Again I ask, what is the goal we want to attain? 1) A better national team? 2) A path for our children to get a scholarship? 3) Instilling in our children a "love for the game"? 4) Keeping our children active? 5) Letting our children be challenged? 6) Saving money? Focusing on any one (or two) of the above comes at the detriment of the others. People have been complaining about "pay for play" for a long time. But they don't seem to be able to come up with ideas on how to pay for the things that require money (field rental, coaches, referees, equipment, etc). Sure, kids can play on a sandlot somewhere and ref themselves, then you only need a ball. Is that realistic though?
I'm not sure about that. If we accomplish No. 3, that certainly helps with No. 1 and No. 4. Maybe even No. 5. We can toss aside No. 2 because that's an individual goal, not a U.S. Soccer goal. (As an aside -- a lot of parents these days are looking at college soccer not as a scholarship prospect, knowing full well that most scholarships are partial, but as a means to getting Little Claudio or Mia *admitted* to the school of their choice. This actually isn't new. In the class ahead of mine in high school, one student had a 99.5 average and took all the AP classes. Another was a good basketball player who wasn't in the top 10% of his class -- maybe not top 25%. Guess which one got into an Ivy League school? And then he didn't even make the team.) If we re-phrase No. 6 as "re-prioritizing money," then we have more money for No. 3 and No. 4, and that'll help with No. 1. Travel soccer should really be less about the travel and more about the soccer. We have good clubs a few miles apart that don't play each other because they each want the ego trip of being in an "elite league." The people who really profit from travel soccer are hotels, airlines and the Auntie Anne's at Maryland House on I-95 that's always out of pretzel dogs. (Seriously -- how are you always out of pretzel dogs? I'm not buying KFC for the car.)
Other team sports in this country seem to be just fine at multitasking similar goals without it being detrimental to any single goal… I would agree with Beau Dure, everything stems from #3…hit that one hard and all the other goals will work themselves out…
I disagree. I don't think a simple love for the game will make the national team better. Someone can love the game, but not be able to influence the NT in the slightest. And I'm guessing that's true for most people. As far as individual vs. US soccer goals, as the parent of two soccer players, do I want US Soccer NT to succeed? Yes. But my focus is on my kids. They get my priority. I still say we're 20-30 years from being really successful in NT soccer. IMO, you need parents with the knowledge and skills of soccer to hand that passion down to their kids. I'd say even many soccer parents today weren't really exposed to soccer in their youth. The number that are is increasing, but it will take a long time. That's why (again IMO) basketball, football, baseball are dominated. The people playing it now were brought up on it by their parents who were brought up on it by their parents. Parents and kids would go play 1-on-1, or throw a football or baseball. It's going to take time for that to happen on the soccer front.
Not sure why you think we disagree… The “love of the game” will take some time (20-30 years) before we reap its benefits… Great soccer nations don’t love soccer because the produce great NTs; they produce great NTs because they love soccer…
While not a proven theory by any means, it strikes me that there are “trendy sports” every xx years that people migrate to in an effort to either be different or find something with less saturation. At one time that was soccer, today lacrosse is a growing sport. Esports, or games in general, are a factor as well. Point being, there may be a loss of players, by percentage, that were never really playing soccer for more than something to do and now there is something else to do. One risk could also be that some are leaving because they too have figured out that soccer, for boys at least, is less likely to result in “success” however a family defines it. Nothing wrong, if a family has an athletic bent, pursuing a sport where a scholarship is at least possible. At $200k for a degree, it isn’t nuts to utilize the skills the young person has. If your kid was a musical prodigy and somebody told you they could potentially get a scholarship playing the flute but less so if they play the harp...unless you are from a family dedicated to the harp do you really care which instrument they play? Additionally, if playing the flute could get them into Harvard, would you turn down that opportunity? Some kids get into college, in part, due to their abilities in drama, sports, music, dance etc and they may not all be the top score achiever. Lacrosse is being added to schools and has like 300 guys on a team. Seems 90% are from the US, regular kids who can play HS lacrosse and matriculate to college. Soccer is filling rosters with kids from Europe and MLS DA teams. Playing HS is viewed as a bad indicator. That could be sending a message to families when they sign up for a sport at age 6.
