I don’t pretend to have any solutions to these problems…I simply can’t support making things worse, which I believe your gender-neutral team based approach would be… I see little to no added value in moving to a gender-neutral system; it’s high risk/low reward…I don’t see that it "fixes" anything; it just moves the players around a bit for no real propose or overall benifit… If perhaps there was some evidence that separating by sex was directly harmful to player development, I might be more supportive, but I see no evidence of that…. Whereas there is no reason young boys and girls can’t train and play together to their full potential…there is equally no reason young boys and girls can’t train and play separately to their full potential…
This 20th skilled girl who would have played on the girls B-team, is now, under your system, playing on the 4th tier co-ed team…perception is reality, and you’re basically telling her she isn’t very good…perhaps soccer isn’t for her, maybe she would like softball better… I see little to no added value in moving to a gender-neutral system; it’s high risk/low reward…I don’t see that it "fixes" anything; it just moves the players around a bit for no real propose or overall benefit… The player pool is more concentrated and evenly distributed when 50% of the potential population is not eliminated. That is the advantage. Who is pushing player 1-5 when player 10 perhaps is really player 15 if the pool was expanded to include girls? I love how in you in your previous scenario stated: This 20th skilled girl who would have played on the girls B-team, is now, under your system, playing on the 4th tier co-ed team…perception is reality, and you’re basically telling her she isn’t very good…perhaps soccer isn’t for her, maybe she would like softball better… WTH makes you think that 20th girl suddenly is on the 4th team? You clearly have a bias and have not actually seen boys and girls play together. I have seen lots of crap boys who for them running is hard and somehow are on a B team. At 9 years old you are overestimating the skill and athleticism of all boys to the exclusion of girls. If perhaps there was some evidence that separating by sex was directly harmful to player development, I might be more supportive, but I see no evidence of that…. You still haven't demonstrated the harm that co-ed play causes. Especially if the players are of equal ability. Just one reason. I know you stated that the 20th girl might be on the 4th team instead of the all girls B team. But I think you are really more worried that the 20th boy might be more harmed by being on the 4th team because he has a crappy outlook on girls, eventually women, and male entitlement in general. The best compliment my DD received was when her girls team scrimmaged against the boys team that she had also trained and played with occasionally. Two of the boys, upon seeing her and her team take the field both smiled dropped to their knees, arms stretched to the sky and yelled "oh noooooo we're playing against _____(insert nickname)!!" Those two 9 year old boys demonstrated more respect and open mindedness to playing with girls in that brief moment than you have in over 5 pages of this thread.
It is only concentrated IF you forget the fact the player pool will be separated by sex by age 12…which even you have no problem with… That is why you deal with them separately from the beginning, baring a good reason not too….which I don’t believe you have provided… I was based on prior post, which was based on your own words regarding boy/girl distribution across co-ed teams, ranked high to low…if you want update those number, feel free…I thought your numbers were BS to begin with… As stated, the harm or one potential harm comes downstream….whereas as individual player deployment is important, we can’t or shouldn’t forget that the Club has other legitimate missions and goals as well… One these being, the club has every right and duty to try guarantee that they have the numbers on both sides, to field full gender specific 11v11 teams @ U13… So many 4v4 teams equal so many 7v7 teams, which equal so many 9v9 teams, which equal so many 11v11 teams…its comes down to simple math, math that is much easily if you separate by sex from the beginning… There is nothing sinister, evil or sexist about, it just makes the management of your player pool easier, more manageable…. As a parent, you might not care too much about that…if by the time your DD ages out of the co-ed teams, and the U13 Girls A Team is weak or non-existence, you will just change clubs… As pointed out in another thread by another poster, the club “scene” is very mercenary in that way… The only disrespect I have shown is to you, and quite frankly, it’s been pretty mutual… I have no problem with girls soccer players or woman in general; I don’t think they are the weaker sex, on or off the field, at any age…you want to try and spin this as me being sexist or closed minded, you go right head…I think you’re the one with the ax to grind….
There is no negative downstream affect. Or at least one that you can prove. You can make what ever rosters you need to make on Sunday’s as needed. All of your concerns are administrative and clerical problems to solve.
