U.S. lacks candidate for award

[AreliusIII]

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/columns/story?id=354224&root=us&cc=5901

[rslfutbolfan]

Very interesting article. Might I say something I have noticed in youth soccer up here in Park City? Both my kids have played in the rec league since they were like 4, they are now 15 and 12. The rec league soccer is very casual and has volunteer coaches from among the parents, often being someone that doesnt even know the rules very well, much less anything about training. That is fine when the kids are young, but my daughter is 12 now and it is still the same. Just for fun mainly. The only other opportunity for soccer is what they used to call Ultimate Soccer, now I think run by Black Diamond Soccer. This is the other extreme. You have to be very dedicated and very good to play with them. It is a full time commitment as a parent and a player. Not to mention it is extremely expensive, even by Park City standards. Besides these two options that is about it. The "junior highs" do not have a team, the High School happens to have one of the best in the country. Once you hit age 16 there are no more teams in the rec league (extreme goes to 17). So if you dont play on the high school team you dont have anywhere to go. (now I am wondering how our high school team got to be so good, I will have to look into that!). I wish that as the kids get older in the rec league that it would get more serious, but it just seems like a fun way to spend a saturday morning. The Ultimate Soccer has always been out of my league financially, and I certainly dont have that much time and flexibility with my job to get my kid to practice everyday and to out of town tournaments every weekend. I would be very surprised if in other countries (or other parts of Utah even) it is the same. I cant imagine it costing the kids in Africa thousands of dollars to play soccer. Perhaps that is the difference. In most of the world the kids pick up a ball and play in the fields wherever they can find them. Here I rarely see kids kick the ball around unless they are part of a team in a league....is this just a Park City thing???? In fact, now that I think about it...perhaps this is the problem. Our kids in this "advanced" country spend their days infront of TVs and playing video games, or in front of the computer looking at anime. When I was young I was never inside. I was always out on my bike, playing games with friends or playing kickball, baseball or capture the flag (I was a kid before soccer got popular here). Maybe our kids are too structured as far as sports go. Maybe we dont kick them out of the house to play outside with their friends enough. Maybe we expect the leagues, the community and the schools to do the things that in other countries the kids just do themselves.

The end of my rambling....for now :slobber:

[clarette]

In the 11-ish years since I stopped playing, things have changed a lot.

Back in the day (when we had to walk 5 miles uphill in the snow to school, blahdiblahdiblah), it wasn't as politicized as it is now. We were a bunch of AYSO rejects that none of the "clubs" recruited, so we just got together and started our own team.

We picked our name from a popular sports drink, sewed patches over our old AYSO logos, and our parents were the coaches/team coordinators. I know my dad went to coaching clinics and took a lot of time off of work to go to tournaments with us at his own expense, never charging "coaching fees" or anything like that. We generally did one big out-of-town tournament a year and played the rest of them locally.

Most of the core group of girls I played with ended up getting scholarships from the U, Utah State, and Weber State when they started their soccer programs, too.

When my cousin started playing comp a few years ago, we were looking at all the brochures from the different "clubs" and it was completely ludicrous... substantial coaching fees and administrative fees and top-of-the-line Nike uniforms for kids who grow three inches every year and all this extraneous stuff. Some of his coaches were completely tactically inept, too.

Youth soccer's totally been sold out. And I feel old. :signold:

[I_Believe_In_Kreis]

Youth soccer is just another example of the attitude we take with our children in America today. It's not just soccer, it's everything. When my wife was in high school, her choir did a 10 day, $8000 pp tour of Europe that was financed almost 100% by parents. Is it really necessary for a public school's choir to do Europe? Of course not, it's just that no parent wants to be the one to speak up. And that's really the problem - today's parents will do anything for their kids.
During my comp days there was very little of this. We were one of the best clubs in California every year, and we did it without name brand kits, and our farthest jouney ever was about 200 miles. I don't think Nike 90's, trips to exotic locations, and perfectly manicured competition pitches do much for developing talent - quite the opposite in fact. Pele attributed much of his success to not having a ball as a child, being forced to kick around pieces of trash with his friends. Ronaldinho recently said his good footwork came from being relegated to playing on the beach when he was a kid. Do kids in the US even play pickup games any more? That's all I did when I was young. I think there's something to be said for kicking a wad of duct tape around a baseball diamond with your friends - I think the we need more of that here these days.

