad. We'll play a bit in Spring. And we're going to do it without having to ever get on an airplane. Oh and- We aren't going to pay more than $2,000 for the basic needs of soccer (fields, leagues, refs, coaches, uniforms).

Between DA, DPL, ECNL, ECNL Reserve, CRL, Discovery League, Super Y, Flight 1, Flight 2, Flight 3, Premier, Gold, Silver Elite, Silver, Bronze, Governors, Presidents, National Cup, Far West Regionals,yada yada.... Why not just play in the highest tier you can in either SCDSL, Coast or Presidio and call it a day?

Is this really all being done to make it easier for college scouts to give a kid a partial college scholarship? Or for a player to become a National team player? Do you know how many senior national team players are added each year?
Seriously- Seems all of these new leagues are there for a "Pathway" - A pathway to what? What was the "pathway" 6 years ago?
Has it gotten easier for players and parents to get to whatever level they are trying to get to?
Why do youth soccer clubs care about making it easier for college scouts to see top players? Is it just for marketing purposes so they can say "we placed 12 kids in a D1 program over the past 3 years?"

A good coach, is a good coach. Regardless of what acronym league they are playing in. A jackass coach is a jackass coach.

Rant over (for now)
Click to expand...
As long people keep paying for all this bullshitry, more and more will continue to come.

The best thing I'd done is pulled my DD out of club, she's enjoying high school, and other sports which should keep her in shape for the next HS soccer season. In the meantime whatever seasonal sport within the school and indoor with friends if that's what she wants to do. And she's enjoying her high school years without being in a car going to practices and traveling 2-3 hours for a game in the weekends.

Good post!
 
ItsCalledSoccer said:
So true! As a parent just over 1 year into club, the whole club scene here is pure madness. Different leagues everywhere, all overlapping themselves in quality. In the past three scrimmages, we have played a flight 2 team and won (yes I know it doesn't matter about winning in scrimmages, especially at U-Little), a flight 3 team and tied and an AYSO Extra team and been destroyed. Simply put, there are so many players who are in the wrong level based on their current development status.

There is no need to have so many leagues, divisions and sub-divisions. My buddy in England has a kid who is playing, all of the local teams are in the same league pyramid. His kid plays in Division 6, and everyone is fine with that, if they do well, they can go to Division 5 and if they smash everyone they can petition for a double promotion to Division 4.

Pick a coach you like, be patient and work with the child and coach. Pick a club who put development over $$$ and be loyal. Obviously there are lots of clubs who need to change their stance by the sounds of things on this forum.
Click to expand...
England also happen to have the best paying soccer league in the world! The US is pure robbery!
 
mirage said:
Bad day Timmy?

Sounds like you're describing a case of parent burnout syndrome (PBS).... We only talk about the player but parents can suffer too.

PBS can strike any parent at any time. It is especially common when their child is rostered on a team that plays at a higher level than the kid's ability, resulting in lack of playing time and starting to hate going to practices and games. Other kids on the team sigh when this kid is put on the field and parents hate other parents. Also feel why is my kid not playing at the out of town tournament, when we've paid all these extra costs to be there. The least a coach can do is to provide adequate playing time...

To seek cure for PBS, the child is moved from team to team, but never at an appropriate level team. Parents gasp at the notion of "moving down" a tier or two. But NOOOO. What would the parents say to their friends? What would the child say to his/her friends? Not a chance.

"Why not just play in the highest tier you can in either SCDSL, Coast or Presidio and call it a day?"

You do realize that vast majority of the club teams do just what you've said, right? Only the higher aspiring teams (try) do more than fall, state tournament and 3~4 local tournaments the entire year.

Seriously for moment, though, the main reason why most kids play beyond/other than, the basic league (all the other alphabets you'd listed) is because they want to. Those players want to compete against better players and teams, especially as they get older. Its the competitiveness within that drives them to seek opportunities at higher levels than they currently are in. Its not about college recruiting. That just happens to be a windfall for those players.

So more options we have for those players, the better.
Click to expand...
The :cool:Aid got you very sugar up there!

These higher levels is a bunch of non sense that tracksuit wearing used car salesmen put in the kool aid you are sipping on!
 
Not_that_Serious said:
so a basic structure looks like this:

Current_Level = money + skills + coach_opinion + parent_opinion; //weight of parent opinions, money offset
Real_Level = skills + parent_opinion + coach_opinion; //money would NEVER play a factor here
Stress_Level = Current_Level - Real_Level;
if (Stress_Level >0){ PBS = true; rant = false; Current_Level = 0; coach_opinion = 0; player_happiness--; recruiting = 0; tournaments = WHATEVER; coach_opinion = 0; parent_opinion = 100; }
else
{PBS = false; rant = true; tournaments = 25; Current_Level++; player_happiness = COMPETITION; recruiting = COLLEGE; coach_opinion = 100; parent_opinion = 0;}

return 0; //always returns nothing

lucky im not a programmer, seriously flawed code. havent even factored in club_hardsell or parent_madness_factor
Click to expand...

