Their last season's Freshman team lost 4 out of 10 league games. Again, with about 15/16 ECNL, RL and EA (now MLS2) players. My older is a solid RL player (will be 3 years varsity), and can not even make the starting line, and his school team lost most of the league games.
High School
- Thread starter Singh
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Their last season's Freshman team lost 4 out of 10 league games. Again, with about 15/16 ECNL, RL and EA (now MLS2) players. My older is a solid RL player (will be 3 years varsity), and can not even make the starting line, and his school team lost most of the league games.
No beef, just experience talking.
My son is facing this scrutiny from others on his team because his club coach became the head varsity coach at his HS in a very competitive public high school league.
My son already knew a player from that HS who was a year ahead of him and already played JV. He was encouraging my son to try and get in his school (which we already planned to try) and make the team. This friend has seen my son play over the years and knew his skill set. We went to a couple games to watch him last year to get an idea of the competition and we felt as though my son had comparable skills to the JV keepers.
So we get enrolled in the school through a lottery and a few months before my son makes the team they announce his club coach is now the HS coach. We never once approached him about the JV tryouts because my son wanted to make the team on his own merit.
Ultimately my son makes the team and is the sole freshman keeper. So know that the first time we met his club coach, he told us the most valuable player on the team is the keeper. This coach likes to play the ball out from the back and mind you my son has an incredibly big and accurate kick. So my son had to become a sweeper keeper. The first year in club we won the league and moved up a flight and the coach told him some of the wins by one might have been ties and some of the ties might had been losses if not for my son.
So now think how this coach has been tasked with elevating the team and in 4 years his varsity team will have been developed by him and his coaches that he hired. So the coach understands the players he picks now will determine his job performance.
So why would the coach pick who he has stated is the most important player on the field just to promote the club he coaches at? It’s an incredible amount of pressure on my son to perform.
I understand that the coach has a bigger picture of my sons ability under pressure and his work ethic by having coached him in club.
But so far, my son has a clean slate and no one has scored on him yet in scrimmages. He will have to continue to prove to the parents rolling their eyes that he deserved that spot.
You have a compelling case .. but I bet the parents of the Keeper that didn't get it has an equally compelling case as to why their son should be there and how he is getting robbed due to the coach being part of the same club. Honestly they are not wrong. Having a HS coach be the same as the club coach especially the same team will come with Bias. They see your kid do more. They make a mistake and its just another mistake they have seen them come back from... the kid they don't coach in club makes a mistake and its more serious due to small sample size. Its an advantage to your player that the others don't have. You may think he deserves it as you have seen him all the time and know what he is capable of but what about the others? Have you seen what they are capable of ? Could it be more than your son? It could and you won't know because you haven't seen much of the competition. Its a crap shoot with no real good answer but it is an unfair advantage of having your kid in the same club as your HS coach.
FlintDempsey
BRONZE
Here is my annual ode to HS soccer: I think of HS soccer as a completely different sport than club, almost how like futsal and indoor soccer are different from outdoor. It has it's own pros and cons, but the one thing that it has (if you are at a halfway decent school/program) way more of than club is permanence. My HS has 2 girls soccer state championships. Those two beautiful golden ball trophies are in the main lobby of the school. Every day every single student, teacher, admin, visitor, janitor, etc. walks by those and sees them. Years from now, my daughter will bring her kids to see those. They can also see the 2 banners both in the stadium and the 2 in the gym. If you make an all-conference team, they put a plaque with a photo up in the weight room. The team photos are on the wall in the school hallways. This stuff will always be there. On the other hand, our club team has 1 state championship and 2 finalists trophies in the past 3 years. No one knows where any of those are at. If you go to where we practice, there is no banner or sign. It's all electronical or in the memory. We had our first HS game last night and had almost 200 people in the stands (small school soccer rules!) going crazy for every touch of the ball. Yes, some programs do indeed suck. Yes, some teams just want to hack and kick and fight. But I can say the exact same thing about club (32 years coaching club in WA and AZ, plus 6 coaching HS in AZ). Also we get 5 days of week of practice/game time. These girls are together frequently (which can be good or bad). We have pasta feeds and movie nights. We watch film. There is a big banquet at the end of the year with a full blown video production. HS soccer is a different animal and should be treated as such. If my kids went to a school with a terrible program or terrible coaches maybe I'd feel differently. As for the question posed, as to who is going to win the open, the list starts with ...um.. Xavier and ends with ...um... Xavier. Good luck to all the 6-5-4A schools that are going to have to try and slay the beast! Also I do not know her at all but mad props to Coach Chura for ref'ing club games all over town. I bet the vast majority of folks don't know that the person they are screaming at about making "bad" calls is the coach of THE AZ powerhouse!
FlintDempsey
BRONZE
Casteel is a solid pick also. Their 2 wings and the CAM are pretty tough.
Has anyone had a player that has consistently played in a “high level “ letter league not make the HS roster? It appears the coaching staff @ my kids high school has a strong bias towards players that play with his clubs teams. He coaches @ a club that has the same membership as my kids club but the roster selection for his JV squad was 75% kids from his club. 15 of the 20 rostered are made up from 5 separate teams ranging from 1st teams to 3rd teams. My kid works really hard to maintain the status of the league and is now crushed by not being able to participate for the school. Anyone else have similar experiences with HS?
I have seen this at some high schools and it's rather blatant.
Of course it’s an advantage to have a relationship with the coach. Other parents on the team know it. They have made comments. But by the end of the preseason games he is the only keeper not to be scored on. So I think he’s earned his keep. I just think as a keeper it’s a heavier decision for the coach versus let’s say a defender. One of his club mates is a defender that also made the HS team. He got zero play time last game. If you are the only freshman keeper getting zero playtime isn’t a real expectation especially if you will be the senior varsity keeper in a few years.