[prk166]

It's an interesting article. But note that they didn't mention any super young up and coming players from Italy, Brazil, and Spain. I don't think not having any world class 16-20 year olds is a huge deal. And at that if someone like Rossi decides to play for the US, even that changes.

[Aerick]

Originally Posted by rslfutbolfan

Very interesting article. Might I say something I have noticed in youth soccer up here in Park City? Both my kids have played in the rec league since they were like 4, they are now 15 and 12. The rec league soccer is very casual and has volunteer coaches from among the parents, often being someone that doesnt even know the rules very well, much less anything about training. That is fine when the kids are young, but my daughter is 12 now and it is still the same. Just for fun mainly. The only other opportunity for soccer is what they used to call Ultimate Soccer, now I think run by Black Diamond Soccer. This is the other extreme. You have to be very dedicated and very good to play with them. It is a full time commitment as a parent and a player. Not to mention it is extremely expensive, even by Park City standards. Besides these two options that is about it. The "junior highs" do not have a team, the High School happens to have one of the best in the country. Once you hit age 16 there are no more teams in the rec league (extreme goes to 17). So if you dont play on the high school team you dont have anywhere to go. (now I am wondering how our high school team got to be so good, I will have to look into that!). I wish that as the kids get older in the rec league that it would get more serious, but it just seems like a fun way to spend a saturday morning. The Ultimate Soccer has always been out of my league financially, and I certainly dont have that much time and flexibility with my job to get my kid to practice everyday and to out of town tournaments every weekend. I would be very surprised if in other countries (or other parts of Utah even) it is the same. I cant imagine it costing the kids in Africa thousands of dollars to play soccer. Perhaps that is the difference. In most of the world the kids pick up a ball and play in the fields wherever they can find them. Here I rarely see kids kick the ball around unless they are part of a team in a league....is this just a Park City thing???? In fact, now that I think about it...perhaps this is the problem. Our kids in this "advanced" country spend their days infront of TVs and playing video games, or in front of the computer looking at anime. When I was young I was never inside. I was always out on my bike, playing games with friends or playing kickball, baseball or capture the flag (I was a kid before soccer got popular here). Maybe our kids are too structured as far as sports go. Maybe we dont kick them out of the house to play outside with their friends enough. Maybe we expect the leagues, the community and the schools to do the things that in other countries the kids just do themselves.

The end of my rambling....for now :slobber:

Sounds like you need an "In-Between" system. The rec leagues won't change - it's the primary focus of rec leagues to only be recreational. Sandy has separated itself from AYSO, and has it's own "rec" leagues, and from what I've seen so far, it's a bit more competitive than what I grew up with. The coach of my son's team was very knowledgeable and tried to strike a balance between hard-core skill training and fun, which I very much enjoyed. Clarette also mentioned that when she was younger, a group of parents sort of branched out on their own to get what they desired. I've heard of occurrences just like that in Davis County just a month or two ago. Perhaps this is the best route to take if you live in Park City.

[Jim Umber]

When my son was in high school, he tried out for one of those comp teams. It was the same story. I don't think I could have afforded to have him participate, even if he had been chosen. But also, there were many, many applicants, so it was also less likely that he get chosen.

He was a finalist, but didn't get chosen. If there were more teams available (and not as expensive), then he might have gotten better training and become a better player...or not. But the system, as it stands now, doesn't give kids a chance.

If you're not wealthy, your kid doesn't really have much of a chance.

[clarette]

Good old Jamie Trecker's going to address this very question, it would seem...

http://msn.foxsports.com/soccer/story/5237184