Growing Popularity of HS Soccer in the Heartland

Discussion in 'High School' started by Lewis N. Clark, May 12, 2017.

  1. Lewis N. Clark

    Jul 1, 2014
    Club:
    Sporting Kansas City
    A local Spanish language TV station is livestreaming the Nebraska state high school tournament on facebook and on their webpage.

    The Nebraska public stations have shown the finals, but broadcasting the quarter- and semi-finals is something new (let alone in Spanish). If you would like to see some of the coverage, you can watch live & replayed on ncnsportsnow.com.

    You might like the quarterfinal between state powers Creighton Prep and their rival Omaha South: http://ncnsportsnow.com/broadcast/boys-state-soccer-creighton-prep-vs-omaha-south-in-spanish/.

    Action returns after a rain delay at the 8 minute mark (has a nice shot of the crowd and skyline at Morrison Stadium in Omaha). Around the 20 minute mark it starts to rain yellow cards. Apparently the official spoke to the teams during the delay and told them he was going to be strict on the "extra-curricular activity". Omaha South picked up a red card and lost the match.
     
    bigredfutbol repped this.
  2. soccersubjectively

    soccersubjectively BigSoccer Supporter

    Jan 17, 2012
    Dallas
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
  3. bigredfutbol

    bigredfutbol Moderator
    Staff Member

    Sep 5, 2000
    Woodbridge, VA
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    My hometown--a Nebraska town of just over 4,000, the county seat of a rural county with a total population under 10,000--has added HS soccer this school year. We didn't have soccer growing up at all. No fields, nothing. Didn't even have proper soccer balls in our PE classes. Now there are rec league fields in one of the parks, and the HS is fielding both Boys and Girls teams.
     
  4. Hawkfan_08

    Hawkfan_08 Member

    Seattle Sounders
    United States
    Jul 8, 2017
    Iowa has been doing pretty well in that department as well. What's odd is we get games from Illinois on TV as well. We have had games on tv for state or live streamed. Unfortunately, the Iowa High School Athletic Association(boys) signed a deal with Comcast so some state games (for all sports) are only live streamed.

    What I have been impressed with is the level of D1 talent coming out of girls high school programs. The team I was an assistant for had girls commit to Nebraska, Michigan, Northwestern, Iowa St., Butler, Colgate and UNI in the 5 years I was there.
     
  5. msilverstein47

    msilverstein47 Member+

    Jan 11, 1999
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    we have some huge HUGE problems ahead:

    https://www.socceramerica.com/publi...finds-big-drop-in-soccer-participation-i.html

    The top three team sports children ages 6-12 played on a regular basis -- basketball, baseball and soccer -- saw declines in participation, but none like soccer has.

    In 2010, 3,016,000 children 6-12 played soccer on a regular basis, but that number was only 2,303,000 in 2016, a drop of 23.5 percent.
     
  6. Lewis N. Clark

    Jul 1, 2014
    Club:
    Sporting Kansas City
    Wow. Thanks for finding that. I hope that article is on the top of desks at the USSF and comes up when seeking the new president.
     
  7. lncolnpk

    lncolnpk Member+

    Mar 5, 2012
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    soccersubjectively repped this.
  8. Lewis N. Clark

    Jul 1, 2014
    Club:
    Sporting Kansas City
    I was reading an article examining the impact of the Philadelphia Union stadium 10 years later. In general, the club "over-promised" regarding the economic development that the stadium would spark (nothing new there). But then I came across these statements:

    "Every MLS club is required to invest in youth soccer in its home market...The Union is at the vanguard of those investments league-wide... But whether they’ve measurably increased that output is an open and thorny question...In Philadelphia, for instance, youth soccer registrations have dropped 70 percent in the last 15 years... The professionalization of youth teams has prioritized earlier identification of talent, hastening the age at which players are jettisoned and increasing burnout rate, which in turn suppresses adult participation. Instead of the 13/14-year-old drop-off point Branscome sees uniformly across most sports, the line at which kids drift from soccer specialization has crept up to age 11 or 12...The (development academy) system has sparked what Branscome calls “an arms race.” The more pro clubs invest, the more every entity in the chain must spend to keep up...That raises costs and incentivizes mergers to match scale and catchment areas. High school soccer has been hollowed out, as has every other level up the hierarchy, from neighborhood clubs to state select teams."

