Why not make HS soccer a Spring sport?

in Washington state its a spring sport for the 1A schools through 4A

 

Kansas has boys in the fall and girls in the spring. Ohio has both in the fall. Nebraska has both in the spring (I believe -- I know boys are). Tennessee had boys in the spring (back in early to mid-2000s). South Dakota, which was the last state to sanction the sport as an official high school sport, has both genders playing in the fall. North Dakota has both playing in the fall. Kentucky has both playing in the fall. West Virginia has both playing in the fall.

I know all these states due to living in the state, near the state, or having friends/players who grew up there. I have played or coached in many of these states too. Fall weather is 100% better than spring weather to be playing in, in my opinion. Weather was much easier to rely on getting games in, whether that be temperature or precipitation (rain, snow, sleet, hail).

Now, I wouldn't mind seeing school calendars changing to start more "year round" schooling. If that were to happen, definitely go more into the summer to make things easier for all.

 

2014-2015 High School Soccer Seasons per NSCAA

BOYS

Fall (30) - CA, CO, CT, DE, ID, IL, IN, KS, KY, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, MT, NC, ND, NH, NJ, NM, NV, NY, OR, PA, RI, SD, VT, WI, WV

Winter (7) - AZ, CA, FL, HI, LA, MS, TX

Spring (13) - AK, AL, AR, GA, IA, NE, OK, SC, TN, UT, VA, WA, WY

 

Where I live in PA for girls Soccer used to be a Spring sport until 2014, then it moved to the fall. So some girls had to choose between Soccer and Field Hockey.(like my daughter) It has hurt both a little but has opened up spots for other girls.
Boys Soccer has always been a fall sport where I live.

 

I grew up near Rochester NY, and soccer was a fall sport. In West Texas, near where I went to school it is a Winter sport. I live and referee in Middle Georgia now, it is a spring sport. Many of the schools use the football field as the soccer field, and the quality of play reflects the narrow fields. Often the smaller school districts have Assistant Football coaches as the head soccer coach, and a "Community Coach" who is the real coach. This is a way for for schools to get better football coaches, ie paying them extra. If soccer were to try and play in the fall here, not only as @nine said would there not be space, but many schools would not have coaches.

 

Overall, I'm not sure if the pros outweigh the cons to move soccer from the fall. But there certainly are some benefits. It's a winter sport in Louisiana since it's warmer and most people don't really care about soccer compared to football. It turns out that helps the football teams a lot because it makes it a lot easier to convince a soccer kid to come out and kick field goals, which is what you see at probably a majority of high schools in NW Louisiana. http://www.shreveporttimes.com/stor...oaches-finding-kickers-soccer-field/78693622/

That also benefits the soccer players, because it helps them get stronger and in this part of the country, it might be easier to a get a scholarship (especially a full ride) as a football kicker than as a men's soccer player.

 

Depends on the state and other sports.
If you go to states where lacrosse (a spring sport), is big, soccer is in the fall.

Another advantage of soccer being in the fall is for college recruiting. College coaches don't care about HS soccer. Since college soccer is a fall sport they do most of their recruiting in the winter/spring.

 

CIF should create a state championship in California. The compitition would be fun to see. It should be somewhat similar in structure to the HS Football State Championship in California. Is it possible for CIF to move extended season similar to what college soccer is trying to do?? If so, HS soccer could remain relevant in soccer, since it could cater to those non-development academy kids.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...aa-mens-soccer-taking-aim-at-expanded-season/

 

My memory is starting to go but here in NYC. Men's HS soccer is played in the fall. Women's high school soccer is played in the spring.

Also men's club soccer here is played in both the fall and the spring.

I guess it all depends from what state your from.

 

Oh almost forgot even though HS men's soccer was not oked by most club coaches here because they would be better off playing club ball under better coaching I never told my guys not to play for their HS. Why, because I always thought it was an honor to play for our club and for their HS. I did not want to take that away from them.

When I was in HS we did not have HS soccer and we did not have HS pointy I played both sports. I played both sports on adult teams one in the Bronx where I went to HS that was collision and in East Harlem where I lived at the time I played soccer.

That is when I really started to travel around.

When I was a kid in East Harlem we never traveled more then a few blocks from where we lived. We were relatively poor I mean we were poor but did not know we were poor because everyone was poor we thought that was normal.. No one owned a house or a car except store owners and the local wise guys. They did not even own a house they lived in the tenements as well. That is how I know how to find players you got to go where they lived to get them and you had to pick them up to get them to your practices because they did not leave their neighborhoods either.