"skills" would have to be broken into 4 parts: 1) natural skills (the natural talent the player brings to the table which reflects the ultimate potential for the players growth), 2) learned skills (what the player has learned so far), 3) work ethic (the potential for the player to hit the height of his/her natural and lerned skill potential) and 4) development age (where the player is on the development curve...e.g. are they a Dec birthday or a January, where are they on the puberty track, where are they on the mental maturity). Which is part of the problem with "coach opinion" and "parent opinion" if you aren't one of the darling acknowledged 10% ....it's just really hard to get an accurate read on what their skills are and what their potential is...in the last 3 months I've had coaches tell me [including some with nothing to gain from their assessment, and from silver to extras] my kid belongs in AYSO core v. he's a natural in the keep position and we need to start thinking of pre-DA program. I'm absolutely certain he's not Ronaldo....I'm pretty sure he's not in the darling 10% right now....I'm pretty sure he's not garbage....I can generally honestly see where he stands v. any particular peer on a one on one/position v position comparison.... and I know his keep skills are stronger than his field skills.........beyond that ^\_o_O_/^

The other thing is that too often (not all the time) coach's only care about where are they now in these skills (because that means, being human, it's less work for them)....parents focus too much on the where will they be skills (sometimes too optimistically) because long term (looking at pros/college or HS) that's what matters.
 
ItsCalledSoccer said:
So true! As a parent just over 1 year into club, the whole club scene here is pure madness. Different leagues everywhere, all overlapping themselves in quality. In the past three scrimmages, we have played a flight 2 team and won (yes I know it doesn't matter about winning in scrimmages, especially at U-Little), a flight 3 team and tied and an AYSO Extra team and been destroyed. Simply put, there are so many players who are in the wrong level based on their current development status.

There is no need to have so many leagues, divisions and sub-divisions. My buddy in England has a kid who is playing, all of the local teams are in the same league pyramid. His kid plays in Division 6, and everyone is fine with that, if they do well, they can go to Division 5 and if they smash everyone they can petition for a double promotion to Division 4.

Pick a coach you like, be patient and work with the child and coach. Pick a club who put development over $$$ and be loyal. Obviously there are lots of clubs who need to change their stance by the sounds of things on this forum.
Click to expand...

The fundamental difference is the US is not community based. In other countries you usually play out of your school/academy. Its local and thus people have PRIDE in playing and play with their friends. This is why you will get someone being a diehard of Fulham vs Chelsea. Regardless if Fulham is playing D1 or D2 the team still sells tickets. At youth level they move up as mentioned. Here it is a money making scheme and US Soccer being the biggest benefactor. I only know a couple teams that have entire age groups being handled by one coach - where they can move kids up and down during the season. Teams within their own clubs dont even like lending their players to other teams for fear of coaches poaching their kids. pretty sad.

So people keep voting in money people and big club soccer continues the scheme. In reality an org like Cal South should have all So Cal teams under them with clubs based out of areas. I believe their are still only 2 teams in the So Cal area that are actually community based teams. Clubs dont want city/county govs to tell them what to do, so they rather pay for fields. Been discussed on other topics. Officials have said what DA was created for. You have to go to small cities or go to MX leagues to see more community based soccer in So Cal - but those have issues as well.
 
Grace T. said:
"skills" would have to be broken into 4 parts: 1) natural skills (the natural talent the player brings to the table which reflects the ultimate potential for the players growth), 2) learned skills (what the player has learned so far), 3) work ethic (the potential for the player to hit the height of his/her natural and lerned skill potential) and 4) development age (where the player is on the development curve...e.g. are they a Dec birthday or a January, where are they on the puberty track, where are they on the mental maturity). Which is part of the problem with "coach opinion" and "parent opinion" if you aren't one of the darling acknowledged 10% ....it's just really hard to get an accurate read on what their skills are and what their potential is...in the last 3 months I've had coaches tell me [including some with nothing to gain from their assessment, and from silver to extras] my kid belongs in AYSO core v. he's a natural in the keep position and we need to start thinking of pre-DA program. I'm absolutely certain he's not Ronaldo....I'm pretty sure he's not in the darling 10% right now....I'm pretty sure he's not garbage....I can generally honestly see where he stands v. any particular peer on a one on one/position v position comparison.... and I know his keep skills are stronger than his field skills.........beyond that ^\_o_O_/^