Building on what Terrier said, I coach high school diving (springboard not soccer) and I see a lot of kids new to the sport every year. Most have soccer backgrounds but are leaving the club scene for a sport they have never tried. In general they know there is limited opportunities to play soccer through the school (4-5 state championships across boys and girls in the last 5-6 years I believe) and they are looking for a sport that doesn't have strong club participation at young ages so that they have a chance to make varsity by the time they are a senior. Sports like diving, boys volleyball, lacrosse, etc. seem to be the draw for those that have a desire to compete but are looking for an easy road. None of the new comers are going to be state champions and most will never even qualify for state but they do see an easier road to that varsity letter. I think high schools have driven this as I learned with my older son. Kids are told you will never get into college, regardless of grades, if you do not have multiple extra curricular activites and one must be a sport. To get into a decent college that sport better be varsity (preferably a starter), and to get into the best schools you have to have been a team captain. None of this is true but this is what was driven into my son starting in junior high and as a result kids are giving up sports they have played their whole life and love to find an easier path just to get into college.
Lots of countries that love soccer are shit at player development. My wife's home country of Bulgaria, for example, is just absolute shit at developing talent at the moment. The 1994 team is a distant memory. It takes infrastructure, a cohort of competent professionals vested with authority and resources, and a plan.
Sure, you can love soccer as a country and not develop quality players or a NT…I agree, love, in or of itself, is not enough… However, you can not love soccer and develop quality players or a NT...do you have any examples of where that has happened? I know the US is trying like hell to be that example, but well, how’s that going? If you don’t have the “love” all that infrastructure and planning is just built on sand…
Sure, we agree on all that. I'm just saying, a love for the sport is a necessary prerequisite, but not an automatic first step, towards an improved NT. Otherwise, you and I agree.
To Keeper’s point, soccer goes from small fields and lots of subs to big fields and miles of running. That can send people to tennis tryouts etc. 90 minutes of chasing somebody or getting schooled isn’t fun. Even sports where the total game time is longer have far less activity and work. Schools with sports requirements can have kids gravitate away from sports due to workload...middle school track is a far cry from HS cross country. Coaches and friends also influence those decisions. If the field hockey coach doesn’t put with any slacking then nobody joins just to get a letter.
For some reason, your post remains me of something I read recently… The LA Rams just drafted a guy names John Franklin-Myers…I guess his HS team went 0-40 during his 4 years…yet, he stuck with it, got a college scholarship and is now playing in the pros… I don’t think kids are dropping out of soccer because it’s hard, involves a lot of running or they lose a lot…they drop out because they don’t have a passion (i.e. love for it) and we live in a country that doesn’t really instill that passion, not like other sports, anyway, yet… That 0-40 Texas HS football team probably still drew a full stadium every Friday night…
mwulf - I think part of the difference is that in football you can be on a high school team that is terrible but still get recognized for your individual talent and get a scholarship. Soccer is different, if you are not on one of the "best" teams (DA), you are pretty much shut out of the scholarship game. Play only high school, even on a dominate team, and you will not even get a walk on invite in most cases. A timely example. The Gatorade player of the year last year for boys soccer in Illinois was the keeper on the repeat state champion as a junior. He is back this year as a senior but had not touched a soccer ball since the state championship game last year. The reason is he had to make a choice a few years ago; DA and no high school or other sports, or play soccer for fun and focus on another sport that had a larger upside in basketball. You have one of the top keepers in the state essentially give up soccer because of restrictions imposed and lack of college/pro opportunities for basketball where he saw more potential. He recently committed to last year's cinderella story final 4 team Loyola with a full ride. Interesting side note, the back up keeper on that high school team is the keeper on the Galaxy team that won nationals that was debated about on this forum in the last couple of weeks.