Agreed, neither one of us can prove shit…but then again, I am not the one stating my opinions as facts… So, we are back to group academy-style training, with no formal, set-rostered teams, that I already said at least twice now, I don’t have a problem with even if its co-ed??? So, I am wrong to suggest that if your theoretical club with co-ed U-little teams failed to field an adequate U13 Girls team, you would drop that club like a bad habit?
As I’ve said many times now, my problem is not with co-ed training/playing or thinking girls have cooties…my interest and concern is the long term health and stability of the player pools…. I have seen clubs, because of shortsighted, even if good indented polices, that can’t field a 11v11 team past U12 because they have destroyed or failed to build an adequate player pool. Maybe that’s not a problem in your area…. I agree, on the surface, there is nothing “wrong” co-ed club level U-little teams and that it is a good indented policy… However, it is a balancing act between developing the individual player and developing the player group (by age and sex) as a whole…as parents, we tend to focus on the first, but the latter is important as well…even more so in areas that have limited club options and/or smaller players pools to begin with…. Ultimately, soccer is a team sport, and whereas early fundamental training can/should be individualized to a large degree; we can’t lose sight of the fact those individuals will eventually need be placed on teams, where the quality of their teammates will directly impact the continued development, success and enjoyment of the individual…. Like I say, If at 10 you haven’t even met the teammates you will be playing with at 15, perhaps you don’t care that much….But where I come from, kids play with (and against) the same basic group of kids from 8-18…. And as such, I have a more vested interest in the quality of the player pool as a whole…a rising tide side lifts all boats… As the parent of a boy, I will admit I flat out don’t care what is happening on the girls side developmentally. The only side I care about it is the boys side; I care far more about the 20th boy player then the best girl player; I have zero interest in her in fact….I have no animosity toward the girls side; I wish them well, but I just don’t care, mostly because I have no reason to… If that makes me a bad guy, so be it….
No, I'm not back to Academy Style training because I never left. How many times have I said that teams at U9-U11 do not mean a thing? I recognize that PARENTS want league games and they want little Timmy to be on the A Team but that doesn't mean they are right either. So we have game day rosters for games where scores are not posted but parents think their kids "Team" is important when really they should just be focused on how their kid is learning the game at this point. You seem to want to believe that anything I said is a all or nothing, no middle ground and no compromise. All I've ever said as FACT is that there is no physical/athletic difference in speed or strength between 8-10 year old boys and girls. None, nada. With that basic understanding, there is then no reason why kids cannot play and train in a co-ed environment based on the ability to learn and perform soccer. NONE. All you have wanted to argue is administrative and cultural reason why it cant be done. Those reasons are simply arbitrary and man made excuses. If we wanted to have co-ed soccer we could.
Plenty, while are the same time saying want your DD to be on the best team, with the best boys players…hence my continued confusion… And that FACT, I have long agreed with you on….the opinion we differ on is whether co-ed teams are needed, would actually be beneficial, and if so, by how much and by whom, or that it might cause or increase other issues down the road… You have stated as fact that co-ed teams/training would significantly improve player development across the board….I clearly, have my doubts and concerns… See post #106
If at 9 years old you can add 100% more kids to a player pool you can place kids in groups more closely related in skill and ability. You are concentrating talent. Dividing 100 kids into two groups of 50 based on gender, when at that age gender makes no difference simply dilutes the player pool. As far as my DD is concerned, at 9 years old I don't really care about the team she is on, I simply want her surrounded by players who will help challenge and improve her as a soccer player. When she is 12 or 13 then I will begin to care about what team she is on but unless she has the opportunity to become the best that she can be by then it really didn't matter what group, team, pool she was on at 9. And at 9 years old the most important thing is to be with the best coach she can get and be with the best group of players she can fit in with. Along the way she should train with much better kids to experience failure and she should train with lesser skilled kids to gain confidence and leadership skills. Success, failure and confidence must be in balance. And this is why teams just don't matter. Kids needs and abilities are to fluid to have such a static and rigid approach and then on top of it add gender barriers unnecessarily at these ages.
