30 minutes is the furthest I would drive for youth soccer training. Need time for homework, and a life. Lots of people drive a lot further. Look up Clint Dempsey's story, for example.
I'm answering this question for the "average" club soccer parent. Depends on the circumstance. What's available, how committed the kid is, age, etc. For a younger kid, if there is a half-decent club nearby that's probably good enough unless the kid is really driven at that age, which is unusual. When he/she is a little older, if he/she is showing a real drive, then it's worth sacrificing after-school time for longer drives if that gives the kid access to better training/coaches, etc. Of course there are exceptions to every rule. We drive more than a half-hour even though there are other, closer clubs because we like the coach and think that club is a better option. At this point, our younger son is 15 and pretty focused on soccer so it's worth it. Of course I know people who travel further. There are people in our area who drive to DC four times a week for the DC United Academy, for example.
And just ask which is actually better parent/child time: 15-30 minutes sitting next to each other in the car with the chance to talk without any other distractions? Or an extra 15-30 minutes in the house, where parent and child are each doing their own thing (including TV for the child)? There are silver linings to every cloud.
Great point. My wife actually loves taking our son to practices, because those unguarded moments in the car together are when lots of "opening up" happens.
And I'm not JUST trying to rationalize commuting ... We're actually only a 10 minute walk from the fields where our town team practices, but my daughter was fully invested in the decision to leave that team last year and start commuting 25 minutes to practice, in order to play for a more challenging team in a professional environment. And now, although we don't like the idea of leaving so soon, she has taken the opportunity to join the top club, even though it means a commute of 35-40 minutes (although only 5 minutes farther than another location where she used to do Summer Select and supplemental training). The additional time in the car was actually one of her concerns when we discussed the pros and cons of making the move, but she agreed that this opportunity was worth it. Whether it's talking to parents, or teammates if we carpool, or reading a book, she felt all things considered, the extra time in the car wasn't that bad a deal, especially given the opportunity. Would we have traded our local town team (10 minute walk) for another town team (15-20 minutes drive) just to avoid local politics, or make only a marginal change in team ability, or something like that? No.
Forty minutes, more if traffic, to drive to MLS club. We did consider a 1 hour 10 minutes drive to another club, but decided against it. Current club is a better option all round.
Am I crazy for thinking about driving almost two hours to a new club? We have a club within 30 minutes but things just haven't worked out. There were things about the club and the way it is run that we did not like, but there is no other local club so we have stayed. Now my child is on a team where the coach does not care for the player. Playing time has dropped dramatically and if the player makes a mistake, they are quickly pulled from the game. I have an older son who has guest played for a team about two hours from us and had a very good experience. So just to see what would happen, I took my player to tryout with this club and the coach was impressed and wants us to play there. So I am just trying to figure out what to do.
How many clubs area withing a 15 mile radius of you? How well do you know this club that's 2 hours away? Do you know the DOC or anyone else at this club?
Our current club is the only one within about 50 miles. I have dealt with several people at this club over the last 5 years and have been impressed with everyone I have come into contact with. I do not know the DOC.
Okay I am confused but maybe it's me I was thinking you had a local club and then one which was 2 hours away that you were considering because you were not impressed with the local club.
my max is 45 minutes which we have done for the last 3 years . the only exception would be PDA which would be 1:00 to 1:15 depending on traffic. my daughter isn't skilled enough. O'Reilly would be her team. nuff said. agree that lots of quality conversations happen in those 45 minutes.
That is correct. We have a local club we are not impressed with. There is a club 2 hours away that we are considering.
I have a suggestion then... Speak with the DOC of the club you like and discuss maybe expanding into your area. I have worked with two clubs in the past on this and it's actually a lot easier then you may think. In fact you may find that some of the coaches in that good club live near you or in between. All you need to do is find fields and indoor space. If a good club is really good about developing players, they will have an interest to expand providing the numbers are there. Space for fields are not hard to get either. Many Jr High schools offer space by us at no cost so long as you can provide insurance - which the club will. Indoors you can also speak with local schools at first - they are relatively cheap. When the club builds and grows you can move to a more suitable environment. More often you are looking a a 5 year deal for space (indoor and outdoor). This is done to provide for enough time for the club to grow and to keep other clubs from coming in - in some cases. The beauty of this is that if your location (new location) does not have enough players then they will be pooled for games and tourneys - so it's no big deal if the numbers fall short. Have a chat with the DOC. Again - it's not a complex process.
You're not crazy. It's a big sacrifice in time, but if your child really wants to stick with soccer and the situation at the local club is what it is, moving to a club where your child seems more welcome is the right thing to do. Again, this is assuming soccer is something worth your time, and that you can handle the burden. Volk seems to have some good ideas for a longer-term fix, as well.
I'm in a similar situation, but have a better solution available to me. My son does not fit the player-type desired by our local club, so they sit him on the bench. I just moved him from our local club (15 minute drive) to a mega club in a neighboring city (25 minute drive). Ten minutes is a pretty negligible difference. Two hours is a massive drive. That's four hours round trip for training. How many days per week are you going to endure that? I suggest you schedule a meeting with your local DOC and take a good faith shot at resolving your issues face-to-face rather than just leaving. I did that over the winter and actually resolved about 75% of my problems with the club. I got the DOC to get more involved in training sessions and to agree to attend games to make sure playing time was allocated more evenly. Turns out that our DOC coaches his own team and only made it to two of our 11 games in the spring. Even at those two games, my kid didn't get the minutes I felt he deserved. So we left. But I tried to fix it before leaving and would have tried a lot harder if faced with the kind of drive you are facing.
I would consider it, if, I felt the new club offered an all round better experience for my child. There are parents of kids at my son's club that have an almost as long a drive, but they do car pool. It would be worth checking with the club to see if they have any players that live in your area that you might be able to share the driving with. Of course it would probably only work if the various age groups train in the same place at the same time, which is the case for my son's club.
Our youth league allows teams inside the five borough and outside even in long island. It once covered even new jersey do you can do a lot of traveling to get to an opponents home field. Besides playing in our home league we would also enter another league that played in new jersey on the day we did not play. So have team will travel.
My adult team played in the North East Super division it was like the champions league. So we played games all over the place. Conn., NYC, Long island and upstate NY and New Jersey, Westchester
It's very difficult to even get to 75% however. Frankly what I outlined has worked VERY well and in most cases since the parent initiates the expansion, there is often open ears available from the club as to what will work and what will not work in the parents area. Believe me - they will get you involved and your thoughts are valued. What I see mentioned above is a constant battle that really never sees all the problems resolved (and there are problems at every club). What it does in most cases is simply prolong the move to another club.
We used to be members at the neighborhood club. Fields were right across the street. 4-years of bliss. 4-years of being home in time for shower, dinner homework and in bed before 10pm. Talk about Mayberry! She progressed and decided to go for the brass ring of ECNL. She made it. Now I have a 1-hour commute 4x a week. This is her moment so I am not complaining. I am not looking forward to the next 3-years of commuting.
I decided that next year my 7 year old and I are going to *try* and learn a new language in the car during our commutes.