That was an interesting post directed at me, though snarky and wholly uninformed. Taking the points one-by-one:
- Building "winning teams" is not about getting hardware. It's about striving for excellence. Not that there is anything wrong with winning a couple of tournaments here and there.
- What "company line" are you talking about? That comment is senseless.
- Nobody at our club is making a ton of money. Our fees are about $1500 per player per year, which is in the middle of club fees in general. Our coaches get paid about $800-$1000 per team per month, which is about average. There isn't any extra money in the budget to make DOCs or anybody else very much money at all. No coach or DOC in our club is making much money from soccer, and none are driving BMWs or other expensive cars that I know of.
- My teams had no auctions or other fundraisers. To the extent any of my teams were short of money for tournaments, referee fees and other sundries, I paid those expenses myself, to the tune of about $5,000 in the last year. I could not support myself on the salary I earn as a coach, much less live in splendor. Though I have been coaching club soccer for many years, it is not my "day job."
- I didn't kick any kid to the curb last year. Of my two short-side teams I retained 23 of 24 players for our new club year starting this March. That is a 96% retention rate. There may be many reasons for this, but the fact that those teams had a collective record of 25-2-1 made them fun for the girls, and created a platform for all players to develop.
In any event, I don't know what this poster is angry about. If he wants his kid on a "losing" team rather than a "winning" team, well, bully for him. There are plenty of lessons that can be learned from losing. But most all of those same lessons can be learned while being on a team that wins more games than it loses, and most kids have a lot more fun on winning teams.
