Recommendation to CSL and SCDSL- 40 mile rule

[younothat]

How about a drink after the 40 mile drive, that should be the new rule...refreshments as part of the league fees but for the parents:

If we had beer gardens at those games would the parents chill more or would we see the "angry" drinkers come out?

Self/driving cars are possibly the wave of the future so you might be the last of the generation of "Taxi" parents before uber or whatever takes over.

After you seen hundreds or more of your kids games it does tend to get old and I only occasionally go to league games anymore, nice to have the kids driving them-self's as soon as their 16. I don't miss it, rather be surfing, biking, catching up with friends & family some of the weekend instead.

 

[outside!]

Speak for yourself. I try to never miss one of my kid's games. I also do not mind the early games since it helps with traffic and leaves me time to get home and go to the beach or ride my bike.

 

[mirage]

....I really don’t know how those Discovery League teams are going to handle going to Norco every weekend, especially teams like Eagles and Real SoCal.....

And then there’s beautiful Lancaster for you San Diego and OC teams if you play in the CSL League Cup ....

CSL Premier used to be all hosted at Oaks Polo Fields in San Juan Capistrano until the split w/SCDSL. Now I believe its at UCI (after Rams leave and the grass to recover).

League Cup is usually played at the San Bernardino Sports Complex, not Lancaster....

Silverlakes has a nice facilities but ingress/egress is the pits. Weather is not joyful but it is what it is...

 

[mirage]

There is a legitimate grip for Flight 2~3, and SE, Bronze level teams having to travel more than an hour to play their games. Regionalizing it more would help parents, especially below U13.

I recall one year, LAG Bakersfield (FC Roadrunners) was in SCDSL. We had to drive from OC to Bakersfield for one game. I believe it was when my kid was U13 or 14. Really was WTF....

The travel can be fun but it is a grind for the most part. I've read over the years how great the travel time is to spend the time with your kids....If that's what one calls "quality time" or spending more time with your kids, then there's something else missing. Not saying its not a good way to spend more time. Its just one of many ways and ask your kids, if you're already spending time with them if they like the drives..... I think you already know the answer.

 

[CaliKlines]

The travel can be fun but it is a grind for the most part. I've read over the years how great the travel time is to spend the time with your kids....If that's what one calls "quality time" or spending more time with your kids, then there's something else missing. Not saying its not a good way to spend more time. Its just one of many ways and ask your kids, if you're already spending time with them if they like the drives..... I think you already know the answer.

I had a lengthy conversation with a current WNT forward about a myriad of topics, including her youth soccer experience, and she told me that her dad always loved the "quality, one-on-one time" with her in the car. She didn't know which car he was talking about, because she hated the drives. Loved her dad to pieces, but absolutely hated the drives.

 

[futboldad1]

We have a winner !!!!!

Those 8am games are tough. This Sunday we ( from LA ) have an 8am CRL game in Norco, but at least it not in Temecula. And I really don’t know how those Discovery League teams are going to handle going to Norco every weekend, especially teams like Eagles and Real SoCal. That’s a tough drive every weekend, but those teams also have DA and ECNL so it comes with the territory I guess.
And then there’s beautiful Lancaster for you San Diego and OC teams if you play in the CSL League Cup ....

FYI both Eagles and RSC lost ECNL. Also I think Eagles are CSL not SCDSL but maybe it changed.

FWIW I enjoy the drives with my DDs. Them, maybe not so much!

 

[ToonArmy]

I had a lengthy conversation with a current WNT forward about a myriad of topics, including her youth soccer experience, and she told me that her dad always loved the "quality, one-on-one time" with her in the car. She didn't know which car he was talking about, because she hated the drives. Loved her dad to pieces, but absolutely hated the drives.

That is funny I am sure that a lot of us dad's feel the same way that dad did and we probably dont realize how much our daughters dislike it. What always seems to help our rides home together is the In N Out drive thru double doubles and neopolitan shakes. That's probably the only time i shut up about the game.

 

[mirage]

I had a lengthy conversation with a current WNT forward about a myriad of topics, including her youth soccer experience, and she told me that her dad always loved the "quality, one-on-one time" with her in the car. She didn't know which car he was talking about, because she hated the drives. Loved her dad to pieces, but absolutely hated the drives.

....And one doesn't have to be YNT level player to hate it.

 

[Overlap]

As I am waiting for SCDSL to post the schedules, I realized that in our age bracket, we will need to drive more than 50 miles several times for my u-little player for weekend games.

One way to kill the joy of club soccer for new parents is to hold games that are 40 or 50 miles away from home.

