Not at all for girls and I would argue the same for Boys. ODP has been dead for nearly 10 years - replaced by DA and later ECNL. High School - no. I am affraid that nationally, scouts are attending DA and ENCL games and major tourneys like Surf and Dallas Cup.
For shits and giggles, I took a look at SUIE Men’s Soccer roster (local D1 – just south of me)…and in examining the players bio’s, it looks like 13 out of 18 domestic players played High School soccer to seem degree, many earning HS honors along the way…only 4 indicated DA careers only; 1 seemed to have a club/ODP only path….I assume most the HS players also played club and a few mentioned ODP as well…. Just one example, but it does appear to backup Haderondah’s claim….
But you don't need to play in any of those to get money. If your kid is good enough and your club and coach will find something for them.
You are aboslutely correct! Had 3 graduating seniors last year get $$ from 3 differenct school. However they had to do all the leg work and contact the coaches. That said - coaches may be more willing to have you come out based on your past experience. I know 2 of the 3 gals were told to come out for sure when the coaches were told their past experience - none of which had much to do with high school and mostly with Regional/National accomplishments with the club they were with.
My co-worker is going through this with his son, who plays on the NPL team of a club that has DA. Plenty of the NPL kids have aspirations of playing in college, but they have to be proactive about getting on the coach's radar. He and a lot of his teammates spent time at various college camps this summer. The players on the DA team don't have to do a whole lot on their own to generate interest.
Unless you're on an academy or are a youth nat team prospect, I think it's safe to say that the advice I was given years ago is solid: for college soccer, you (the player and his/her parents) recruit the school, not the other way around. My son did some showcase tourneys, a bit of ODP when he was young, and a couple of college camps. In the end, though, it was a connection through his HS coach that did the trick. His case was a bit odd--he'd tore his meniscus at the beginning of his Jr. year and missed pretty much his entire Jr. year of soccer, both school and club--maybe had that not happened, he would have come up with something via the club route. In the end, I guess the right path is "whatever works."
before i go into this i may be misunderstanding the term `travel` in the way that you describe it and maybe i am taking your comment out of context, so i hope you can understand what may be a misunderstanding on my part. i am not saying that you are wrong in saying that kids need to travel in order to improve. but rather if i really want to evaluate this question for myself on a more critical level, can i ask you why players need to travel to improve? and i am sincere about this but i just don`t want to be one of those guys who says traveling is required in order to improve because everybody says so. i would think that one of the arguments on the side of `travel to improve` is because you have the chance to play against more competitive teams than in your local league. and i stress, competitive, more so than better teams that actually play the correct way as opposed to athleticism and tactics that work at the youth level but no player on the team turns out to be an elite professional footballer. looking at a player like pulisic, his father turned down bigger and better teams because they were not learning soccer in an optimal way. a point that i would question in playing better teams as a result of traveling, does that really help players become better? i mean what if american youth teams played against the best youth teams in the world from manchester united, barcelona, etc. but went back to their terrible coaches and training for the rest of the 30-40 weeks of the year? would it really matter if they played against the best teams? for this reason, i don`t think traveling is necessarily the problem. instead it would do us more good if the teams in the area instead had coaches that were focused on getting proper training at the highest level. the only benefit i see to travel, is going to showcases in order to get more visibility from college coaches, or regional or national tournaments. and i am not saying that is a bad thing to travel. i think it can be great to play the best competition in the area and to see where your team measures up and where you can improve your team, sort of as a measuring stick. but is that really what helps develop top players like pulisic and weston mckennie? i am interested to hear any thoughts thaat others may have that i am not accounting for.
I don't believe he's referring to the act of traveling, but rather "travel teams". In some areas, this is shorthand for teams that are above rec in the food chain. You still may only travel 5 minutes to the next town for your games.
Travel is just one of several synonymous for NOT rec…be it club, select, elite, travel, etc…I don’t think Sam_G was necessary saying you have to travel, as in physically traveling great distances, as if that magically makes you better….however, you do need to be in a program beyond and above simple Rec…and in my cases, such programs, regardless of what they call themselves, do require some degree of traveling….sometimes out of necessarily; sometimes out of luxury?…. I don’t think a single person would disagree that getting proper training is key…but it’s a bit of a catch-22…since proper, or at least better, training is often found in programs that also travel a bit….