    Wow. I would have thought that the MLS club's presence would have raised interest and therefore participation among youth. Apparently there is an unintended consequence of the Union's Development Academy stifling other youth organizations.

    I'm still a little suspicious of the article. There could be other factors. But numbers like that are eye-opening. Given that youth development has been identified as a priority, I hope the USSF is looking at this.

    article:
    "A Stadium in Chester: Union’s community promises have fallen short"
    http://www.delcotimes.com/sports/20...r-unions-community-promises-have-fallen-short
     
  9. Lewis N. Clark

    Jul 1, 2014
    Club:
    Sporting Kansas City
    I found this to be interesting:

    http://www.omaha.com/neprepzone/soc...cle_f945eb53-3e64-5635-a238-fbf7f424eed6.html

    Kearney (NE) High School is located 200 miles west of Omaha in a town of 30,000 in a rural part of the state. The high school has 1400 students grades 9-12. Omaha's Creighton Prep High School is an elite private school of 1000 all male students populated largely by west Omaha (financially well-off) suburbanites. Prep has a very strong soccer program. I suspect that many of their players come from the "Suburban Soccer Industrial Complex" of pay-for-play travel teams, large soccer multi-field complexes, indoor facilities, etc.

    That a school like Kearney could beat Creighton Prep shows the deepening of "soccer culture" farther away from the urban centers. That a rural high school could have the talent and coaching to "dethrone" last year's state champion and the state's powerhouse team speaks well to the growth and development of the sport.
     
  10. Lewis N. Clark

    Jul 1, 2014
    Club:
    Sporting Kansas City
    Wow. Kearney's improbable run at the Nebraska State Championships continue. Yesterday they knocked off the #1 Omaha South by a score of 1-0. South High sits in the middle of Omaha's Latino district, and its teams are made up of highly skilled Hispanic players- many of whom get soccer scholarships to college.

    Kearney now plays Omaha Westside High School for the state championship on Tuesday. Westside sits, as the name suggests, in the suburban part of west Omaha. It is a wealthy district with a very successful athletic program, likely taking advantage of the youth on the year round select teams.

    Again what impresses me is that a team in a small city far away from the soccer resources of Omaha or Lincoln can assemble a team this good is a sign of the deepening and expansion of soccer culture. In other words, they are playing really good soccer in the rural areas.
     
  11. sam_gordon

    sam_gordon Member+

    Feb 27, 2017
    I don't know that your example means the soccer culture is expanding. Kearney could have gotten a perfect storm... good athletes with good soccer skills and knowledge, and a good coach that knows how to get the best out of his team.

    Look at the movie Hoosiers. Yes, it's a movie, but it's based a real (small) school that was able to defeat bigger schools to win the state title. Would you say since a small school won the Indiana state basketball title that was an "deepening and expansion of basketball culture"?

    Are the number of kids trying out for high school soccer increasing? Is the skill level of those kids increasing? Is attendance at HS, college, semi-pro, and pro games rising? Are there more kids participating in soccer outside of school (especially at the middle school & high school ages)? If THOSE answers are "yes", then I think you can say the soccer culture is expanding.
     
  12. Lewis N. Clark

    Jul 1, 2014
    Club:
    Sporting Kansas City
    Kearney did it!

    Last night they became the first high school outside of Omaha (900,000 metro area population) and Lincoln (350,000 metro area pop.) to win a class A championship in either men's or women's soccer in the 31 years the state championships have been held. In the past 30 years, in men's class A Omaha area teams have won 23 championships, Lincoln teams 7. In women's class A, Omaha area teams have won 28 championships (after Monday now it's 29), Lincolns teams 2.

    Also yesterday South Sioux City HS won their 2nd class B championship in 5 years. South Sioux City is a town of 15,000 across the river from Sioux City Iowa. Many people are drawn there by the meat packing industry. The majority of the soccer team are Hispanics as is their coach (the school is 63% Hispanic; 77% minority overall). Even class B soccer has been dominated by Omaha and Lincoln area schools in the past, although Scotus Catholic HS in Columbus NE (90 miles west of Omaha, 25,000 population) has won a few.