But when I got to HS. I still lived in East Harlem. But a lot of my friends went to school in the Bronx. So I went there to. Then later the government threw down the tenements they thought they could stop the heroin trade. They did not let the Italians move into the projects that took the place of the tenements. That is how Italian Harlem became Spanish Harlem on the east side. So most of the Italians moved to the Bronx. My mother moved to Brooklyn near 18 Ave hopefully to keep her kids out of trouble. I loved Ma but she was really dumb, but she could cook man.

So now I made new friends in Brooklyn and I had friends in Harlem and in the Bronx. That kept me busy with other things besides collision and our football.

 

The only problem is that NoCal has fall soccer and SoCal has winter soccer. By extending the season, CIF would have to change allowing club games to occurs at the same time without penalty to schools and to players - which never will happen as it looks today

Also USYSoccer and USClub soccer both have their national title games in the spring, which would conflict with a long/spring season.

The biggest problem is it's a huge step backwards in terms of player development. Most coaches spend weeks undoing habits picked up during HS season so they can get back to where they were. Not saying all HS soccer coaches and teams are bad. Just many are far worse than club teams at the high tier/levels.

 

Not in California, but Oklahoma allows club and high school in the same season. Many kids train with both 2-5 times per week and play games with each at the same rate.

 

Could not disagree more. It is most definitely NOT a step backwards at our school. Many North Texas club 'coaches' ( I use the term loosely) are clueless and only in it for the folding green stuff....

 

Thank you for saying this.

"Club" has become a generalized term for "good soccer." There are tons of clubs that are idiotic. Tons of coaches, doesn't matter their affiliation that are good and tons that are bad. I'd trust a lot of HS coaches over club coaches that I've heard, dealt with, and seen in action.

College showcase in Denver 2016, club coach says in pregame talk: "Alright guys, I want you to think 1-touch and play 2-touch." WHAAAAAAT?! Get out of here with that stuff. Then went and spewed more "pregame notes" for 20 minutes.

 

Since May 2015 I have had 5 ECNL players quit club because: 1) It just wasn't any fun. 2)The training sessions often involved two hours of 'fitness training'....no soccer balls involved at all. 3) They had seen a better way with their high school team. There is a reason not a single North Texas woman has represented the full national team of the USA in either the World Cup or Olympics in 18 years.....the reason: club coaches and their style of play....In a Dallas Morning News article prior to the 2015 women's world cup, Randy Waldrum talked about this long time drought and laid the blame firmly at the feet of the N. Texas club teams....saying' The style of play (basically kick the crap out of it and run) just does not translate to the next level'

 

Ok I over generalized. Forgot that this is a national board and perhaps some parts of the country with less soccer players than where we are (Southern CA), HS soccer has value. I have no idea what North TX is like but SoCal is known for being the hotbed for soccer talent, internationally.

Having said that, it is a fact that most college recruiting occurs outside of HS soccer. Clearly there are example of otherwise but for the most part, DA/ECNL playoffs and showcases draw significant interest over HS soccer.... Even at D3, NAIA, much of the recruiting is done at large club tournaments and ID camps, and not HS. I'm hearing from my kid's friends that baseball is becoming this way too.

Just for the conversation sake, my kid plays HS soccer and does it for fun, not for quality of soccer. He is recruited and will be playing next fall at a college but it had nothing to do with HS soccer. The none of the recruiting coached contacted his HS coach but did contact his club coach. He was recruited at multiple colleges (D1, 2 and 3 schools). Just a data point, nothing more.

 

Unfortunately I have to agree with this, the college coaches rarely, if ever, bother with H.S. soccer. I do though believe that the absolute best way to get noticed is to go to the summer soccer camps of a couple of schools you are interested in. I had a girl who graduated 4 years ago. She went to Anson Dorrance camp between freshman/ sophomore year and caught his eye....she went back the next summer...was named camp MVP and he offered her a spot. She is a senior at UNC now and has played every year....this season she averages just over 40 minutes a game for UNC, which is not bad at all considering how many subs they use every game (she was a striker in H.S. and plays M/F at UNC)....

I do agree that generally the Ca. ECNL teams play a much better brand of soccer than seen in North Texas, the reason they are very well represented on the various age group national teams.

 

I am not so sure about that...

The problem I saw in North Texas with girls is that clubs/academies build super-teams where girls are pigeonholed into only one position and they keep the same core girls and coach for years. They may win tournaments, but the girls don't develop into players good enough to play for a national team. There are some very talented high school-aged girls in North TX no doubt - but with the pressure on being on the best team, winning everything and being seen by Div 1 coaches those girls are not in the right environment to learn different styles of play and grow into players who can play against international teams.