My son "traveled" and did ODP in both soccer and water polo and the differences are noticeable, with, in my opinion, water polo having the better set up, in part because of the smaller numbers on participants but in part because of a desire to improve the sport. I agree with ko242 that "big" travel in soccer is probably not giving the benefit everyone assumes and we would be much better off putting the emphasis into better coaching, before getting in the car/plane to test the team/players. Water polo is a very regionalized sport with 90%+ of the top players and 95%+ of olympians coming from California. Makes sense given the weather and size of the state but water polo is committed to improving play countrywide. The ODP program is regionalized which means we were traveling to St. Louis or Michigan a couple of times a year (in addition to the local events where those areas came to us) however there was at least 2 national team coaches (of varying levels) at each ODP event working with both the athletes and the local coaches to improve everyone. Through ODP each region was ultimately represented in the national pool and while these were often token spots, the best players from the region were able to learn and train from the best several times (on USA water polo's dime) and could bring that back to their local club. Much better than anything soccer ODP has ever offered. USA Water Polo also sends out senior national team players and coaches to the region to run camps and clinics several times a year, for both players and coaches, in order to grow the sport and the knowledge base. My son has worked with more olympians in water polo than professional soccer players that he has just shook hands with, and he was at the 100 year anniversary event in DC a few years ago (rode the elevator with Tim Howard but that is a story for another day). USA Water Polo sent 4 time Olympian Tony Azevedo (the most decorated polo player is US history) to the Illinois high school state championship tournament this year. He ran a U little camp before the games and watched, tweeted, celebrated with the teams. Can you see USSF asking Clint Dempsey to go watch high school soccer in Illinois? IF they did what would his answer be? Water polo also has a couple of events each year, including the national championship where qualification is regionalized (much like state cup leading to nationals) however the bar to entry is much lower than soccer. We would attend a qualifying tournament each year and historically the midwest region would place 6-8 teams into the national tournament, which is a pretty high number based on really only IL, MO, MI, and OH fielding clubs. The national tournament was broken down into 3 levels so the best from each region were grouped together. The best from each region had the chance to "test" themselves against the best while the lesser teams still saw high level competition from the California teams that while not the best in CA were superior to the teams in any other region. Nationals was the cherry on top of the year for us with little expectation other than a test and some exposure and it worked out. Last year's graduating seniors from Illinois placed 4 players on NCAA Division 1 teams a high water mark for a land locked state where it snows. USSF has let "travel" run away with the program. The DA is a step in the right direction but it ignores large segments of the country. I'm not saying expand the DA but there could be some out reach to the under served instead of the under served having to reach out through travel or finding a residence program somewhere in the DA.
As PP pointed out, I was referring to travel teams. In my area there are three levels of soccer... Rec: Put on by the local organization. Everyone who pays their fee gets a spot on a team. There are often (and I have no problem with it) mandatory play rules (everyone has to play 50% of the game). Coaches are generally parents of players, may have attended a coaching clinic and/or read a book. Younger age groups (<U12) play in the same county, older might go to neighboring counties (just because of a lack of teams). Travel (aka 'Select'): No one is guaranteed a spot on a team. You try out and if you make it, then you pay your money. You can try out for multiple clubs, but can only select one. There is no guaranteed playing time. Coaches (again around here) are certified and paid by the club/team. You will play in some kind of league that would require travel, whether that be in the state or in the region. You'll also go to tournaments, again could be out of state or in state. At the end of the season there is a State competition and the winners go to Regionals. The winners of Regionals go to Nationals. School: Middle and HS teams are formed to play other Middle and HS teams. There are generally tryouts, the number of kids trying out will determine if there are any cuts. The quality of the team is determined by who is attends the school. Here there's a mixture of Rec and Travel players on a school team. "Travel" will (generally) get you better coaching (then Rec) and better competition. As I understand it (there's not one near us), DA is basically "travel" (even if they only play other DA teams). ODP (again here) has open tryouts, so any one can try out. ODP teams go to ODP events and play ODP teams from other states. Yes, you can have a "travel" team and not travel far. DD plays on a travel team and the state league we are in only requires ~2 hour drive to the furthest location. We are going to one tournament that's 2 1/2 hours way. DS on the other hand is on travel and school teams. His travel will have us going 7 hours away for one showcase and 14 hours away for another. The league schedule isn't set yet, last year the furthest we went was 3 1/2 hours, but the teams met "midway", so we were playing teams from 7 hours away.
Having been through this with a child who is above average at the DA level -- but out of its range, I guess I have three things to say. 1) There is no outreach whatsoever -- we outreached, academy marginally helped find a host family, school refused to admit (where the coach actually worked no less,) private school only option, cost - benefit out of the question. 2) MLS residential reserved exclusively for internationals -- MLS DA not at all serious about developing talent -- poaching locals, replacing after 16 with internationals (there are of course exceptions) and 3) here is the controversial observation: I am convinced that elite DA made my son worse. While of course playing at a higher tempo is good -- they actively took a creative player (he and all the others) and actively set about turning them into soccer robots engaged in a joyless exercise that punished any and all individuality by reprimand or worse. Paint by numbers soccer that completely eliminated their ability to think for themselves and to solve problems when plan A didn't work. I will give a huge shout out here to Chicago Sockers which took a completely different approach, which IMO, is the right approach. The only DA team I saw doing that though so, US soccer may be in the wilderness for another decade.