Univ of Oregon womens coach abusive?

Slobodan said:
My kid had a really good exchange with Paul at UCSB. Sheir e didn't end up there but he was always very cordial and genuine with her.

And compared to some of the peers in his conference, Ratcliffe seems to be pretty decent.
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Not saying anything bad about Paul or Ratcliffe, but exchanges during the recruiting process is NOT comparable to their personalities as a Coach. Almost ALL coaches are very nice during the recruiting process.
 
Slobodan said:
My kid had a really good exchange with Paul at UCSB. She didn't end up there but he was always very cordial and genuine with her.

And compared to some of the peers in his conference, Ratcliffe seems to be pretty decent.
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sockma said:
Not saying anything bad about Paul or Ratcliffe, but exchanges during the recruiting process is NOT comparable to their personalities as a Coach. Almost ALL coaches are very nice during the recruiting process.
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Agree totally. Very easy for coaches to put on an act during recruiting, especially those that have been doing this for many years. I would also add that programs with losing records for a few years in a row should also be looked at with caution by recruits as performance can be related to players not respecting their coach AND/OR those coaches might be fired for underperformance in a year or two.
 
Mystery Train said:
My kid will be playing her final year of NCAA eligibility next year and I would just say that this kind of awful behavior (the Oregon coach) is common in college soccer, and I would imagine most other sports. Oddly, the non-revenue generating sports in particular. My daughter had a bad coaching situation (very similar in terms of verbal abuse) and then one very good one. This mirrored her situation in club soccer, too. Some bad, some good. But to all the parents in youth soccer right now who are thinking about the whole college soccer thing and thus the ECNL, DA, and all other elite/premier/gold/supercalifragilistic club leagues, just know this: The coaches at the college level, including the vaunted P5 schools, are not any more sophisticated or intelligent than whatever you experienced in AYSO coaching or in the younger levels of club soccer. I know that such a statement is going to upset some folks and make some people here go apoplectic. I'm not saying that there are not some amazing and highly intelligent soccer coaches in college. There are. And some could coach professionally. And some are great human beings. But that's no different than club soccer coaches or AYSO coaches or elementary school teachers. I think that almost all youth soccer parents have a completely misguided picture of college athletics. I certainly did. We put college soccer coaches on some elevated plane because we've elevated getting a college soccer scholarship to some ridiculous ideal that is completely misguided.

It was my assumption that the higher level my kid played at, the better the coaches would be. This extended to the assumption that not only would they be better coaches, they would also be better communicators, better at caring, better at understanding, better at managing stress, better at handling setbacks, better at leading, better at bringing together a team, better under pressure... in short, better human beings. This might seem obvious in hindsight, but soccer coaches are not better human beings than any other random profession you can name. And just because someone managed to land successively higher paying jobs, it says nothing about their quality as a human being. Just take a look at any random CEO of any random company you want to pick. In fact, the level of job someone has says almost nothing about anything else except that they are good at landing jobs. That's it. That is the one difference between college coaches as a whole and full-time club coaches as a whole: The ones in college just happen to be better (or luckier or more interested) at landing college jobs. And guess what? Colleges are no better at finding and hiring good people than your local fast food joint.

Here's the real kicker: I was also depressed and shocked to learn that college coaches on the whole did not understand the sport itself much better than my kid's first U10 club coach (who wasn't particularly great in that regard, either). Again, there are exceptions. Tim Ward at Pepperdine is one I happen to have met. He's a great human and a great soccer coach. But he's not the norm. The tactical and strategic understanding of the game of most college coaches is simply a continuation of the EXACT. SAME. CRAP. that your kid learned the first two years of playing club ball. The number of coaches that get by on simply yelling at their players to "GO HARDER!" is astonishing. The moment I hear a coach tell a player that "it's all about GRIT!" I'm like, "Check, please." Take your average middle school PE teacher and have them watch "Miracle," and you've basically got 90% of our nation's soccer coaches at all levels. I'm not kidding.

Now, with all that said... Yes, you can find great coaches. But damn, parents. Arm yourselves and your kid with healthy doses of skepticism along the way to trying to find one. For every good one, there's 10 of these jackholes. And the name of the university means absolutely nothing in that regard.
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Yes! Recruiting coaches are always eager to just talk to the 16-17yr old kid and keep the parents out of the discussions as much as possible -- otherwise parents risk being deemed as "overinvolved". BS. Another trick is to let the assistant coach (nicer) do most of the interaction. The one time when parents should be involved is when they are making the largest life decision for their kid to date. Still let your kid lead the conversations and drive the process, but be involved! Even if it's just listening and watching. Parents in their 40s and 50s can pick up on cues and messaging and expressions that teenagers cannot. Treat these coaches as job applicants to come work for your family company that manufactured your most important product -- your son or daughter. Ask tough questions too. We always treated the head coach relationship as the most important factor -- over money and everything else. Some clubs' college directors will take players and families out of a lot of the process too - they will say it's a benefit that other clubs don't have, but in reality, it's a disservice to the player and family because they are losing additional opportunities to get to know the coaches. Just like in club, there are way more crap college coaches than good ones. And, just because they are part of a winning program doesn't mean jack re how good they are. If you've only talked to the college coach for 15 minutes, you don't know him/her.
 
sockma said:
Not saying anything bad about Paul or Ratcliffe, but exchanges during the recruiting process is NOT comparable to their personalities as a Coach. Almost ALL coaches are very nice during the recruiting process.
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Fair point but what have you heard that's negative about either one? Both have been around 20+ years.

