Morris20
17 Jan 2005, 10:27 PM
An Unfortunate Omission of Events
An open letter to the NSCAA Board by Dave Morris
The US national soccer team program is the canary in the soccer coal mine. The success of both the men’s and women’s teams have energized the sport; and fueled continuous and exponential growth of the game at every level. Now that success is threatened by the greed, bureaucratic territorialism, and incompetence – and soccer coaches are asleep at their posts as advocates for the game in this country. While we, the NSCAA, met in Baltimore – thousands of coaches gathered together to celebrate soccer in the US and beyond – there was nary a mention of the state of our game at its highest level.
Shame on all of us.
With US Soccer calling in scabs that could jeopardize qualification for the World Cup in Germany – taking soccer off the air in the US for another four years – and looking ready to force the women’s national team to strike as well, soccer coaches said . . . nothing. Not one panel discussion, presentation, or mention of the ridiculous idea that a difference of $3,000 per game (for players traveling half way around the world) is worth our federation undermining its own program. Not one mention of the $30 million that the national teams have generated (that US Soccer wants to spend on - itself), no discussion of how we are treating the most successful graduates of our youth, college, and professional programs.
The US women’s team went from post 1999 crowds of 30,000+ to the mid-week Mia farewell game (at 11pm EDT) in front of 15,000. US Soccer stopped marketing both teams in an active way some time after 2000 – choosing instead to sell national team games to local groups who were then charged with promotion – leading to amateur sales jobs and shrinking attendance. The women’s professional league was allowed to fold when relatively small amounts of money could have kept the top league in the world afloat through a recession. But NONE of this came up in Baltimore.
Undoubtedly some coaches will feel that this is not their concern. After all, why worry about the health of the sport as a whole when there are U12 games to win? The answer is without a next level, there is no U12 game. We can not afford to stand by as our heroes, our most successful soccer graduates, are mistreated and left to languish by our own federation. We can not afford to be disinterested in the growth of our sport and the continued success of our flagship teams. We can not stand by while US Soccer threatens to essentially take our national team offline for the next four years. In times when budgets are tight, we as coaches can ill afford to watch resources wasted in ways that do not benefit the sport.
And what is worse, guess who paid a lot of that money in the first place – in dues, royalties on jerseys, and in the cost of our uniforms and equipment purchased from federation sponsors? It is incumbent on us as coaches to make our views known. We need to educate our players, club administrators and state representatives – US Soccer is a semi-elected organization. We need to get the word to Dr. Bob and his misguided cronies quickly – take good care of our kids – we worked hard to prepare them. Do the right thing – keep working to help soccer grow in this country and make sure that we are represented at the highest levels of the game with the quality that our players and coaches deserve.
Since soccer coaches can be influential as members of US Soccer (through USYSA and other groups), our organization should IMMEDIATELY draft a position statement – publicizing our stand as a group for the good of the game vis-à-vis the current impasse. Individually, we have a responsibility to step up and ask our administrators and US Soccer representatives to forward our disappointment with the current state of affairs. We should have figured out what our position was when we were all in the same place this weekend.
The NSCAA and every coach in this country has a responsibility – I hope we can live up to it in the future better than we did in Baltimore. If we do not future conventions may not need as big a venue.
An open letter to the NSCAA Board by Dave Morris
The US national soccer team program is the canary in the soccer coal mine. The success of both the men’s and women’s teams have energized the sport; and fueled continuous and exponential growth of the game at every level. Now that success is threatened by the greed, bureaucratic territorialism, and incompetence – and soccer coaches are asleep at their posts as advocates for the game in this country. While we, the NSCAA, met in Baltimore – thousands of coaches gathered together to celebrate soccer in the US and beyond – there was nary a mention of the state of our game at its highest level.
Shame on all of us.
With US Soccer calling in scabs that could jeopardize qualification for the World Cup in Germany – taking soccer off the air in the US for another four years – and looking ready to force the women’s national team to strike as well, soccer coaches said . . . nothing. Not one panel discussion, presentation, or mention of the ridiculous idea that a difference of $3,000 per game (for players traveling half way around the world) is worth our federation undermining its own program. Not one mention of the $30 million that the national teams have generated (that US Soccer wants to spend on - itself), no discussion of how we are treating the most successful graduates of our youth, college, and professional programs.
The US women’s team went from post 1999 crowds of 30,000+ to the mid-week Mia farewell game (at 11pm EDT) in front of 15,000. US Soccer stopped marketing both teams in an active way some time after 2000 – choosing instead to sell national team games to local groups who were then charged with promotion – leading to amateur sales jobs and shrinking attendance. The women’s professional league was allowed to fold when relatively small amounts of money could have kept the top league in the world afloat through a recession. But NONE of this came up in Baltimore.
Undoubtedly some coaches will feel that this is not their concern. After all, why worry about the health of the sport as a whole when there are U12 games to win? The answer is without a next level, there is no U12 game. We can not afford to stand by as our heroes, our most successful soccer graduates, are mistreated and left to languish by our own federation. We can not afford to be disinterested in the growth of our sport and the continued success of our flagship teams. We can not stand by while US Soccer threatens to essentially take our national team offline for the next four years. In times when budgets are tight, we as coaches can ill afford to watch resources wasted in ways that do not benefit the sport.
And what is worse, guess who paid a lot of that money in the first place – in dues, royalties on jerseys, and in the cost of our uniforms and equipment purchased from federation sponsors? It is incumbent on us as coaches to make our views known. We need to educate our players, club administrators and state representatives – US Soccer is a semi-elected organization. We need to get the word to Dr. Bob and his misguided cronies quickly – take good care of our kids – we worked hard to prepare them. Do the right thing – keep working to help soccer grow in this country and make sure that we are represented at the highest levels of the game with the quality that our players and coaches deserve.
Since soccer coaches can be influential as members of US Soccer (through USYSA and other groups), our organization should IMMEDIATELY draft a position statement – publicizing our stand as a group for the good of the game vis-à-vis the current impasse. Individually, we have a responsibility to step up and ask our administrators and US Soccer representatives to forward our disappointment with the current state of affairs. We should have figured out what our position was when we were all in the same place this weekend.
The NSCAA and every coach in this country has a responsibility – I hope we can live up to it in the future better than we did in Baltimore. If we do not future conventions may not need as big a venue.