The other thing is that too often (not all the time) coach's only care about where are they now in these skills (because that means, being human, it's less work for them)....parents focus too much on the where will they be skills (sometimes too optimistically) because long term (looking at pros/college or HS) that's what matters.
Click to expand...

exactly, all opinion except for the very small group of kids who everyone can agree are "naturals". even then when you get to DA, they are looking at measurables - which doesnt always mean a player will pan out. given its about money, they dont want to "invest" in someone that might have borderline desirable measurables.
 
coachsamy said:
England also happen to have the best paying soccer league in the world! The US is pure robbery!
Click to expand...
yes but money has to come from somewhere. there are ways, but would mean US SOccer would have to make less money or have to find it using other avenues. Given who is in charge and what they have said, money is not going back. which means the systems stays as is where is
 
Not_that_Serious said:
The fundamental difference is the US is not community based. In other countries you usually play out of your school/academy. Its local and thus people have PRIDE in playing and play with their friends. This is why you will get someone being a diehard of Fulham vs Chelsea. Regardless if Fulham is playing D1 or D2 the team still sells tickets. At youth level they move up as mentioned. Here it is a money making scheme and US Soccer being the biggest benefactor. I only know a couple teams that have entire age groups being handled by one coach - where they can move kids up and down during the season. Teams within their own clubs dont even like lending their players to other teams for fear of coaches poaching their kids. pretty sad.
Click to expand...

Agree with this, but still we can work together and have all the teams play in the same league pyramid. Makes it a lot easier to place your player at the suitable level, everyone would travel a lot less and still get a good product. There is a huge grassroots system in England but it is done via local FA's, so travel is 45 minutes max. If a team has to spend more time on the road to the game than on the field playing the game, the league system isn't working, unless it is the top teams in the county.
 
With the escalating increase in club fees, this will change in 3 years to 5-years as the money begins to dry up. Someone is going to need make changes or they will see a significant drop in participation. .

At a smaller scale, I am already seeing a decrease in participation at the Girls 2009-2008 level tryouts in North Orange County.
 
Yes there will definitely be a decline. Seems like more clubs are opening up recreational programs, which are a lower cost of course. Unfortunately, if the big clubs want to fully fund their DA programs (which should be free in my opinion) then they are going to target their flight 2/3 teams and their rec programs as the check books for this.
 
ItsCalledSoccer said:
So true! As a parent just over 1 year into club, the whole club scene here is pure madness. Different leagues everywhere, all overlapping themselves in quality. In the past three scrimmages, we have played a flight 2 team and won (yes I know it doesn't matter about winning in scrimmages, especially at U-Little), a flight 3 team and tied and an AYSO Extra team and been destroyed. Simply put, there are so many players who are in the wrong level based on their current development status.

There is no need to have so many leagues, divisions and sub-divisions. My buddy in England has a kid who is playing, all of the local teams are in the same league pyramid. His kid plays in Division 6, and everyone is fine with that, if they do well, they can go to Division 5 and if they smash everyone they can petition for a double promotion to Division 4.

Pick a coach you like, be patient and work with the child and coach. Pick a club who put development over $$$ and be loyal. Obviously there are lots of clubs who need to change their stance by the sounds of things on this forum.
Click to expand...

When you find one or two of those clubs, can you post em up here?
 
coachsamy said:
The :cool:Aid got you very sugar up there!

These higher levels is a bunch of non sense that tracksuit wearing used car salesmen put in the kool aid you are sipping on!
Click to expand...

LOL, thanks cs. No coolaid here. I can honestly tell you that there are real legit players on some DA teams and there are plenty of mediocre players too.

My older kid played DA, CRL, NPL, Flight 1, Premier at different times in his club soccer life and now playing in college. So when I made the generalized statement with lots of sarcasm, clearly it was lost in the writing....

The only serious part of the post was that real competitive players do seek more competition and could care less winning against lesser opponents. And if that's what you're calling nonsense being sold by used car salesmen, we clearly disagree.

Timmy probably was sitting in a meeting bored and vented some common frustrations shared by many parents of younger players. Since you've taken your kid out of club soccer, your perspective is clearly different than mine. I have an '02 playing club still. I don't place any expectations on my kids athletically. I let them lead what they want to do. I just build bridges and open doors so the kids can walk over it and through the doors to do what they want to do. The only adult supervision is occasional guidance and course correction, if needed.

So much of the posters here have younger players and simply have not experienced the evolution of youth players as they reach U16, 17, 18 and onto college, if at all. Its in their writings - mostly girls and below U12. So much happens between now and then. If they end up with a kid that has a drive and passion for soccer as an older player, Timmy's post makes no sense. If they never get to that point, then it make every sense.

Just for the record, I've never seen a car salesman wearing a tracksuit but you must have.... And no coolaid but McCallen 18 - yes!
 
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