The state of ayso

G

Grace T.

So my kid is doing his high school service hours as a ref in two ayso regions and I’ve dusted off my uni to support him in his first couple games.

Some things I found surprising on the state of ayso. One thing I’m shocked at is the drop off in ayso participation. The littlest fields are still busy but I remember not 4 years ago the fields were filled but now they are half empty. U16 doesn’t exist anymore at either of the two regions (both of them large regions). Neither does extras. Can barely fill a u14 league

Talking to the other refs the numbers never rebounded after covid. They say it’s due to the decline in birth numbers, kids going inactive during covid and club ball starting earlier and earlier. The u14 kids are much smaller on the whole than my kids letter league teams at that age. Still was surprised at the extent of decline in 4 years. it’s a little sad and doesn’t bode well for multisport athletes. The level of play was…unpredictable….which made reffing a challenge since it’s hard to anticipate what the ball will do. They were telling me sitch is worse in some of the neighboring smaller regions.

I still call it “ay-so “ instead of “a.y.s.o.” Which they took exception to which I thought was funny.
 
I loved AYSO as a kid. Club has taken over. This brought an idea to my brain. AYSO could be a great place to have a soccer for everyone. They & Them, MTF, FTM, Bi's, non-binary, straight, gay, male, female and just one league for all. No boys or girls only teams. Just one team per age. I would have a Fall League and a Spring League. Summers off to do other things. Put your best 11 together and go have fun on the pitch. Everyone is happy.
 
I’ve been a long time AYSO volunteer and my son decided he wanted to give soccer a try again. I signed up at a region where he had a few friends playing and the infamous “if you’re getting this email, you’re on 1 of 10 teams that do not have a coach.” I’ve had to stop volunteering due to my work obligations and my older kid’s club schedule which doesn’t allow for me to be there consistently but I offered to referee or be a game day assistant coach if needed.

I get the next set of emails… if you’re you’re getting this email, you’re on 1 of 3 teams without an coach…

I told them to stop playing games with me (because I have a coach instructor certification and I’m sure they saw that) and asked for a refund and just went to the local club rec program that cost me maybe $70 more but no volunteering was required and it wouldn’t conflict with my older kids club schedule.

At the end of the day… AYSO is going to be done in by the amount of volunteering required like in my situation. Inflation is high and people have to work to make ends meet moreso than before inflation sky rocketed.

It’s not uncommon to have lower numbers in the olders. In my old region, we would make U16/19 combined teams and sometimes even coed. In U14 and higher, we had to combine our regions registrations with other local regions to form a league, this was precovid and post covid btw.

When I played as a youth in my teens and decided to do AYSO as a 16/17 year old and drove myself to games and practices, we only had select in my Orange County region I was at so we only had 1 team and played against other cities.

So I think it’s all the same and moreso the state of the economy and less the state of AYSO.
 
Both my kids played AYSO when they were young, my son in extra. I played when I was young, helped coach my kids' teams, volunteer refed some games (unofficially), etc.

Two things killed AYSO for me, both of which I'm still low-grade aggravated about:
- The requirements to volunteer become ridiculous and asinine. They wanted people to do a background check, 3+ hours of classes, and sign 6+ different contracts, just to help out. It was absolutely absurd.
- AYSO shut down during COVID, and stayed shut down for over a year after everything else had restarted (and 2+ years after it was obvious that kids playing outdoors was low risk enough to be fine). This caused parents like myself who were looking for ongoing athletic activities for their kids to go elsewhere, and most didn't come back.

AYSO's issues are 90%+ of their own making, and I feel very little sympathy for them as an organization. I feel bad for the kids, who were hurt by the awful mismanagement which cut off a pathway for a lot of kids to experience soccer. A seemingly complete lack of consideration for trade-offs and secondary effects of decisions is a common problem in badly run organizations, and was on full display here.
 
A lot of kids started their soccer career playing in AYSO. I’m grateful to all the volunteers and coaches who have coached my son over the years. It’s not easy to become a volunteer with AYSO. I agree they should make it easier to volunteer. But don’t blame AYSO, blame all those perverts that prey on children.
 
Jamisfoes said:
A lot of kids started their soccer career playing in AYSO. I’m grateful to all the volunteers and coaches who have coached my son over the years. It’s not easy to become a volunteer with AYSO. I agree they should make it easier to volunteer. But don’t blame AYSO, blame all those perverts that prey on children.
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I was an AYSO coach for a couple of years. Overall I thought the program was very good.

The background checks and classes for coaches wasn't that bad. Although it did make me sad that leadership was obviously put into a position where they were very concerned about perverts being around children.

The reason AYSO is smaller than it used to be is because clubs are running rec leagues and 3rd and 4th level "competitive" leagues at all age groups. Club rec teams and AYSO teams seemed like the same thing to me.
 
Grace T. said:
So my kid is doing his high school service hours as a ref in two ayso regions and I’ve dusted off my uni to support him in his first couple games.

