Youth broken system

[Grace T.]

Its funny how there was a comment on how the 'Everyone Plays' idea is killing US Soccer, I think soon there will be mandates on all club teams to copy AYSO's vision and have kids play at least 50% of the game (at least up until a certain age, maybe 11v11).

I'll drive Eagle33 here even more crazy and make a deeper criticism of "Everyone Plays". The idea of "Everyone Plays" isn't just limited to the 50% of game time. 50% of game time is only one element, and one that is largely Extras/United based. In AYSO core for the youngers, it's supposed to be EQUAL play time (with all players on small rostered teams sitting a quarter). It was also supposed to be (before the handicapped kids got sent to their own program, and the better players shuffled to AllStars/Extras/United), that everyone played on the same team, whether they were good or bad. Growing up in the 70's/80's, my brothers' basketball teams were organized the same way: the worst kid who couldn't dribble got to play with the future all American. It was an idea that everyone could learn form everyone else, which as I've said before especially doesn't work for soccer (if Billy can't get the ball to Johnny), and which ultimately caused the upper middle class to peel away from such an idea as college sports recruitment became more ruthless. The upper middle class did the same with public schools, which are organized the same way (everybody learns together)....starting with the busing, they upper middle class began to move to the suburbs and private schools where not everyone learned together. So it shouldn't surprise us that the same thing happened with soccer (which is such an upper middle class sport) that happened to public schools.

US Soccer goal is to produce World Class players.
Parents goal is to get their kid to College.

Which, when all is said and done, is the heart of the problem.

 

[Eagle33]

I'll drive Eagle33 here even more crazy and make a deeper criticism of "Everyone Plays". The idea of "Everyone Plays" isn't just limited to the 50% of game time. 50% of game time is only one element, and one that is largely Extras/United based. In AYSO core for the youngers, it's supposed to be EQUAL play time (with all players on small rostered teams sitting a quarter). It was also supposed to be (before the handicapped kids got sent to their own program, and the better players shuffled to AllStars/Extras/United), that everyone played on the same team, whether they were good or bad. Growing up in the 70's/80's, my brothers' basketball teams were organized the same way: the worst kid who couldn't dribble got to play with the future all American. It was an idea that everyone could learn form everyone else, which as I've said before especially doesn't work for soccer (if Billy can't get the ball to Johnny), and which ultimately caused the upper middle class to peel away from such an idea as college sports recruitment became more ruthless. The upper middle class did the same with public schools, which are organized the same way (everybody learns together)....starting with the busing, they upper middle class began to move to the suburbs and private schools where not everyone learned together. So it shouldn't surprise us that the same thing happened with soccer (which is such an upper middle class sport) that happened to public schools.



Which, when all is said and done, is the heart of the problem.

I don't think it's a problem. One thing already works - getting kids to college. Many kids from different countries coming here because they don't have this option back home. We've done this quite well. Good players have option to get some kind of money while playing and getting their college education - Great!
Now producing World Class players should not be what we are after. We should be after creating our OWN system of play with what we got. We should stop trying to produce what we can't.

 

[Surf Zombie]

AYSO is telling families, "If your kid is Rec Level Good, then (s)he should be playing Club. And, hey, we have that now."

They should be doing the opposite: "If your kid is Rec Level Good, then get them off that Flight 3 team, get them out of Club, and have them play in AYSO."

Where we live in the Boston area, as well as most of New England as far as I know, there is a much different “Rec” or “AYSO” type system in place than what you have in CA. Every town has a soccer program. Top kids at each age play on their town’s A team, second group plays on the B team and all other teams are level picked. It’s essentialy like high school soccer where kids play on Saturdays for their town team and on sundays for their club team.

