What is the end goal for you as a parent who has a child playing soccer? What would you like to see at the end of the day after all the time and money investment and driving?
Would you want your child to play in the MLS where the average salary is 120k (real estate agents can make more than that, and requires less talent)? Why not pick another sport such as baseball where the average salary is at $4m at the MLB?
Every year this thought has crossed my mind, it's come up several times over the years on this board and now with my last DD aging out, I can say what
my end goal was all along. When our oldest was 5-6, she had speed and endless energy, she needed an outlet because I could play outside with her for hours and she never got tired, she'd wear the dog out from running around! At that point in time AYSO was the answer however, there wasn't enough girls registered so she played with boys for her first 2 years, at U10 I was tired of watching Dad's that had no clue what they were doing so I volunteered to take classes and coach. I have to admit, I knew less about the game and had to become a student really fast. I coached her until U12, several kids that she knew had already left to play "club", I could tell she was needing more of a challenge and we decided to look into club at the end of the season, she ended up at our local club for her entire club career. It was endless hours of practice, privates, working with her in the off season and countless memories of early morning drives with her wrapped in a blanket in the front seat while I drank coffee on our sometimes hours long drive, sometimes we talked, laughed, had friends in the car, teammate and her little sister was usually in tow. As she got older we saw team mates come and team mates go as ECNL was a big draw for others, all the while, she wanted to stay with her team. I had to learn the college recruiting process, I started early and thought, "I can do this", after countless arguments about, "did you contact this coach", "did you follow up with that coach?" and our relationship getting strained, we hired someone to guide her through the process. She went on to play D3 college soccer in upstate NY, she wanted a balance and she received a substantial amount of merit money to make it exciting for mom & dad, for reference, she was a G98, just had her second year at college, is killing it with terrific grades, loves the school and had 2 really good seasons still playing the game she loves. Here's the second part of my end game - her little sister was always in tow as I mentioned earlier, (G00 for reference), she also stuck with our local club team, she got stuck with what I think was a bunch of crappy situations, the addition of DA, DA2, Age Matrix and parents buying into whatever was next, teams were diluted this year and while it was still fun, I could see first hand what's happening in the club circuit and not very hopeful things would end up as I hoped. Then, my oldest texts me asking if I have a "highlight" video of her little sister, just so happened I was working on it for the Thanksgiving and Las Vegas Players Showcase in the event she changed her mind about playing in college. She asks me for forward it to her, then tells the next day her coached asked if she plans on playing in college, I'm thinking, this could still actually happen! He asks her to make a visit in Oct, she goes, loves the school, offer is made and it takes a few weeks to get the financial portion as it's a D3 and they need transcripts. The formal offer shows up, I'm floored as it's far better than I ever expected, she's excited however, doesn't make the commit until just a few days ago. I'm beside myself, I always thought of somehow figuring out a way of getting all of those club fees back

and hopes they both would still have the joy of the game to continue on in college. There's no illusion of going pro however, they both became part of the 3% that go on to play at the collegiate level, they get a terrific education for a LOT less than a CA State school at a private liberal arts college where they will both excel....I don't think I could have ever hoped for a better end game with countless memories of spending all of my time with both of my DD's