Some things I found surprising on the state of ayso. One thing I’m shocked at is the drop off in ayso participation. The littlest fields are still busy but I remember not 4 years ago the fields were filled but now they are half empty. U16 doesn’t exist anymore at either of the two regions (both of them large regions). Neither does extras. Can barely fill a u14 league

Talking to the other refs the numbers never rebounded after covid. They say it’s due to the decline in birth numbers, kids going inactive during covid and club ball starting earlier and earlier. The u14 kids are much smaller on the whole than my kids letter league teams at that age. Still was surprised at the extent of decline in 4 years. it’s a little sad and doesn’t bode well for multisport athletes. The level of play was…unpredictable….which made reffing a challenge since it’s hard to anticipate what the ball will do. They were telling me sitch is worse in some of the neighboring smaller regions.

I still call it “ay-so “ instead of “a.y.s.o.” Which they took exception to which I thought was funny.
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I still remember calling it "ay-so"! Great memories of not knowing what i was getting into!
 
AYSO stated it was a child development organization (that used soccer). They had the 5 philosophies that basically made it non-competitive, but they wanted to be competitive. It was confusing. I expect I officiated a couple hundred games. I was a "Section" referee and when deciding to become a National ref, I just couldn't deal with the mixed messages and started doing club. And my daughter started playing club because she wanted to win. You can want to win AND have good sportsmanship.
 
I feel like, at a meta level, the thing which really hurt AYSO was the "corporatization".

As a semi-formal way to get kids outside, exercising, and learning soccer, it should be better than just ad hoc parental groups doing the same thing. You can have teams, have a season, get some people to referee games, maybe provide some training to volunteer coaches, etc. Add in a small fee for overhead like field rentals and uniforms, and maybe some pathways for kids who are advanced, and you've got a pretty good community level organization for the benefit of the kids.

The only way to really destroy that is to make the barriers to participation significantly higher for the volunteer parents, and/or not be available because of corporate politics and aversion to liability exposure. Something like adding 3+ hours of mandatory non soccer related training and 6+ contracts and waivers you need to agree to in order to volunteer, and shutting down for two extra years during Covid "just in case". Yeah, you'd have to be pretty stupid and disconnected from the original goal of AYSO to blunder it that badly.

And yeah... I still get a little frustrated when AYSO people say things like "the kids are the top priority", when clearly the org prioritizes its own interests over those of the kids in every single instance. Here's a trivial litmus test: if you have a game day, you don't have a ref for a game, and one of parents volunteers on the spot to ref the game so the kids can play. If that is allowed, you are prioritizing the kids. If that is prohibited, you are prioritizing your own interests over those of the kids, and you're full of shit with your official statements. I can tell you with first-hand certainty which of those my local AYSO is.
 
I will always love AYSO. It lit a fire in my daughter, let me coach her for a couple seasons, got her into Extra than club, played High School, and now college. All for about 10% of the cost of ECNL pay to play that everyone here complains about. You either pay cash, or you pay time. Make a choice.

10 years ago when my daughter started people were hanging out offering spots on their clubs as they watched extra training. It is solid rec play that your kid can combine with a couple other sports. Let them have fun, then decide where they want to go to advance even farther.
 
AYSO shoots themselves in the foot by not allowing club players to play on extra teams. If they allow club players to be in extra, all those baseball and football players will have no where to go but play in regular AYSO. The playing level will improve from top to bottom.
 
Larzby said:
AYSO started back after COVID when everything else did. Not sure what you're talking about.
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The reason my son is playing club right now is because the club continued to practice outside during Covid once that was known to be safe, whereas my local AYSO region delayed for another full season after everything else was started back up, because the overly cautious organization local leaders were scared about potential liability. Me, and several others parents from his previous AYSO Extra team, moved their kids to club directly because of this. That's what I'm talking about, for reference.
 
sigmabody said:
The reason my son is playing club right now is because the club continued to practice outside during Covid once that was known to be safe, whereas my local AYSO region delayed for another full season after everything else was started back up, because the overly cautious organization local leaders were scared about potential liability. Me, and several others parents from his previous AYSO Extra team, moved their kids to club directly because of this. That's what I'm talking about, for reference.
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I am not sure it’s about liability or even politics. Regional AYSO organization consists of volunteers. Sure things were opening up but there was a period of policies going back and forth. Volunteers don’t risk their lives. It makes sense they waited a little longer for that all clear signal.
 
Jamisfoes said:
I am not sure it’s about liability or even politics. Regional AYSO organization consists of volunteers. Sure things were opening up but there was a period of policies going back and forth. Volunteers don’t risk their lives. It makes sense they waited a little longer for that all clear signal.
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I would certainly buy that there was some hesitation and caution arising from the individual people involved. In my area in particular (which is more liberal leaning), many people were significantly more afraid during Covid than would be the average.

That said, there were plenty of individual parents who were happy and comfortable with their kids practicing and/or playing once everything else opened up, and for whatever reasons, the AYSO org/region decided to not allow that to happen through AYSO. That drove a lot of people away from AYSO, and many did not go back. Again, if the org was "kids first", they would find a way to make the activities available for the kids (perhaps without the kids of the parents who were overly cautious). Their priorities drove many parents to find alternatives; that's all I'm saying.
 
sigmabody said:
I would certainly buy that there was some hesitation and caution arising from the individual people involved. In my area in particular (which is more liberal leaning), many people were significantly more afraid during Covid than would be the average.

