Thought you might enjoy this article on youth soccer academies and future plans by the Rush organization. It says the article is one of a five part series - don't know if the other articles were on other youth sports. http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/other_sports/article/0,1299,DRMN_42_4334315,00.htmlYouth sports: more than child's play Here's the urlhttp://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/other_sports/article/0,1299,DRMN_42_4334315,00.html
Here's the link to the other four parts of the article. rocky mntn news youth sports series One of the best quotes in the series is this one: Potential is measurable - passion isn't.
MLS keeps talking about youth academies for all the teams but they haven't quite happened yet. There's also talk about allowing teams to keep rights to players they develop. I would guess that there's a lot of issues involved with college eligability and signing underage players to professional contracts. No parent is going to want their kid to lose out on a college scholarship when they don't make the cut for a pro deal. Whatever deal is worked out will probably involve the NCAA and it's not going to easy to satisfy all the different parties involved. But in this case, all the Rapids would have to do is kick in some money and change the name to the Colorado Rapids Youth Academy. Interesting stuff.
One of the amazing things about the Rush soccer Academy in Colorado is that they figured out a way - by becoming a charter school overseen by the local public school district - to be subsidized by property taxes by anyone in the area, let alone people with children who may or may not play soccer. A brilliantly simple move. A side thought: I wonder if anyone who has kids who can't make a Rush team resents paying property taxes to support the Rush academy?