Several recent threads have been about parents having big dreams for their young stars while parents of college athletes saying the young stars rarely make it... so I thought it'd be interesting to take this poll to help give the other parents some perspective.
If you DD/DS is playing or have committed to play at the collegiate level, etc... Would you say they were considered top players or dominating players during 9v9 and below? (U13)
Include as many details as you want, especially if they're Boys/Girls, D1/D2/D3, and at what age did they really start showing their potential... were they generally on top teams/big clubs the whole time or play for smaller clubs?
With all due respect, my sense is the your survey and the questions you are asking for misses the mark.
There are early bloomers and late bloomers. For every early bloomer that stayed strong and dominated into older, there's late bloomer that sat on the bench early on but became great as older. In other words, its data but for data sake and there are too many independent variables that do not get addressed; hence, hard to generalize the outcome.
My observation is that there are 3 key elements to any child becoming a successful college/pro player in any sports.
1) The genetic lottery - cannot trivialize this point. Not just fast or big, but agility, quickness and brains. There are born-with attributes and characteristics that pre-sort where any person will be capable of as an adult. God given, if you'd like....
2) Desire and willingness - gotta want to be the best and willing to work for it. No different than a master craftsman or any domain expert in any given field. Got be willing to prioritize the sport above and beyond almost all other things in life to some extent. Even if one has hit the genetic lottery, the lack of desire and willingness can derail any thoughts of playing on beyond today.
3) Picking the right sport of the right person - if one is 6-6, soccer probably isn't the right sport but perhaps being a pitcher in baseball or basketball player or even football player. If one is lucky enough to have the first element, then the chances are he/she is probably pretty good at almost all sports. That said, then one has to maximize what one excels at. Steve Nash loves and played soccer but was a an NBA player. Andrew Luck was a center mid but became NFL QB (Colts). Joe Montana played basketball and was offered a scholarship at NC State but played football (arguably the best ever QB). There are other stories alike.
Also the survey only allows the taker to select 1 year for being dominate. Most dominate players are that way for multiple years and not just 1 or 2.
For the record, my older kid is playing soccer in college (3rd year) and younger is a senior in HS with no desire to play in college soccer. Both were raised the same way and played soccer since u6, but the older kid is 5-11 and built like an athlete (with all the attributes suited for possession style soccer) and the younger is 5-9 built very stocky but lacks agility and quick reflexes compared to the older. The younger never showed the same amount of desire or willingness either.
So if a parents think about their kid in these terms objectively, and if the kid these elements, then at least for soccer, I'm convinced that there's a school out there (D1~NAIA) the child can be a part of the varsity program. The harder part is where does the educational quality fit in the whole scheme of things. In other words, is soccer/sports more important than the quality of education, when it comes to college? A different question...