For clarification, my kid was chasing Stumpf and UCSB... not the other way around. He had no incentive to be that cordial to her.
 
I see a parent with a former child on the Ducks on here. Can you spill the beans bro? I totally understand why parents STFU all the time and I don't blame many of you. This has been a very tough 7 years for me personally, but I feel good today. The shit is going to hit the fan sooner rather than later.
 
Mystery Train said:
If you check out the transfer portal, that's the best way to see who is running an abusive sweat shop and who isn't. Every school is going to have some transfers just because you can't please everyone, but when you see more than 3 kids with starting minutes transferring out in the same semester, it's RED FLAG city.
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If all of the freshman players transfer or quit one year, that is another red flag.

Why doesn't the NCAA survey players and publish the results anonymously?
 
outside! said:
If all of the freshman players transfer or quit one year, that is another red flag.

Why doesn't the NCAA survey players and publish the results anonymously?
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You'd think that schools would do exit interviews for players leaving a program - whether dropping soccer, transferring to another program or graduating. I am aware of that happening in some instances but it is far from the norm. Of course that would only matter for programs that are willing to be introspective and listen to positives and negatives from students who have lived the program. A lot can be learned even for the most outwardly functional programs.
 
sockma said:
Not saying anything bad about Paul or Ratcliffe, but exchanges during the recruiting process is NOT comparable to their personalities as a Coach. Almost ALL coaches are very nice during the recruiting process.
Click to expand...
Exactly. Every coach loved my daughter during the recruiting process, even if they didn't need a goalkeeper. :)

I feel for coaches. Recruit and dole out money with limited staff trying to find the right players. If you are a lower P4 school or not a P4 school, you aren't getting USYNT players or 5* players. Some of the players they recruit can't take that next step that is required. Injuries occur throwing a wrench in everyone's plans. Integrating new freshman every year, from 7-10 new girls, all with expectations that are impossible to match. They go from being the best players on their teams to a complete unknown at best, get very little play time because everyone on the team has already been playing with each other for a number of games and is in better shape and have more skills. Team chemistry gets screwed up with some unhappy players. Throw in losing games, threat of job loss, easy to see how coaches can have bad days. Limiting the number of bad days is key.

Coaches need to be honest with their players while not degrading them. Compliment and correct. If you yell, make sure what you yell makes sense. During a spring game daughter took a ball from one outside back and played it to the other side. Coach yells really loudly "you have be faster switching the field" and I could see if bothered my daughter just a bit, but the rest of the game she was taking passes and switching attack at a faster pace and didn't hear a word from coach again about her play. On the girls side, one practice a week that includes team bonding. I've read sports psychologist state that girls that bond have a better chance at winning and playing well as a team, while for the guys winning and playing well leads to their team bonding.

By the way, have I mentioned how much I hate injuries for all players. Just when it seems my kid is getting into a groove and ready to take the 1 spot at keeper, she injures an ankle or tweaks a knee. Sheesh.
 
Mystery Train said:
My kid will be playing her final year of NCAA eligibility next year and I would just say that this kind of awful behavior (the Oregon coach) is common in college soccer, and I would imagine most other sports. Oddly, the non-revenue generating sports in particular. My daughter had a bad coaching situation (very similar in terms of verbal abuse) and then one very good one. This mirrored her situation in club soccer, too. Some bad, some good. But to all the parents in youth soccer right now who are thinking about the whole college soccer thing and thus the ECNL, DA, and all other elite/premier/gold/supercalifragilistic club leagues, just know this: The coaches at the college level, including the vaunted P5 schools, are not any more sophisticated or intelligent than whatever you experienced in AYSO coaching or in the younger levels of club soccer. I know that such a statement is going to upset some folks and make some people here go apoplectic. I'm not saying that there are not some amazing and highly intelligent soccer coaches in college. There are. And some could coach professionally. And some are great human beings. But that's no different than club soccer coaches or AYSO coaches or elementary school teachers. I think that almost all youth soccer parents have a completely misguided picture of college athletics. I certainly did. We put college soccer coaches on some elevated plane because we've elevated getting a college soccer scholarship to some ridiculous ideal that is completely misguided.