You see diluted talent, I see the law of diminishing returns kicking in…especially considering the final outcome (product produced) will be gender specific… I don’t need 100 co-ed players at 9 years old to produce 25 quality boys players at age 15…50 boys is more than enough… Adding all those girls to the mix, is an incremental increase in talent levels at best…sure, there will be a handful of outlier girls who are considerably better then age peers across gender lines, but the vast majority of those girls will be avenge talent, just as the vast majority of boys will be average talent at that age…as such, there is very little to gain by co-ed training/teams, certainly not enough to justify throwing out the existing and workable system in favor of an unproven and experimental one… The only ones I see really benefiting from co-ed training/teams, are those outlier girls… I could be wrong, but I don’t think diluted talent because of gender separated training/teams, is something most people view as an issue….
"Incremental"?!?!!? This is where you are completely off base. If 3-4 girls at 9 years old are as good or better than the top 3-4 boys then that talent concentration is not simply incremental. the objective at 9 years old is to develop the PLAYERS to be the best that they can be. When you have developed the players to their best potential their eventual teams, when it is age appropriate to form teams will be better overall. This isn't about improving just the girls, if they are as good or better than the boys then the boys improve as well. And on top of it they will learn a little something about life that will actually matter later on in life, and that is how to deal with women on a level field. At least my model will have a better chance of producing better people.
Once again, your focus is clearly on those outlier girls, which, let’s be honest, you think your DD is one of… The incremental-ness is across the board…talent at that age is very much a bell shaped curve….as such, the vast majority of talent, regardless of gender, is average…that big hump in the middle… accordingly, once you reach a certain population, adding more bodies, statically, just adds more and more average …in most cases, don’t really need co-ed to reach that critical mass of talent to develop all the players involved in that population to their full potential…. This is club soccer; I am not paying for the privilege of your social experiment…. My son doesn’t need co-ed soccer to be a better person or learn how to treat women properly…
No, they are not outlier girls, the reality is at 9 years old girls are as good at soccer as boys are. If you can accept the fact that at 9 years old boys and girls can play at an equal level across the board then this would make sense to you. The problem is you don't really believe that. I get the sense that you have never watched or seen 9 year old boys and girls on the same field together. Perhaps you should before you make any assumptions about girls NEEDING to be outlier just to be able to compete with boys. I hate to burst your bubble but there is nothing athletically special about a 9 year old boy versus a 9 year old girl. The fact that you believe my daughter is an outlier demonstrates that belief. It is actually kinda insulting in a way that my daughter MUST be special in some way. No she isn't. I'm not asking you to pay for the privileged of a social experiment. I'm just telling you that at nine years old, your son might be worse than several 9 year old girls. My kid isn't an outlier, I'm just trying to find the best fit for my kid and what I have noticed is that at young ages boys are not superior in any way early on.
No, actually what I’ve said is I do accept that fact; I do believe that…I think perhaps even more than you actual do…. I just don’t think it makes a difference either way…whether we do it co-ed or separate by sex, the end product remains the same…as such, I see no real motivation to change an already working/workable system… I don’t know your DD…you are the one is acting like she needs something more, something different, something special…that the ways things are aren’t good enough for her…. I am not the one suggesting girls need to play against the boys at all….I am not the one suggesting girls will never reach their full potential without doing so… Ha, tell me something I don’t know….at 15, I know he is worse than several 15 year old girls right now….although he is certainly bigger, stronger and (maybe) faster than most…. And as I’ve already said, my son plays with a 15 year old girl on one of his indoor teams, that is as good, if not better, than most the boys…if picking side for a team, I’d probably choose her first over my son….don’t tell him that, although he probably would agree… And I respect that, I really do…. Play her with the boys, play her with the girls, play her with both….shoot her to the moon if you think the low gravity will help her juggling skills….do whatever you need to do….just don’t propose a radical change to the status quo and then disparage or project a lot of sexist nonsense on me for not agreeing it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread….
Growing up, there were co-ed teams until around U7. Then once in a while on U12 travel, we'd face a tourney team that fielded a really talented girl. No issues, although one time a girl sent me flying on an ill-advised slide tackle. I distinctly remember blushing when she smiled and offered me her hand to help me up. I was sort of confused because she was really pretty but that tackle was really bad -- borderline dangerous. If it had been a guy I would have shoved his hand away and made sure to bump him at the next available opportunity.
