I spend a lot of my waking hours tied up in youth soccer, and I have a little issue with your post here. The idea that the kids who are just playing for fun are somehow tender weaklings who need massive doses of psychological bolstering is very common in youth sports, and it leads to lots of unhealthy attitudes on and off the field. Some kids just like to play, and maybe they LOVE to play but they're just not very good. Or, maybe they enjoy soccer but they're passionate about something else; maybe the kid who annoyed you because he didn't regard every challenge as life-or-death character building exercise didn't segregate his fellow man into "winners" and "losers", yet somehow managed to go on to live a rich, rewarding life of accomplishment.
Re: The Keep Tom Soehn thread Not to devolve this thread in to a youth soccer thread but, you would be shocked how many coaches are paid well for a very part-time job and the number of coaches who coach for a living. When I stopped coaching club soccer almost 10 years ago I was getting paid $4000 a season which was 3 practices a week during the pre-season, 2 during the season and games. The team also paid all travel expenses for out of town tournaments, and I was cheap! If they wanted me to do training during the winter or over the summer that was extra. I knew pleny of coaches who were charging that much and more and coaching multiple teams a season so they rarely did all the practices or made all the games. There was a coach in McLean who was getting $6K a season per team and he coached 3-4 teams as well as doing individual training at $100 an hour. Youth soccer is a big business in the No. VA area.
Re: The Keep Tom Soehn thread Did I say anything that contradicts your post? All I said was my frustration was with having to combine the two kinds of programs.
Re: The Keep Tom Soehn thread Well, you also said that kids in one kind of program are somehow weaker and inferior to people like you. I said that maybe they're just not very good soccer players. You also implied that life is about "winning" and "losing". I disagree. There are many successes and failures along the way, but there are no playoffs, no trophy cases, no off-season. You just keep going until you leave this mortal coil for good. And the two programs ARE seperate, are they not? In NoVa, travel soccer starts at U-9! Is that not early enough?
Re: The Keep Tom Soehn thread If that's what you drew from my words, I'm sorry. That's not what I meant. I will say that when I was playing (competitively) I had no patience for players who were there just for the fun and cameraderie, and didn't want to sell out completely on the field. There are places for that, and competitive teams/leagues are not that place. There are plenty of things I do simply because I enjoy them, not because I win at them. For instance, I am a tragically bad golfer, yet am completely obsessed with the game. There's obvious value to getting enjoyment out of life. And feel free to disagree with my statement that life is about winning and losing. I disagree with your disagreement. Cast it in any terms you wish, but throwing a kid into the world saying "We'll all get along. Just be nice and enjoy yourself" is doing everyone a disservice. IMO, of course. Sure, that's fine. All I did was express my frustration at trying to mix the two.
Re: The Keep Tom Soehn thread ^^Your right about that, theres tons of good kids out there that cant afford to play big time, because of money contsraints. On my youth team, we were mostly hispanic, and we had some more rich kids than others on that would take care of the more poor kids that couldnt pay as much, what resulted was our team was very talented and played that latin american style that people loved to watch, but because of money issues, we only had enough to go up and down the east coast, but never to cool tournaments in europe, or even the Dallas cup! This is why the answer is the youth acadamy for DC, alot of kids who have talent but cant afford to pay/play i am pretty sure can get covered through this right?
Re: The Keep Tom Soehn thread I would submit that life is about the lessons learned from the process of winning and losing-- and sometimes, drawing. So, it's not the winning or the losing, or who's doing it, that's most important. IMO.
Re: The Keep Tom Soehn thread Thanks for your thoughtful reply, and I sincerely apologize for any negative traits I might have explicitly or implicity ascribed to you. I've been around some real ugly parental behavior at some U-11 games lately, and it's made me a little edgy about the whole scene. Sorry for that.
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Re: The Keep Tom Soehn thread Exactly. I am objecting to those who would shield kids from the pain of losing in a misguided effort to make their lives easier. You learn a great deal from losing; way more than you learn from winning.