It was my assumption that the higher level my kid played at, the better the coaches would be. This extended to the assumption that not only would they be better coaches, they would also be better communicators, better at caring, better at understanding, better at managing stress, better at handling setbacks, better at leading, better at bringing together a team, better under pressure... in short, better human beings. This might seem obvious in hindsight, but soccer coaches are not better human beings than any other random profession you can name. And just because someone managed to land successively higher paying jobs, it says nothing about their quality as a human being. Just take a look at any random CEO of any random company you want to pick. In fact, the level of job someone has says almost nothing about anything else except that they are good at landing jobs. That's it. That is the one difference between college coaches as a whole and full-time club coaches as a whole: The ones in college just happen to be better (or luckier or more interested) at landing college jobs. And guess what? Colleges are no better at finding and hiring good people than your local fast food joint.

Here's the real kicker: I was also depressed and shocked to learn that college coaches on the whole did not understand the sport itself much better than my kid's first U10 club coach (who wasn't particularly great in that regard, either). Again, there are exceptions. Tim Ward at Pepperdine is one I happen to have met. He's a great human and a great soccer coach. But he's not the norm. The tactical and strategic understanding of the game of most college coaches is simply a continuation of the EXACT. SAME. CRAP. that your kid learned the first two years of playing club ball. The number of coaches that get by on simply yelling at their players to "GO HARDER!" is astonishing. The moment I hear a coach tell a player that "it's all about GRIT!" I'm like, "Check, please." Take your average middle school PE teacher and have them watch "Miracle," and you've basically got 90% of our nation's soccer coaches at all levels. I'm not kidding.

Now, with all that said... Yes, you can find great coaches. But damn, parents. Arm yourselves and your kid with healthy doses of skepticism along the way to trying to find one. For every good one, there's 10 of these jackholes. And the name of the university means absolutely nothing in that regard.
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I haven't been on here forever, but boy are you right about everything you said. At the end of the day, it's a job and some are really keen to keep that job even if they aren't good at... or maybe they're a great administrator of the "program" and that's why they get to keep their job....but the coaching part they have no business being in.
 
dk_b said:
You'd think that schools would do exit interviews for players leaving a program - whether dropping soccer, transferring to another program or graduating. I am aware of that happening in some instances but it is far from the norm. Of course that would only matter for programs that are willing to be introspective and listen to positives and negatives from students who have lived the program. A lot can be learned even for the most outwardly functional programs.
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Now that they are considered employees it should be mandatory.
 
Dubs said:
Now that they are considered employees it should be mandatory.
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I did my exit interview on here with club soccer because no one gave two shits about the treatment of the girls for fear of being labelled a trouble maker and Hawk dad. I got smashed like a bug and that's ok. I'm still breathing, and I go to bed at night knowing I stood up to the jackholes in the youth game. I don't share all the bad stories but I will say another player I know from 2022 has quit the game because of abuse.
 
espola said:
Something like this?

www.ncaa.org

Graduation Rates

Graduation Rates
www.ncaa.org www.ncaa.org
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Thank you for the link, but that is just graduation rates. Many college players with successful college careers graduate and still would pick a different school if they had it to do over again. Coaches have too much power and there needs to be a way for incoming players to make better choices. There also needs to be a way for abusive coaches to be held accountable.
 
outside! said:
Thank you for the link, but that is just graduation rates. Many college players with successful college careers graduate and still would pick a different school if they had it to do over again. Coaches have too much power and there needs to be a way for incoming players to make better choices. There also needs to be a way for abusive coaches to be held accountable.
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Agreed. Many parents hold much of the blame too. I can almost guarantee that anyone's child will be a different person at 18yrs than they are at 15y. All of my kids were -- boys and girl. But parents get swept up in the recruiting attention and fomo, and don't give their kids the best advice...which is to drag out the process as long as possible, don't make a final decision till you must, and leave that final choice to your kid. But these are the same parents that are choosing to homeschool their kids at 12, forcing them to play one sport year-round at 10, and believe they have the next superstar at 6. I read one of the NWSL teams just signed a 14yr old--arguably child abuse in my book.
 
oh canada said:
Agreed. Many parents hold much of the blame too. I can almost guarantee that anyone's child will be a different person at 18yrs than they are at 15y. All of my kids were -- boys and girl. But parents get swept up in the recruiting attention and fomo, and don't give their kids the best advice...which is to drag out the process as long as possible, don't make a final decision till you must, and leave that final choice to your kid. But these are the same parents that are choosing to homeschool their kids at 12, forcing them to play one sport year-round at 10, and believe they have the next superstar at 6. I read one of the NWSL teams just signed a 14yr old--arguably child abuse in my book.
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That player is local to us in OC and plays for a club Iā€™m know quite a bit about. I believe she is homeschooled and her entire family is moving with her. I think this is a terrible decision at this point for her and women players in the states. The NWSL is growing but far from being an ideal career for most. At this time I think college is still the best avenue for women. It allows a player to be educated, work on their craft and develop as a human being. I understand many males go through this process at this age, however they have real academies and steps in place. The states do not. I also know a male who played for an MLS academy, just graduated from high school and turned down an opportunity to play D1 soccer in San Diego. He opted for a local USL team. This too is a questionable move.
 
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