Pfft, you have no idea of cost, subjectivity, time commitment and drama until you have a child in dance.
Young Parents: Why youth soccer should be your last resort
- Thread starter oh canada
- Start date
Berhalter-Reyna explained: Drama's roots in U.S.'s overbearing parents
U.S. Soccer's familial fiasco between the Berhalters and Reynas traces its lineage back to the growing trend of "snowplow" parents in youth sports.www.espn.com
"But there are some cultural aspects to life in the U.S. that make it fertile ground for such behavior. Dutch social psychologist Geert Hofstede accumulated data for more than 40 years as a means of discerning cultural differences among countries. Among the areas he researched are how countries stack up in terms of individualism vs. collectivism and long-term orientation.
Hofstede's research found that the U.S. is highly individualistic, scoring 91 out of 100, while also scoring just 26 in terms of long-term orientation. By contrast, China scored 20 and 87, respectively, while Germany scored 67 and 83."
Soooo, basically we Americans are selfish and short sighted??
I was going to be offended by it... but I don't think that's untrue...
MacDre
PREMIER
What about nepotism?
You think that’s unique to youth soccer??
MacDre
PREMIER
No, not unique but I think it’s substantially more prevalent across youth soccer and the USSF landscape.
Bingo!
graciesdad
BRONZE
All about the $$$$$$$.
Versus?
Nepotism is universal. Just recently more prominent in soccer with the "hiring" of Berhalter.
If I had to say anything that is more pervasive in club soccer it would be the lack of quality coaching. However, I think its more of a function of the numbers playing club soccer than anything else. Some clubs have 6 or 7 teams at an individual age group, that's just crazy. Let's be honest 80% of club soccer is really rec soccer.
I used to work with a guy that owned a soccer club somewhere in the chicago area. Wish I paid more attention to him about the club name but he ended up leaving after a couple of weeks. He said that finding players was never an issue, however what was difficult was finding and maintaining coaches. I'm sure they were paying peanuts + expecting the world. I'm also fairly certain if this guy as a good manager / owner of the business he'd still own the club. But I found his (as an owner) take on the issues with soccer clubs interesting. I would have assumed it would be crazy parents.
Retaining great coaches can be extremely difficult for not only the organizations but for player relationships.
Always seems to be movement,. Successful ones sooner or later move up for $, management, directors, trainers or to professional positions on pro staff, college, etc.
Great getting that young inspired coach who's all in but just fleeting sometimes as next season's going to be different. Coach looking for more.. teams, prestige,$$, or whatever.
From the Player(s) perspective getting the right coaching fit is always great, inspiring, and motivation for the players. Once you have that you want to continue on but change always seems to get in the way....mid season coach was promoted to in assistant on a PRO league, players happy for them but replacement normally not same level so takes some time to sort things out so players come and go.
MacDre
PREMIER
All Olympic sports and gridiron football. I don’t want to be accused of being a hater, so I’ll give an example from the men’s side to illustrate my point. On the USMNT, 3 of our top players are beneficiaries of nepotism: Tim Weah, Christian Pulisic, and Gio. None of them have distinguished themselves in Europe, are injury prone, and primarily come off of the pine!
I can’t think of any Olympic sports where the majority of our stars are beneficiaries of nepotism. If we are talking gridiron football maybe Steve Young (Brigham Young’s grandson) was the beneficiary of nepotism but he was a BOSS capable of distinguishing himself amongst the “big boys.”
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I see a lot of nepotism in the NFL, especially amongst coaching staff Reid’s son, Belacheck’s son and so on.
Not sure that there are better players than those 3 (at their position) available to the USMNT.
I just don’t think Soccer is special in this case. It’s just in the press right now.
MacDre
PREMIER
I agree that there’s nepotism in coaching and the business world. But, I have never seen it in sports to the extent that it exist amongst soccer players especially at the highest levels.
At this juncture Weah, Pulisic, and Gio are probably the best, IDK. But one definitely has to question how they became the best available to the USMNT. Is it because they had more opportunities to develop because of mommy and daddy? Did they receive better coaching because of mommy and daddy? Were they encouraged to continue training, working hard and making the big bucks while their competition was shown the door because of mommy and daddy?
What about Peyton & Eli (and now another generation)?
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MacDre
PREMIER
You got me, but Archie, Peyton, and Eli were all great in their own way-championship caliber quarterbacks. The jury is still out on the new generation. Our USMNT stars are struggling in Europe for playing time and are injury prone. The fact the none of our stars have distinguished themselves in Europe makes me question if anyone would even know their names if it weren’t for their family connections. If they’d gone to Europe and established themselves as top players in Europe, I’d be okay with it…but they haven’t
If the goal is to get money for college, here are two charts for total number of scholarships all levels. Number of scholarships offered. If you have a boy go Football, Basketball, Baseball. Girls go Basketball, Soccer, Track.
Girls
Number of Scholarships offered guys
Girls
| NCAA & NAIA schools | Athletic scholarships Girls |
| Basketball | 10,165 |
| Soccer | 9,266 |
| Track & Field | 8,536 |
| Volleyball | 8,101 |
| Softball | 7,402 |
| Tennis | 4,480 |
| Cross country | 3,817 |
| Swimming & diving | 3,550 |
| Golf | 3,056 |
| Rowing | 2,080 |
Number of Scholarships offered guys
| Football | 25,918 |
| Basketball | 9,504 |
| Baseball | 8,062 |
| Soccer | 6,152 |
| Track & field | 5,930 |
| Golf | 2,998 |
| Cross country | 2,722 |
| Tennis | 2,417 |
| Swimming & diving | 1,994 |
| Wrestling | 1,530 |
You can't look at total scholarships offered. You need to look at total offers vs total applied (how many play it in HS and seek scholarships).
High number of scholarships are offered for football and basketball for boys but there are also a TON of kids who play it and want those scholarships and thus extremely hard to get.
Different charts have different sports that list the "easiest" to earn scholarship sports but a few always make the cut: lacrosse for both boys and girls, ice hockey for both boys and girls, and soccer for girls.
If the goal is to get money for college... academic scholarships are much easier to get than athletic scholarships...
There are also ways to "make finances look tight" right when the kids are applying for colleges and receive substantial financial aid... and revert those back after they're done college... a few thousand spent on a good college admissions counselor could earn you tens of thousands in additional financial aid...