My advice to CSL and SCDSL is make a rule a 40 or 30 mile rule for the younger age groups to avoid a 2 hour drive one way to a weekend game. Also maybe play at a neutral site in between both locations to avoid these long drives.

Maybe it's just me but I am wondering if others feel the pain of driving from San Diego to Orange county or LA to Temecula on a Saturday. Definitely not fun to drive up to 4 hours (2 each way) to watch your U9 play a game when there's about 10 other teams that belong to the other league around you.


Thoughts?!!?

Pretty funny looking back after our now 8th club soccer year, oldest DD aged out 2 seasons ago and this will be our youngest DD's final season. My first car had 158,000 miles after the first 2 soccer seasons, (I bought it with 48,000 miles ), that was rough between both girls playing, my second car had 148,000 miles after the 4th season, (bought that one with 49,000 miles ), have now have 2 other cars I use, I racked up 12,000 miles last year on 1 and didn't even look at the other. Looking back I've loved that time getting up before the sunrise, drinking coffee, sometimes talking, sometimes they just slept, it really didn't matter as it was the time I've been lucky enough to spend with both of my girls. The time goes incredibly fast, enjoy it, it's just miles on a car, one day you'll be like me and smile every time you think about a certain conversation, the car full of crazy funny kids and just being there. It's a lot different having to watch our oldest on a computer during the college season but, it sure makes me smile when I think of all the fun trips we've had driving all those miles together....

 

[mirage]

.........It's a lot different having to watch our oldest on a computer during the college season but, it sure makes me smile when I think of all the fun trips we've had driving all those miles together....

We averaged 26K mi/yr on our family vehicle for soccer. Not jus soccer but good 80% of those miles. Our youngest is a junior in HS so we've got this and next season. Our 10 months old car has logged almost 16k miles with mostly one kid playing.

You probably know this already but just in case, the way we watch the streaming college games (our older) is by using iPad browser and Airplay to AppleTV connected to our home theater. Its much better that way.....

 

[focomoso]

That is funny I am sure that a lot of us dad's feel the same way that dad did and we probably dont realize how much our daughters dislike it. What always seems to help our rides home together is the In N Out drive thru double doubles and neopolitan shakes. That's probably the only time i shut up about the game.

I read an article a while back (that I suspect was talked about here, before my time) that the least favorite thing elite athletes remember about their childhoods was the rides home after losses. The article recommended that parents not talk about the game at all on the ride home which is a rule I follow.

 

[jpeter]

Our family cars avg 30k+ of mles each year past 8 and we spent up to 6k per year just on gas.

When you have mutiple kids playing mutiple sports or activity there are literally 100s of events each year and without mutiple drivers or callpools with friends we couldn't manage to do this.

We have a calendar just for the kids they have to keep updated and im lucky to attend about half the games, I'm on location working in bunches so rely on talking with them or video more & more.

Quality talk time driving to get somewhere while your kids are tuning in something else really not what I prefer. In fact kids are more likely to be more open when you let them call you. Had some great conversations with the kids that way, what they want to talk about what you want too sometimes is two separate things or more.

 

[Venantsyo]

But, In my opinion, if you are able to fill a schedule in a 20 miles radius, I’d say that club soccer is over saturated in that area.

It is in North OC, where you have over 10 clubs in a 10 miles radius, although split between CSL and SDCSL. So this saturation makes it really hard for teams to field talented teams and yet we don’t enjoy local play and have (in our case) to drive all season to the Inland Empire for G09 games.
Doable of course but not ideal.

 

[SoccerFan4Life]

Well said.

Think of the hour-long drives as the rare "uninterrupted" time you have with your kids. Before you know it, they will be driving themselves.

Top 10 things you say on a 2 hr quality time drive for club soccer with your child:
#10: Make sure you are ready to play well during the game (before the game)
#9: You need to play better and more practice (after the team loses)
#8: Our coach stinks, my child should have played more minutes.
#7: Mom, don't you have other movies to play on the car DVD
#6: That In-N-out line is way too long, we are doing Carl's Jr.
#5: McDonalds again? We just had that for breakfast
#4: Did you bring your shin guards?
#3: Are we there yet?
#2: Stop talking about soccer dad!
#1: Me : "How is school, tell me something son", Them " it's good Dad, now leave me alone so I can watch videos on my phone"

So much for quality time!

 

[Messi>CR7]

I had a lengthy conversation with a current WNT forward about a myriad of topics, including her youth soccer experience, and she told me that her dad always loved the "quality, one-on-one time" with her in the car. She didn't know which car he was talking about, because she hated the drives. Loved her dad to pieces, but absolutely hated the drives.

