'It’s only working for the white kids': American soccer's diversity problem

All MLS Academies are free sans DC United.

This still leaves pay for play in vast swaths of the country and at the younger age levels.

The only way to eliminate pay for pay completely is:

1) Soccer becomes so big that their a lots of professional clubs with academies and affiliate academies subsidies by those clubs down to the youth level. Basically the European Soccer Model.

2) Middle School and High School soccer becomes an adequate training system for soccer like it is the rest of the sports in the United States by and large. The difference with soccer though is it is more skilled based and most team sports are more athlete, body type based. Coaches also typically have to also be teachers in the school district. The seasons are short and most teams can't be stocked with high enough quality player or have enough adequate competition. Lots about the model don't lend itself to working with soccer. Plus all of those other sports also have pay for play models.

So basically you are going to be stuck with pay for play in the United States as neither of those options is likely for the foreseeable future. The best you can do it hope to find the best solutions with-in the current framework.

 

Soccer is not special. At the level we are talking about none of that is really true. Basketball is just as skilled based as soccer, and while height is starting to come into play at the high school level for the most part teams may only have one or two players taller than 6'3, with the majority being 6' or shorter. Athleticism at that level plays just as big of a role in soccer as any other sport.

I don't know about other areas of the US, but at least in Indiana the teaching thing is mostly out of convenience than anything. Coaching at that level is not typically a full time job, so if the coach doesn't have a job outside of the school they ask them to teach PE or something easy to justify paying them a full time wage.

 

Yeah, I never got this argument. Kids can start playing soccer at an earlier age than sports like basketball or baseball because the basic requirements (running and kicking) is something a 5 year-old can do.

 

I think soccer is special in that EXPOSURE is needed at an earlier age to produce a proficient base technical skill set. Akin to skating with hockey players. Time on the ball for ages 5-9 is crucial. Basketball and American football for example have many many pros who did not begin playing until the teens etc.

All that in mind, the pay to play thing..I don't see a way out of the current system. I also do not see it as the roadblock. Its INTEREST period. Even if we paid into the government and THEY distributed "free" athletics, the question would be how much is allotted to the game as opposed to the more popular sports.

 

I think it bears noting the obvious that HS coaches have people to answer to also.

I took my son to a soccer camp this summer. I talked at length one day with a counselor\coach regarding soccer in the US. He was from an academy overseas had married here and has been in the club system coaching here for about ten years . I talked for about an hour one day about playing here vs Europe, differences etc problems, club politics. I thought the guy really had some good stuff to say.

I see him the very next day, and he tells me he just got hired as a HS coach. I said congrats thats fantastic as he was a young guy...I asked how does this work are you supposed to develop these kids or are you supposed to win...He smiled and said thats the first thing I asked the AD....am I to develop these kids or am I to win.. The AD gestured to the trophies and plaques behind him and said "what do you think...." We both had a real good laugh with the previous days conversation still fresh...

Anyway not unlike many of us you can ideas and opinions but as the song goes "we all serve somebody."

 

The point of high school and college sports is, theoretically at least, not even supposed to be about winning. It's supposed to be about making the athletes better people by teaching them things like sportsmanship, teamwork, discipline and the like. Of course, that ideal tends to get pushed aside in the pursuit of trophies these days.

If high school sports actually went back to focusing on instilling those original qualities in young athletes, they would probably do a better job of player development than they currently do.

 

"These days?"

I'm a bit disappointed that a "nonexistent past-era ideal" is being trotted out on this topic. I understand it in the political realm, because politics is completely insane.

 

I don't think developing players and winning are mutually exclusive, especially at the high school level. At that level if you do a better job of developing your players you are most likely going to be winning more games and trophies.

 

So Philly stopped charging in the last year?

 

That's almost guaranteed. The seasons imposed by the various state boards of education are way, way too short for any of that, and the restrictions many states place on working with coaches outside of the season are way too strict. Ideally, soccer at that level would span most of 3 academic quarters.

 

Some of the best players in the world started off dirt poor playing in the streets with no shoes and sticks as goal posts.

 

I agree with you that the bigger problem is not 'pay to play' or something like that but the lack of a soccer culture

 

The obvious, yes developing young adults as well rounded people, any coach is an unmitigated success.

And developing and winning are not mutually exclusive.

I do think giving a mandate TO win definitely paints every facet of the coaches behavior therein after. I would say "development" with a big D is probably out the window. IMO not developing players any longer but instead completely focused on burying weakness and playing to your strengths. Your first day on the job you would assess your players and say how am I going to win with what I have NOT how do I develop what I have. Not that development cant or would not happen but it is secondary.