I don't think that's true though. Probably true for Top Division 1, maybe true for some lower Division 1. But there are plenty of programs out there to offer money, or at least allow a walk on.
This is a bit of a tangent, but as I look around I'm increasingly afraid it is. As my wife and I try to figure whether our youngest, who wants to play in college, has a shot beyond walking on at a middlin' community college or draining mom and dad's assets so he can play at a lower-level DIII, I've discovered that even the lower-level DI programs seem to stock their rosters entirely with academy players and international players. Northern Illinois is a good example. NIU won three of its 15 games last year. Its incoming class of five includes three kids they ID as academy players, plus two more that they don't ID that way for some reason but, if you Google them, they played serious club soccer. https://niuhuskies.com/news/2018/2/...welcome-first-five-in-2018-signing-class.aspx My son's downstate Illinois club sends some kids to play in college, but, at least on the boys' side, they don't go DI (not without leaving and making a detour of several years through a bigger club in a large city, anyway). So you do see a few parents start to make those drives of two-plus hours one way a few nights a week. Which is nuts.
D1, D2, and NAIA can all give out athletic scholarship money. Do you really believe ALL of those schools are only looking at academy/international kids? Sure, if you (or your childs) heart is set on playing D1, you better start playing high level club at minimum. But if the bar is set simply at "scholarship money", there are a lot of options out there.
Conversely, a local high school that had won maybe four games in five years just shut down its varsity because they didn't have enough players out of a high school of nearly 1,000 kids. So it's passion, yes, but that passion can easily be deflated. I needed a season off from coaching after bashing my head against a wall for a few years.
D1 can give out 9.9 scholarships and D2 can give out 9 per team (mens). considering 11 are on the field at once and most teams carry up to 30 or so athletes there is not a lot of scholarship money per player. Considering the scholarship money is going to the internationals and the DA players there is not much left over for the "regular" or even "big" club kids.
This sums up what I was trying to say better than I said it -- there isn't much room for players who aren't DA-level players or internationals. And it really isn't even about scholarships -- I consider that prospect pretty unlikely. It's just being able to get there -- who knows if he'll change his priorities, but at the moment he wants to play beyond high school at the highest level he can. We're trying to help him get there. Look at DI rosters and they're stacked with internationals and DA/big club kids. Even weak DI programs. For my son this looks like a tough, unlikely road unless we take some drastic steps to get him to a big club (the other alternatives being, as Sam Gordon said, smaller schools at lower levels, and that was what I meant about DIII -- which from what I can tell appear to be mostly small, very expensive private schools). NAIA I know little nothing about -- I've watched one game and, though I won't name the culprits, I'll just say it was some bad, bad soccer.
I don’t think anybody would say DA has a monopoly on the top players or that all DA players are scholarship quality but at face value those players have been selected by the process at hand, have trained more extensively, played against highest competition and should have been coached well. Without that, even fewer US players may be playing college soccer today. I’m not sold on DA by any means but it isn’t DA vs. club for scholarships. It is the European system against the US model.
You are correct there is not a lot of money per player. But coaches can split those 9 (or 9.9) scholarships among multiple players. From when I was in college, I remember scholarships taking on four items... tuition, books, meals, housing. So if you break a single full scholarship into four parts, you can provide 36 players with SOME money. If you're shooting for a full ride based on athletic ability in a "non revenue" sport like soccer, yes, you better get on a DA team.
Do mens' soccer teams even give full rides? I'm going off what I remember from baseball more than 20 years ago and I'm sure things have changed, but my recollection is that no one (boys at least) got a "full ride" outside of football and basketball players. If I remember correctly, baseball teams had around 11 scholarships for a team of 25-30 players, so the offers were more like a 1/2 to 1/3. Obviously helpful, but nowhere near covering your whole cost.
I’d say the answer is essentially no, not many full rides...understand they will look at what aid you can get and aren’t trying to cover the whole boat. Very few families, athlete or not, are asked to pay the full cost of attendance. The deals come in all shapes and sizes...some schools offer progressive plans, little money early on but more if you persist in the program. International players are not always held against the 9.9.