I never proposed it as a radical change. I never said U.S. Soccer should do this. I never said any number of clubs should do this either. What I did say, is in relation to the origins of this whole thread about a transgender player at U10 that basically it doesn't matter, that in general at these young ages gender separation is mostly unnecessary to begin with. That the difference in athletic ability or talent simply does not warrant the separation to begin with. It was YOU who felt I proposed a systematic change, when in fact I never proposed such a plan. All I ever did was make an observation, based both on fact AND practical experience. My demonstrating how it could roughly work on a very rough practical sense was taken as my proposal for a solution to a problem that mostly doesn't exist. But I stand by my feelings on the topic within the constraints of the age groups I outlined. It just boggles my mind that there is resistance to the idea that at an age when kids are mostly learning how to dribble, pass, work through a basic move tree that those basic motor skills somehow need to be taught separately because of gender. On its surface it makes no sense. And for all your reasoning and downstream concerns that you think it would only result in harm without any developmental reason for believing so. The reason why I sought out opportunities for my DD to play with boys was simple, boys offered an appropriate challenge size wise that playing up with girls did not. My kid is small for her age and older girls teams are simply bigger than the same older age boys team. While the speed of play was the same between the boys and girls teams the boys were not as significantly bigger than my DD so it was a better fit both skill and size and speed wise. But having only girls I hadn't seen as much of the boys side until the last year and it was as plain as the nose on my face that the boys are pretty much the same 9 year old kids with the same range of skills as my DD's at age girls team. If there was more co-ed soccer it might actually force coaches to look more at the kids feet and what they can do with their feet more than anywhere else when selecting and sorting talent.
Actually, it was you who started talking about 3-4 girls playing on a rostered team of 12…that is far more of systematic change then the 1-off girl I said I had no problem with and that it quite common already… Warranted or not, gender separation is a reality at this time…and has been for quite some time… But whatever… Not sound condescending, but perhaps that horse has already left the barn, but maybe in a few years you will better understand that in theory U-little team placement means little to nothing, but in reality they can mean quite a bit with regard to future opportunities, access and advancement…if you’re not familiar with the concept once an A player, always an A player, you many never understand my resistance… I think the biggest disconnect we have is that you are suggesting a very idealist approach to a somewhat jaded and cynical parent this point… And how is that any different for boys? If a boy is more advanced than his age peers, he plays up and learns to deal with the size difference…I’ve seen boys play up 2 years, and trust me, there was a big size difference….
Well, let the horses run free… You are just a parent of an earlier bloomer, who now thinks he has all the answers to Youth Soccer's problems…it too would be adorable if wasn’t so banal and insufferable…I am sure you’re a real treat on the sidelines… I wish you and DD well, you both have long journey ahead of you….
That’s adorable. But please tell me how that matters in reg I’m also the parent of a older DA player. I don’t have all the answers but your condescension is adorable.
So let me get this straight, you are also the parent of an older boy, who I am assuming developed in large part, if not entirely, in a tradition all boys team structure all the way into the DA program…You are clearly arguing with parent of a teenage boy, and this is the first time you mention it, never any attempt to find common ground through that little tidbit… Furthermore, you give no inkling of understanding my position or concerns as the parent of a boy or as someone who has been thought the pretty politics and bureaucracy that is the world of club soccer…you acted like you were confused by much of what talked about; like we are speaking two difference languages…how is that possible? Serious, who goes thought that and doesn’t at least understand my concerns…even if you disagree with them…no problem talking about your 9 year old DD every other post, yet your teenage DA son has no place in this discussion?
The topic wasn’t about older players so discussing my older kid isn’t relevant. The only reason I even brought it up was to make the simple point that this isn’t my first rodeo in regards to navigating youth soccer. Therefor you can hold your condescending comments.
Younger players become older players….development does not occur in a vacuum….a HUGE part of my concerns was “downstream”…you know, where your son is now… You have fainted naivety as to “how things are” and how they play into my concerns…as someone who has already navigated youth soccer, you should have at least recognized my concerns as having some validity, even if you still choose to disagree with them…arguing in a way to soothed my concerns, as opposed to dismissing them out of hand as unfounded, or worse, as sexist and chauvinist, would have made for a stronger argument, but we are long pass that…. I think your argument lacks honesty and integrity…I think it is completely self-motivated and that you are a recent convert….I don’t think you gave two shits about co-ed training/playing while your son came up through the ranks…I don’t believe you think him a lesser player because he didn’t play with/against more girls….and I think if someone had suggested an unnecessary and radical change to the status quo in the middle of his journey, you would have been just as hesitant as I…