AYSO's Mike Hoyer: Youth soccer needs options between entry level and full travel/club commitment

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https://www.socceramerica.com/publi...ke-hoyer-youth-soccer-needs-options-betw.html


  1. Chuck Coan, July 24, 2018 at 2:32 p.m.
    Last time I checked, every major youth soccer organization in the country was using computers to register their players. Why is it that we can not get a simple, straight answer on exactly how many players were registered at each age group in the major soccer associateons in the USA? State by state. So that the clubs can understand what kind of impact what they are doing is having on player retention.
    I can tell you that focusing everything on the top of the pyramid has an extremely detrimental effect on the base. We just brought back our club from the brink of extinction. 2000 kids down to 500 because the board was made up of "classic, elite" players parents and that is where every dime of resource went as the rec/entry level program that built our club virtually disappeared. As the well went dry we were barely able to field a team at age group in the local competitive division! We are back to 1500, rec/entry level players are filtering into our academies and our classic division, which is still struggling, sees a brighter future starting next year as the academy kids begin to move up.
    In my opinion we started killing the sport in our regon when every club went to club wide tryouts and we began telling teams worth of young players that they were not good enough to play with us and pushed them to under resourced, poorly organized, poorly coached rec programs. One or 2 years of that and they found another sport or quit entirely! Throw the birth year debacle into the picture and the pace of departure accelerated.
    What is best for the players is the question that is never asked. As for the title of this piece, every club in this area provided mid level opportunities from 1980 to about 2000. After that there simply were not enough kids because they all had to be elite or their parents took them elsewhere like to the 12 new clubs claiming they were elite! Which is why elite soccer is not. the kids playing "elite" soccer are the ones whose parents can afford it and support it. If you don't have both pieces, you have nothing. All the skill and athleticism means absolutely nothing without those 2 things. So, elite? I do not think so. No base, no peak
 
Read most of it. It felt like the reporter was asking questions to my Amazon Alexa speaker and answers were being spit out from a google search.
 
1) what makes Mike Hoyer qualified to determine this?
2) it’s simply a crafty sales pitch. AYSO numbers are dwindling. So is the revenue, so create a midway program that fills Mike’s “void” that AYSO can “deliver.”
 
Well, if his point is that to keep broad based participation, we need a middle ground (like Extras) where kids who don't otherwise make it into club but who want more than daddy ball volunteer experiences with kick and miss players (it's funny how AYSO's advocacy for a middle ground forces them to impliedly critique the level of play in their own core program, whether it's said or not), then you know he probably has a point. Aren't people around here always complaining, after all, that there are kids playing for C and D club teams who shouldn't be playing club at all? If we are going to sort players, and still want to keep kids engaged to have a broad base of soccer involvement in the country, it makes sense to push for a middle tier. If we are going to demand players pick 1 sport year round, well naturally those that aren't the best at soccer are going to look elsewhere for a sport where they can be the best. From the Forbes article, it's apparently not just soccer but all the mainline sports (even hilariously sailing), though some of the less recognized sports (like lacrosse, rugby and field hockey) seem to be benefiting.

On the other hand, if our main concern if fielding a competitive USMNT, or creating college athletes, then this middle tier is probably unlikely to accomplish much. By keeping kids in soccer longer it might help to better create a soccer culture in the country, but as others have pointed out, a more robust pro league or successful American pro players is likely to give us better mileage there. And if our concern is developing college players, it might help keep late bloomers in the sport a little longer. But beyond that, I struggle to find a rationale for, and he provides no argument for, the assertion that to have a peak you need a base...that's just an assertion without evidence and therefor a weak argument.
 
A couple of coaches in our local club (Poway) came up with a middle-level program for younger a few years back - Junior Vaqueros. I look at it as rec soccer with paid coaches who know what they are doing. A couple of short practices every week, then Friday evening games between teams made up from within the program so the coaches can do things like swapping players to even out the competition. No one remembers the scores by next week, so no standings or championships to stress about. Players who do well in the program get recruited for the competitive Vaqueros teams, and the club's rec program is still available for those who want it.

http://powayyouthsoccer.com/jr-vaqueros/
 
A couple of coaches in our local club (Poway) came up with a middle-level program for younger a few years back - Junior Vaqueros. I look at it as rec soccer with paid coaches who know what they are doing. A couple of short practices every week, then Friday evening games between teams made up from within the program so the coaches can do things like swapping players to even out the competition. No one remembers the scores by next week, so no standings or championships to stress about. Players who do well in the program get recruited for the competitive Vaqueros teams, and the club's rec program is still available for those who want it.

http://powayyouthsoccer.com/jr-vaqueros/
Was the cost affordable reasonable or was it the same cost as your regular club fees?
 
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