My 2007 daughter is on her 5/6 grade town “A” team and my 2009 son is on his 3/4 grade town “A” team. 100% of the kids on these A teams, as well 75-85% of the “B” team players also play in club programs. The problem we have seen is that with the non- A/B teams, not only is there a lack of coaches, but those kids quickly realize that there is no way they are making an A or B team without playing soccer year round. It forces a lot of kids to choose: quit all together because they feel like they aren’t a good player or join a club’s 3rd or 4th team in an effort to keep up with the other kids. In my daughter’s grade alone, we have 26 female club soccer players in a class of about 150 girls. Another 15-20 who played soccer with her growing up in grades K-4 have already quit playing all together.

 

[justneededaname]

Going back to the original post (sorry I am late to the party). Whenever I see stories like this, I always want to see the data. Where is that 14% drop data coming from? Should we take it as fact, or is someone sifting through a larger data set in order to find data that supports their argument.

Here is an article that I believe talks about the data that provides the 14% number - https://www.aspeninstitute.org/blog-posts/7-charts-show-fix-youth-sports/

Some things I notice in this data. All youth team sport participation is down. In 2008 44.5% of children 6-12 participated in team sports. In 2016, that number was 36.9%. So soccer is not an anomaly out there. Over the last three year period it was the highest, but the drop is less than half that of the biggest drop. Tackle football dropped 29% over the 8 year period of the study.

The sports that grew account for only 12.5% of team sport participation and their growth only accounts for 2.3% of the 6-12 population. Far less than the number that dropped out of team sports completely.

This is a soccer forum, so we discuss these issues in terms of what could be done in the soccer world to try to fix the declining participation in soccer. But it is entirely possible that this is a societal problem. One whose solution is to focus on getting kids 6-12 to play ANY sport, not just soccer.

To me, the answer starts with build more parks. The newer suburbs have lots of parks (read, upper middle class people). But the urban cores do not. And after those parks are built, make sure everyone feels safe going to them.

Until recently I lived in an urban (1930s era) neighborhood that got a new park. In the corner of that park was a police substation. It was perfect. The park is always filled with kids outside playing stuff.

Now I live in a different neighborhood. It is not far away from the first, 1940s era, still very much in the center of the city. There is no park anywhere my kids could walk to (or really even ride a bike). The debate isn't should the park have a futsal court instead of basketball, it is how do we get anything here for kids. There is nowhere for kids to go and play. If their parents want them to play sports, they have to be able to afford to take their kids somewhere. Afford the price of the program, afford the time to drive them. There are a lot of kids around these neighborhoods whose parents cannot afford that.

On our street the solution was a basketball hoop that we put outside our house with a pile of basketballs and a sign that says everyone is welcome to play. We get kids from all over coming to play once they find it. But how many parents let their 6-12 year old kids go wandering off until they find a friendly basketball hoop?

 

[timbuck]

Kids quit sports when they realize it is no longer fun.
I loved baseball growing up. I realized in 6th grade that I sucked at hitting. It no longer became fun to strike out or hope that I got walked each time I went up to bat. So I quit playing as a kid. Still played some softball (beer league) as an adult.
I liked basketball a lot too. We had a middle school team that had tryouts. About 90 kids would try out. I made the 7th grade team and the 8th grade team the following year. But other kids grew taller than me. And I decided not to tryout for the 9th grade team. I got garbage minutes near the end of 8th grade. Practicing every day but barely playing in games was no fun. I preferred hanging out with friends or going snow skiing (grew up in the midwest) over busting my a$$ on the basketball court for nothing all winter. (I think our 8th grade team was undefeated- so even though we won a lot, I didn't love it).
I still played pick up basketball and played in some 3-on-3 tournaments. Would I be counted as a kid that still played a sport? Or would statistics say that I quit playing basketball?
If you took the stats from my middle school - It would tell you that 82% of kids quit basketball in 7th grade. (Because 75 out of 90 didn't make the team).

I think if you look at reasons why kids are quitting soccer younger it is because it's not as fun. Lets say at 9 years old you make a club team (And most players that show up for a club tryout these days make one of the teams. Might be the 2nd team in Flight 3- but they get a spot and their parents pay $1,500+). The coach is a dickhead and only cares about winning. 8 kids on the 10 player roster play 80% of all games. Your parents freakout because they "wasted" $1,500 for you to sit on the bench. So they push you harder to get something out of your investment. Yell at you in the car. Hire some dude to give you private training when you'd rather be playing Fortnite or riding your bike. So you say "f-this. I'm going to join the swim team. At least I can't hear people screaming like maniacs when my face is in the water."

