You're likely seeing GA training sessions - I am speaking about tier 2 and 3 - so girls as a whole. Have you seen the FCU GA teams practice? From what I know they maintain all their scheduled sessions and are just as in order as Sockers. If you're not GA you are shit binned to the NPL. Training is consistent and always maintained - but you are not allowed to train with the GA girls.
From what I know about GA and ECNL the leagues in the Midwest / mid-America are pretty comparable. Eclipse and a couple other clubs are top of the division, then bottom half is really soft. The GA mid-America is very competitive with maybe a couple bottom clubs. FCU definitely has better teams overall to Sockers in that league. Overall girls have good options in the area.
My own experience is that the Mid-America teams in the GA are tough. In fact, at last year's playoffs and this year's Champions Cup/Showcase, Mid-America teams did great, especially when playing out of the conference. I think the non Mid-America teams, other than the obvious good clubs, on the whole, are not great. FCU, Wave, Sockers, Indy Premier, Salvo, Cup, Nationals x2, Michigan Jags at most ages, and even CIU are quality clubs. I can say this, I'd take the midwest GA teams over the midwest ECNL teams overall in a heartbeat. At the same time, there were 100+ coaches in Florida watching 2006 Eclipse Select yesterday and 50+ watching 2007 Eclipse Select.
NWSL: Behavior so egregious that RD received a permanent ban from coaching adult pro woman. ECNL: Don't worry about it, we will let you keep your YOUTH club and monopoly in the Chicagoland area. US Soccer: crickets..... IWSL: crickets...... US Club: crickets....
I think about this every damn day and it makes me want to throw up. I had a man like RD in my life. I adored him. When I was 12 he started telling me secrets and having inappropriate conversations with me. I loved him and when he said “don’t tell your parents” of course I did not. After a year or two of building this kind of close relationship the adult can get away with almost anything. My junior year I wrote a paper about him as “the most influential person” in my life. He never physically harmed me but my brain is ********ed. up. to. this. day and I am 48 years old. It took becoming a parent to open my eyes - I had no idea how depraved this was until one day a family member said to my daughter, “don’t tell your Mom” and I went absolutely nuclear and started asking myself why. I am not as brave as the women who told their RD stories. It is an absolute slap in the face, a spit in the face to all of these women that any parent would support RD being in the business of youth anything. I don’t care if he is not coaching at the moment. He will coach again unless he gets a youth lifetime ban. I was a smart, high achieving, driven girl like many of your daughters. But when you are a young girl you have no wisdom to protect yourself from the tiny “micro-advances” a person like RD starts with. You can ace AP Bio and still choose to be behind a locked door with a grown man. Did you all know that the Eclipse Oakbrook offices had a massage table in the small, private room with many office/soccer supplies? Before I knew what kind of person RD was I told my daughter to never go in that room alone with an adult. I thought I was probably being overly cautious but it seemed weird to keep a massage table in the same space as those other things. This is how you forever see the world if you have a relationship with someone like him. I suppose I am wise now. ECNL events are the best way to get scouted but not the only avenue to high level college soccer. What would you say if your daughter ends up like me? I went to college on a full ride, and am now sitting here, looking for some sort of catharsis by sharing part of my story with you. Would that be a good trade for her future? You do have choices. It might feel like an impossible sacrifice but if your daughter plays for his club and wears that jersey you tell everyone that men like him are not a big deal.
Shocked to see Sockers in State Cup this year and this weekend we saw Nate Terry had a team down at the Disney College Showcase. Good to see Sockers spreading their wings!
Some of the other parents I speak with here in Chicago put a lot of emphasis on which high school their son will go to, with concern about whether it's a good soccer school. Given that fall club soccer seems mostly nonexistent here during the high school season, what are your opinions? What does the soccer landscape look like after 8th grade in Chicagoland? And is a site like MaxPreps of any use?
The parents you're talking about would move based on the quality of the high school team their son would play for (or fake an address)? Or are you strictly talking about private schools? Re MaxPreps, I wouldn't say entirely useless. If you're in an area where coaches updates scores and stats in a timely way, it's the best way I know of to check records and standings. The coaches in my son's downstate conference mostly did a good job the past couple of years. I have no idea how accurate their rankings are, but last year for Illinois 2A, they seemed out of whack the first few weeks of the season and then sort of righted themselves, at least for the teams down here. Of course, none of that tells you how good a given coach or staff is.
It's both private and also those schools with academic centers that one appies to get into, e.g. Whitney Young, Jones, Payton, Kenwood, and Lane Tech.
Chicagoland soccer is a great resource for HS soccer in the Chicagoland area. https://www.chicagolandsoccer.org/ It was started by a local reporter that covered HS soccer for the Herald and Times.
Are you saying some parents will move or switch to other "in district" schools to play for a better team? My opinion is just play HS - it's super fun and gives players an elevated experience on the field that they will not get in the club environment. Don't treat it like club and go hunting for a coach or H/S team. Diversity adds character for players and teaches them to adapt, listen and execute differently. Max Preps - you should be looking at GotSoccer mate - that's where the real stats are
I haven't heard of anyone switching schools to play for a different team, but I have heard that it is part of the calculus in picking a high school. I know neighborhood kids who go or have gone to Rochelle Zell (Deerfield), Lane Tech, Lycee Francaise, St. Ignatius, Mt. Carmel, Kenwood, Whitney Young, Payton, Jones, Bennet, and Lab for high school (six of those are private, five of them are public, and those are just the ones off of the top of my head), all commuting from a neighborhood about 8 miles south of the Loop. With such a plethora of choices of schools in Chicago, figuring out which school will be a good fit soccer-wise is a consideration.
That sounds sillly and a bit psychotic. If your kid is that good - they should be playing club year - round. If they are not, then they should enjoy the time with the kids they grew up with - at the school they should be normally be at.
Yeah - I think so. I mean as far as I know, you don't get many - if any at all, college scouts are going to high school games.
Definitely not a guarantee. Depends on what sectional the team is in. Some of the brackets have several stacked teams. In the past New Trier, Evanston, Loyola, Glenbrook North and Stevenson have all had multiple ECNL, GA or National League players on their rosters and been in the same sectional. Same with all the Naperville/Plainfield schools. Same with LT, Hinsdale Central, Benet, Downers Grove Schools. With the ECNL teams allowing kids to play high school now, the quality is going way up.
LOL. That doesn't reflect the reality of living in the city. Even in elementary school, the little club team DS was on didn’t have more than 2 kids at the same school. We had 8 schools represented on a 10 or 11 player roster. The kids know each other from the park and from activities, in addition to school. When my DS's 8th grade class graduates in a couple years it will be another diaspora. It's not like when I grew up going to a public school in a town with one high school and 6 elementary schools and we all knew each other from school, church/synagogue, and soccer.
I've known a few exceptionally skilled players who decided to play HS all 4 years who could have easily placed on an ECNL or GA team. Also, perhaps there is more scouting in the ECNL / GA, but there are players at that caliber not playing in those leagues. Such a shame they may go unnoticed -- but not everyone is chasing scholarships or the pros.
I would agree with that. I would not agree with the statement that 3 prem1 players on any HS team is a guaranteed semifinal at state, which was said.
When you say college level, do you mean DI? Or I, II, III, juco, ...? There aren't many 3A teams downstate so my son's team didn't see many in his four seasons, but the better 2As he played against (and his team) all seemed to have more kids than that with talent that would allow them to play at some level in college (granted, many of them choose not to).