That said, there were plenty of individual parents who were happy and comfortable with their kids practicing and/or playing once everything else opened up, and for whatever reasons, the AYSO org/region decided to not allow that to happen through AYSO. That drove a lot of people away from AYSO, and many did not go back. Again, if the org was "kids first", they would find a way to make the activities available for the kids (perhaps without the kids of the parents who were overly cautious). Their priorities drove many parents to find alternatives; that's all I'm saying.
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You can’t please everybody. We have to remember whatever politics we have, half of the people in this country are in the other camp. You are right kids who don’t want to wait around moved on to club. We did too. AYSO will still be around even if some of us move on to club. It’s still the best bargain to get a kid into soccer.
 
Grace T. said:
So my kid is doing his high school service hours as a ref in two ayso regions and I’ve dusted off my uni to support him in his first couple games.

Some things I found surprising on the state of ayso. One thing I’m shocked at is the drop off in ayso participation. The littlest fields are still busy but I remember not 4 years ago the fields were filled but now they are half empty. U16 doesn’t exist anymore at either of the two regions (both of them large regions). Neither does extras. Can barely fill a u14 league

Talking to the other refs the numbers never rebounded after covid. They say it’s due to the decline in birth numbers, kids going inactive during covid and club ball starting earlier and earlier. The u14 kids are much smaller on the whole than my kids letter league teams at that age. Still was surprised at the extent of decline in 4 years. it’s a little sad and doesn’t bode well for multisport athletes. The level of play was…unpredictable….which made reffing a challenge since it’s hard to anticipate what the ball will do. They were telling me sitch is worse in some of the neighboring smaller regions.

I still call it “ay-so “ instead of “a.y.s.o.” Which they took exception to which I thought was funny.
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I think it depends which area/city/region.
My 2 kids moved to club during Covid. The younger one went back to ayso extra because he plays club basketball. The team is not bad (beat some Socal F2 clubs in tournaments) but we have to travel far (LA) to some games because not too many cities still have extra team. Surprisingly some cities like Anaheim, Santa Ana have less AYSO activities. Areas like South OC, West LA have better AYSO structure. I blame this on the state of working class. No one has time to volunteer in some areas.
Regular AYSO and all-star tournaments are still very lively is San Clemente, Mission Viejo, Foothill Ranch and surrounding area. I volunteered last year.
 
aong cangkol said:
I think it depends which area/city/region.
My 2 kids moved to club during Covid. The younger one went back to ayso extra because he plays club basketball. The team is not bad (beat some Socal F2 clubs in tournaments) but we have to travel far (LA) to some games because not too many cities still have extra team. Surprisingly some cities like Anaheim, Santa Ana have less AYSO activities. Areas like South OC, West LA have better AYSO structure. I blame this on the state of working class. No one has time to volunteer in some areas.
Regular AYSO and all-star tournaments are still very lively is San Clemente, Mission Viejo, Foothill Ranch and surrounding area. I volunteered last year.
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My two areas are kind of high end but have also seen a decline. For extras, I was told one problem is that because so many regions have folded their programs, one issue is having to travel and parents object to that (they may as well join real travel ball).

If anything, at least in the Latino areas, I note I haven't seen a decline in Latino league soccer (despite the general population decline of school age children). My guess is that COVID may indeed have something to do with it...while AYSO shut down for an extra cautious period of time, Latino League actually thumbed its nose at lockdown restriction and continued with scrimmages during the time period. Further, you don't have the other twin problems of AYSO which is 1. getting volunteers who know what they are doing (most coaches have actually played or at a minimum are fans), and 2. jumping through all the bureaucracy (for refs, for example, they take certification from other leagues who do the work of getting certification)....some of it is state imposed but my sense is they do the minimum necessary.
 
The irony for me and AYSO is that next year, it's possible my son may go back to AYSO.

Most parents don't really consider the "off ramp" much for their kids and sports, I think, until some time in HS or beyond. My son is in 8th atm, and in a local club, but not on the top team in the club for his age group (the top team is playing Socal NPL), and we're starting to think about ramping down soccer as a commitment (financially and otherwise). Transitioning from club to AYSO for next year might make a lot of sense, along with maybe playing on the HS team, and/or doing other sports.

If you're not playing on the top tier team in your club by the time you get to HS, you're probably not going to play in college or beyond (except casually), in my perception. As such, it probably doesn't make sense to pay club rates at that point, unless you're doing so for costly social connections reasons. It's looking very likely that we will be moving away from club in the next year, unless something unexpected changes.
 
Also, before someone corrects me: I'm aware that NPL also isn't the top-tier of competition (there is still ECNL and MLS Next, at least), and if you're talking about college level soccer players, NPL level may not even cut it. However, it seems to me that if you're below NPL level by HS, you're pretty certain to not be in a college playing trajectory (at least competitively), and at that point you're basically just paying a lot of money for playing "casually" in a club, where you could be paying less for the same play experience with AYSO. That's my current perception, anyway.
 
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