Or- let's say you make the "A" team at the age of 9. You are a super star player. You play all game, every game. The coach loves you. Your parents tell everyone that in 9 more years, you will be going to college on a full ride. You love soccer. As the years go on, you move to a "better" team. You leave your friends behind for greener pastures. You are now on a DA team when you turn 14. You are practicing 4 days a week. Games on Saturday. Sunday is your day to chill, but you feel that you need to push yourself to stay on that team next year, so you train with some former pro that charges your parents $75 for an hour. You do this because the other 17 players on your team are very good and very driven. You don't want to lose your starting spot. You see some of your old teammates that you "left behind". They are still playing soccer. They are on some random "B" team. They practice 2x per week. They play most Saturdays. They aren't spending more time in a car than they are playing soccer. They are also going to play on the high school team. And go to the mall to hang out. They attend a non-soccer camp over the summer. You know you are way better than them. But those kids are "playing" soccer and having fun. While you are "working" soccer. But you can't go back to a "lower" team. That would be embarrassing. And your parents would freak out having you play for a coach that didn't play "semi-pro" in Europe or on some "professional indoor" team in San Diego in 1985. So you say "hey mom and dad. I need to focus on school. I think I might want to quit soccer."

For some kids - That "A" player scenario is great. The "unicorns" as MAP calls them. They are driven and want it all.
But for the "rest" of the high end 9 year olds - I think some get pushed too hard, too soon and wind up crashing out.

 

[mirage]

...Where is that 14% drop data coming from? Should we take it as fact, or is someone sifting through a larger data set in order to find data that supports their argument.

Here is an article that I believe talks about the data that provides the 14% number - https://www.aspeninstitute.org/blog-posts/7-charts-show-fix-youth-sports/

Some things I notice in this data. All youth team sport participation is down............

To me, the answer starts with build more parks. The newer suburbs have lots of parks (read, upper middle class people). But the urban cores do not. And after those parks are built, make sure everyone feels safe going to them. ....

On our street the solution was a basketball hoop that we put outside our house with a pile of basketballs and a sign that says everyone is welcome to play. We get kids from all over coming to play once they find it. But how many parents let their 6-12 year old kids go wandering off until they find a friendly basketball hoop?

The article is written from the perspective of inactive kids problem, the decline in sports participation is a symptom of inactivity.

What is interesting is looking at the data bit closer, albeit at macro level, about drop off in participation from 2011 to 2016 occurs at 2 of 5 income levels in the study. The biggest drop-off comes from real poverty level income households (<$25k/yr). The drop is 41.9% down to 34.6%, or decline of 7.3% of total population at the income level. The next biggest drop comes from lowest end of the middle class income households ($50k/yr~$75/yr). The drop is 59.6% down to 53.7%, or decline of 5.9% of those population.

Interestingly, the 25K/yr~$50k/yr had an increase in participation, as well as over $100K/yr, while $75k/yr~$100k/yr remained steady. What this tells me, speculating of course, is that those in poverty got worse due to lack of income increasing with time while the cost of participation increased. The increase in participation fees from rec to club was quite noticeable during early part of this decade as we started to recover from a hard recession/financial crisis in 08/09.

The next income level witnessed increase. Probably it was a case where families who always wanted to participate in team sports or had to drop out of team sports due to economic condition was now able to do so. The following level, 50~75, probably suffered due to price of X-Box and PS3/4 dropping to more affordable level as well as a second hand units became readily available, in addition to playing with handheld low cost Android phones.

The rest of the upper level income families coped with costs and increased in participation as more and more sports became available to them (e.g., club crewing, sand volleyball, etc).