Top 10 things you say on a 2 hr quality time drive for club soccer with your child:
#10: Make sure you are ready to play well during the game (before the game)
#9: You need to play better and more practice (after the team loses)
#8: Our coach stinks, my child should have played more minutes.
#7: Mom, don't you have other movies to play on the car DVD
#6: That In-N-out line is way too long, we are doing Carl's Jr.
#5: McDonalds again? We just had that for breakfast
#4: Did you bring your shin guards?
#3: Are we there yet?
#2: Stop talking about soccer dad!
#1: Me : "How is school, tell me something son", Them " it's good Dad, now leave me alone so I can watch videos on my phone"

So much for quality time!

If you have two kids in the back, add "Stop touching me" to the list.

 

[RedCard]

FYI both Eagles and RSC lost ECNL. Also I think Eagles are CSL not SCDSL but maybe it changed.

FWIW I enjoy the drives with my DDs. Them, maybe not so much!

I enjoy the drives too until she takes control of the radio....lol

 

[Toch]

As I am waiting for SCDSL to post the schedules, I realized that in our age bracket, we will need to drive more than 50 miles several times for my u-little player for weekend games.

One way to kill the joy of club soccer for new parents is to hold games that are 40 or 50 miles away from home.

My advice to CSL and SCDSL is make a rule a 40 or 30 mile rule for the younger age groups to avoid a 2 hour drive one way to a weekend game. Also maybe play at a neutral site in between both locations to avoid these long drives.

Maybe it's just me but I am wondering if others feel the pain of driving from San Diego to Orange county or LA to Temecula on a Saturday. Definitely not fun to drive up to 4 hours (2 each way) to watch your U9 play a game when there's about 10 other teams that belong to the other league around you.


Thoughts?!!?

For u9/u10 40 miles is a bit of a drive. For parents (the ones that always ruin youth sports) it may be a drag, but isn’t it about the kids. From my experiences at those ages, kids love traveling outside their area for competitive games. The higher you get up in skill the farther you will have to travel. If your kid makes it National Cup the games may be held in a different state... oh what will you do?

 

[Overlap]

We averaged 26K mi/yr on our family vehicle for soccer. Not jus soccer but good 80% of those miles. Our youngest is a junior in HS so we've got this and next season. Our 10 months old car has logged almost 16k miles with mostly one kid playing.

You probably know this already but just in case, the way we watch the streaming college games (our older) is by using iPad browser and Airplay to AppleTV connected to our home theater. Its much better that way.....

My kids will say every once in awhile they miss the old volvo wagon, it smelled like stinky shin guards and always had turf pebbles we couldn't get out, I think it was because we never cared about how dirty that car got. Thanks for the ipad browser / Airplay to AppleTV tip!...I bought a big 32" computer monitor, super high speed internet and it works pretty good but, will try your way! I'll actually be able to watch the game in the house, rather than my office.

 

[coachsamy]

As I am waiting for SCDSL to post the schedules, I realized that in our age bracket, we will need to drive more than 50 miles several times for my u-little player for weekend games.

One way to kill the joy of club soccer for new parents is to hold games that are 40 or 50 miles away from home.

My advice to CSL and SCDSL is make a rule a 40 or 30 mile rule for the younger age groups to avoid a 2 hour drive one way to a weekend game. Also maybe play at a neutral site in between both locations to avoid these long drives.

Maybe it's just me but I am wondering if others feel the pain of driving from San Diego to Orange county or LA to Temecula on a Saturday. Definitely not fun to drive up to 4 hours (2 each way) to watch your U9 play a game when there's about 10 other teams that belong to the other league around you.


Thoughts?!!?

The leagues would continue to do that because people will make the stupid drives for a recreational soccer game. We are down in SoCal where competition is in every corner. People making it seem like they live in those rural states where there is nothing around and you HAVE to do those drives.

At the end of the day the clubs cater to the needs of the customer and there is a demand for far far away games from the customer, so they will ensure the club delivers a schedule up to par to the driving requirements of the customer.

 

[focomoso]

At the end of the day the clubs cater to the needs of the customer and there is a demand for far far away games from the customer, so they will ensure the club delivers a schedule up to par to the driving requirements of the customer.

Just to be clear, you think parents, players and coaches (the customers) _want_ long drives? This seems pretty off to me. Customers will _tolerate_ long drives if they satisfy what they really want, which is evenly-matched competition. If they have to drive far to get it, they'll do it, but given the choice, I don't know too many people who would take a long drive over a short one - competition level being equal. If CSL and SCDSL were to combine into a single league that was reorganized for that reduced travel, I suspect just about every customer would approve.