Are they doing things differently in SoCal?

 

I think training 5 times a week is crazy. Unless 2 of those practices is class work. Your body needs time to recover in between practices. In the A league we practiced 5 times a week. At that time players made less then 20 thousand a year. So they needed outside jobs just to being close to making ends meet. No one is going to let you leave work early every day to attend practice on a normal job.

That is why HS and club don't mix. Unless the HS coach is smart enough to let his guy miss his HS practices to attend club practices because they are more productive then his.

 

I have my club players let me know when they have club practices during our early school season....I then let them either have a very light school practice, let them skip altogether or leave early....for the very simple reason that the 'clubs' rarely give them a break, couldn't give a rat's arse about high school soccer and generally run them like dogs for 2 hours at their so called 'practices'...Our conference schedule starts early January. I will work with the club 'coaches' during our November/December pre-season but INSIST the girls put school soccer as a priority once we get back from winter break.

So far this approach has worked out just fine. At our school an 'athletic credit' is a part of the girl's grade...as such it is truly mandatory (club 'coaches' favorite word) they show up for every school practice and every school game from January 4th on...if they don't then they will get a FAIL grade and this becomes part of their school transcript, seen by any college they apply to.

To say I am not a fan of the ECNL or club soccer in general in North Texas would be an understatement and our varsity would be very competitive with ANY ECNL team and slaughter most of them....

 

There was a coach for Martin Luther King HS in Manhattan who won a lot of the public HS championships. He might still be their manager I forget his name. The NY Times is in love with him and his players.

They are mostly foreign born players. When I saw them play they were pretty good they have a knack of finding good players except at the keeper position. I have seen their coach train his players he is an amature what I like to call a book coach.

Any way he thinks his team was good enough to put them in the cosmopolitan junior soccer league for the HS season under 19 in the A div. His team finish in sixth place which I thought was not bad for their first season in the league. Funny the great newspaper The NY Times did not even mention them or how they finished.

Does anyone actually read that paper any more?

The team was Roosevelt Island. Rosevelt island is the island where the residents get to Manhattan either by car or the tram near the 59 street bridge.

The club did not like that his team did not take any of the players that actually lived on Roosevelt island.

 

This is something I hear constantly about soccer that I don't understand and no one has ever given me a definitive answer. Why is 5 practices a week so much different in soccer than in any other sport? I'm not saying kids should be training with both HS and Club on the same days but I always hear that more than 3 training sessions and 1 game per week is too much, what makes soccer different?

Swimmers, even at the young age group level routinely, and definitely at the high school level and above, practice twice a day totaling in many cases 5+ hours a day. American football, basketball, wrestling, gymnastics, water polo etc. all practice and/or have games 5+ times a week (some 10+ per week) and seem to be able to recover just fine and thrive on the international level. What makes soccer different? I'm asking out of genuine curiosity but if the answer is "that is what the rest of the world does in soccer" it begs the question of do other American sports have it right and we could compete at a higher international level in soccer if the US programs more closely followed other American sports/coaches?

 

Practicing 5 days per week during a ~12 week high school soccer season is totally fine. Especially since most HS teams play their games during the week. In a typical HS soccer season, there might be ~18 games over the ~12 week season. Out of the ~84 days, only ~55 are soccer days (when you throw in weekends, holidays and rainouts), and those ~55 soccer days consists of ~37 practices and ~18 games. None of that offends me for 14-18 year olds.

Now, if your question is "why can't youth soccer players practice five days per week?" my answer would look a lot like that given by @bigredfutbol's above. Five practices per week, year round, is way too much wear and tear on the body and puts a player at grave risk of repetitive stress injuries, especially if we are talking about high intensity training. If you mix in low impact days where the players do things like juggling or "Brazilians," I suppose it could work. My eldest son used to practice 2-3 times per week and I would do Brazilians with him for about 20-30 minutes on his off days, and I certainly didn't think that was overly taxing for him. But if he had instead had 5 practices per week, each lasting 1.5 hours of high intensity drills, followed by weekend games, I would not have allowed that.

 

If your child wants to play high school AND club/academy/elite then you just need to be smart about it. Firstly, cement in 1 or 2 rest/recovery days per week and stick to it. Then look at the year and block out a couple periods of soccer-free weeks. (Even professionals have breaks). If you or your child are unable or unwilling to do this - just know that you are putting your child at an increased risk of injury.

And limit those multiple day tournaments and summer soccer camps if you can unless your child is 100% self-motivated and serious about warming up, recovering and eating correctly between games.