The lack of participation in the inner city has always been an issue. Having grown up in a metropolitan city as well as a bedroom community, there is a clear difference in access to playing sports and how frequently. In a city, I recall playing stick-ball in the streets, where as once we moved to the "burbs" we had a proper baseball diamond nearby. That said, building more parks is probably not the solution.

Real solution in the inner cities require schools to run sports programs after-hours, where they do have the fields and adult supervision - both coaching and security. Unfortunately, sports is the first item to be cut when there is a funding shortfall and is expensive to maintain the infrastructure.

Personally, I do not find lack of participation to be necessarily a bad thing. One of my old boss was a 3-star general/flag officer who said "when America stopped the draft, the military won, but the country lost". What he meant was the those who enlisted wanted to be there whereas the draft required everyone, which means most that did not want to be there. Clearly you can extend the similar analogy to sports. Parents drag their kids who have no interest in participating but are forced to do so.

If we had less kids participating, we'd have less teams and that equates to less clubs and less money grabbing opportunist pretending to be a coach. The overall quality of the game will increase and those who want to stay in the sports will prosper and have more opportunities. I know this is not a popular opinion but its likely to be true....

 

[blam]

I just came back from overseas. When I was there, my kid would go to the park at around 5pm and play soccer for FREE. It was mostly pick up or if he is the first one there, other children would join him later.

In the USA, every soccer game he played in has been through AYSO or some organized soccer club. The only time unorganized play happens is during school recess.

Lack of soccer goal posts in the USA doesn't explain this. USA has lots of baseball fields, but you still never see kids go to the baseball field and play baseball themselves, except through some organization like little league.

What are your kids doing at 5pm? Are you not sending them off to a local park to play?

Another problem I see in the USA is sports is not done through schools but through private 3rd party. What this means is that children whose parents do not enroll in sports don't realize there is a sports world out there until they get to high school. Overseas, when children get to the age of 11, the school offers sport clubs where they meet every week and play. We have soccer clubs, basketball clubs, swimming clubs (also art clubs, scouts, etc. not restricted to just sports) all supervised by a teacher and supported by the school. Sports is part of the school system and considered an extra curricular activity.

 

[46n2]

Personally, I do not find lack of participation to be necessarily a bad thing. One of my old boss was a 3-star general/flag officer who said "when America stopped the draft, the military won, but the country lost". What he meant was the those who enlisted wanted to be there whereas the draft required everyone, which means most that did not want to be there. Clearly you can extend the similar analogy to sports. Parents drag their kids who have no interest in participating but are forced to do so.

If we had less kids participating, we'd have less teams and that equates to less clubs and less money grabbing opportunist pretending to be a coach. The overall quality of the game will increase and those who want to stay in the sports will prosper and have more opportunities. I know this is not a popular opinion but its likely to be true....

this is good!!!

And for the other comment above regarding "A" player and "B"player its does ring true what your saying, Timbuck you make a lot of sense here too.

I have a friend , his kid is over it ,parents complain, why complain, its a sport , listen to your kid, pull kid from soccer, save big money, done! Next Sport...

no one is forcing anyone to pay this $$$ for your kids to play this sport, its our own fault, not the kids, only people to blame are the parents .....not the system.....it not the youth killing the game , its the egotistic parents lurking in Johnny/Jennys shadow not allowing them to progress and enjoy the game.
It goes back to ----Since I pay 3k a year in soccer, I think my kid is a star scenario and he/she deserves to start--
Kid doesn't start, parents get tainted, theres no one to blame but you. Lack of playing time, be realistic and put your kid on a team where he'll play a lot and grow, its the parents that want to say DA or Flight 1, kids don't care , and if they do hopefully they work at it to get better, unless richyrich mommy/daddy come with the big bucks and ruin it for everyone now, cause theres a sub par player on the team.
At our level I don't hear too much complaining, our kids are there to compete and be the best.....
its the parents that got left behind that whine, find excuses, post on forums behind fake names, etc.....
ugh...why am I even typing this....
sorry.