I think at the highest levels of this sport when concepts are introduced and a style of play is the goal, a more realistic approach to wins and losses should be taken.

Can a coach who develops players very well, lose alot ??? I think he can. Can he win, sure...A coach who develops players well and loses is a bad coach at the school I have provided in my example.

Does a coach who develops players with the intended result of getting wins look very different than a coach who develops players to become better players ?

 

Okay, kids from all over get funneled to the big clubs. I'm curious how this works. Where do they live? Do whole families up and move? Is there a whole group of kids dropping out of school to chase a deam? Host families don't eeem to be a thing in soccer and if they are, how do they get in to school districts away from custodial parent residences?

 

RSL, Philadelphia, and Vancouver have residential academies. Boarding schools with a big soccer component, basically. The kids still get their high school diplomas.

It's not that different from Europe, where top prospects have usually already transferred to a big club by age 14-15.

 

I know there are boarding schools, a small handful, with exhorbitant tuitions. The boarding school angle supports the premise of this thread. There are what, 122 Us development academies across the country? The exceptional residential program, 1? 2? hardly accomodates any significant number of kids. This is a major issue for me personally as my 13 year old son is one of these kids. We live far off from the nearest location -- for the last three years I have been driving four to five hours each week in order to participate. This last year he missed nearly one Month of school. Over that time he has participated in next to zero training sessions given the accessibility issue and yet he has still become ranked and actively identified as a member of the national pool. Now it's time to join the full academy,with the wind at his back, to see how far he can go with actual academy training throughout the week. The club helped us find a host family in town. Now we're learning, despite all of that, in addition to the active support of US soccer, the local school has to admit him and by all accounts that appears extremely unlikely. We are faced with dropping out of school (absurd) or dropping out of the academy just as he starts dipping his toes into elite status. The system is weighted heavily against talented rural kids, at the very least.

 

Does a school not have the obligation to take a pupil in?
For instance when Canadian de Guzman entered the Feyenoord Academy at 11 years, he was taken in by a host parent family and just by being in the Netherlands he was was obliged to go to school too.

 

If it's public school we're all talking about, the boy isn't an actual resident of the town/city -- he is simply staying with a host family. Therefore I doubt there is any obligation on their part to take him in.

He would have to pay for private school which would probably defeat the purpose of attending a free soccer academy.

 

It is far from ideal, but in a country as large as the United States any system will always be weighted heavily against kids that live far from major metropolitan centers. It is also that way in other more established sports as well.

The best case is lots of feeder programs throughout the country that feed to MLS Academies that have a boarding school option that tuition is free for the highest tier prospects. This is obviously years and years away from becoming a reality at least from the boarding school perspective. The feeder clubs are being set-up, but only 2 American MLS boarding schools plus Bradenton at this point.

There is a kid from Hilton Head Island in SC who family is relocating to Atlanta for their son to play with Atlanta United Academy. Kid played in PDL and is committed to Clemson as a SO in HS, but obviously their will never be a high quality soccer option on HHI. It is 2 hours to the closest USSDA program in Charleston and they are bottom feeders in USSDA and over 45 minutes to Savannah, which likely has at best an average quality travel team.

Soccer (and plenty of other sports) is what it is at this point. A family must decide between making tremendous sacrifices to see where better coaching and better exposure takes them or make the best of the local options. I do believe if a kid is talented enough in whatever discipline that it will work out. The local options might end up being a more circuitous route, but cream ultimately rises to the top. There is always the risk that you make these sacrifices and the child becomes nothing more than a very good U18 players, swimmer, etc.

Tough choices obviously and hope that as the years go by that better options will become available even though ultimately it likely will never be a great solution for people that live far from metropolitan options in any sport. Best of luck.

 

Well said. This is infrastructure in its infancy. In a well developed soccer country pitfalls are a plenty...Here as things stand pitfalls are ten thousand fold and yes a leap of significant faith is the given.

 

The boarding school idea isn't too far fetched. Look at gymnastics on the women's side. Those girls didn't learn their craft at their perspective hometown gyms. They sacrificed and moved to areas where they can perfect and hone their skills

 

Back to the original title.
Watching the Olympics, it seems that there are quite a few sports that only work for white people.
Why aren't there more inner city synchronized divers? White water kayakers? Volleyball players? Swimmers?

These are all pretty expensive sports to play. Don't just pick on soccer.