    Does this mean the soccer culture is really spreading into rural areas, like sam_gordon asks above? Is this just a "one-off" or is it a trend?

    I guess we'll have to watch for a few more years. But this year both the class A & B men's championships were won by high schools outside the Omaha-Lincoln corridor.
     
  13. mwulf67

    mwulf67 Member+

    Sep 24, 2014
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
    In BFE Nebraska? Yeah, I am gonna lean toward that doesn’t just happen….

    Milan’s championship, I would argue, did deepen and expansion basketball culture in this country, so much so they made a movie about it 30 years later, which since then, that movie has become ingrained of our overall (sports) culture…

    Culture is not a just a bunch of statistics or data points….a lot of a culture is shared ideas, beliefs, experiences, knowledge, traditions, bla, bla, bla…the underdog/Cinderella story is one any sports culture's strongest/most important story-lines…any (sports) culture worth a damn has a few….
     
  14. sam_gordon

    sam_gordon Member+

    Feb 27, 2017
    Sure you can have good athletes in BFE Nebraska. I'm not saying they'd beat FCB, but a small school winning a state title doesn't equate to the "soccer culture" (whatever that is) expanding.
     
  15. mwulf67

    mwulf67 Member+

    Sep 24, 2014
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
    Sure, good athletes without good soccer skills and knowledge are a dime and dozen…

    But, good athletes with good soccer skills and knowledge….that doesn’t just happen…even more so with a bunch corn-fed, white boys from BEF Nebraska…ok, I am stereotyping here a bit, at 30,000 Kearney is hardly small town America, but we are still talkin’ f-ing Nebraska….

    If you don’t know what it is (soccer culture), how do you have an opinion on whether its expanding or not?
     
  16. sam_gordon

    sam_gordon Member+

    Feb 27, 2017
    I think you're missing my point. They don't need to be the best all around, they need to be the best in Nebraska. Again, pick any sport... I'm sure you'll find a number of smaller schools that won state titles.

    You are right, it doesn't "just happen", but I don't think you can say "see what they did" and then claim it's proof the soccer culture is expanding.
     
  17. mwulf67

    mwulf67 Member+

    Sep 24, 2014
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
    You can only play who’s in front of you…can only assume the relative competition they faced, especially in the playoffs, was tough by local standards…

    And think you miss my point…it’s not only the victory, its everything behind it that lead to it…

    Expanding, a healthy sign, whatever…it seems like a positive thing to me…far more then the same old big schools, from the big city, won yet again…
     
  18. Lewis N. Clark

    Jul 1, 2014
    Club:
    Sporting Kansas City
    This really caught my attention. Lewis Central HS won the Iowa 2A championship. LC is on the edge of Council Bluffs IA, which is on the east edge of Omaha. LC has been known as a very strong football school (I lived a few miles from there and didn't realize they had a soccer team). Here's the start of today's news article:

    Iowa began its 25th spring state tournament in boys soccer late last week, and Lewis Central had been little more than an afterthought. The Titans entered the 2019 edition with zero state-tournament victories. By contrast Cedar Rapids Xavier, Tuesday’s opponent, had 29 state wins. Lewis Central is no longer an afterthought. The ninth-rated Titans slayed top-rated Xavier, a seven-time champion, 1-0 in the Class 2-A championship game. It capped a tournament in which L.C. also ousted No. 3 Storm Lake and No. 8 Hudson.

    Maybe LC's victory is just an outlier, a perfect storm of a few really good athletes. I think it's a sign of a cultural shift and the growth of soccer at the grass roots.
     
  19. bigredfutbol

    bigredfutbol Moderator
    Staff Member

    Sep 5, 2000
    Woodbridge, VA
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    So my home town in Nebraska has around 4200 people, in the middle of a rural county of just under 10,000 people in total. We didn't have soccer--at ALL--growing up, but four years ago the high school added both boys & girls soccer. Neither team are great (most of the kids only play recreational as kids--but that's still more opportunity than we had growing up) but there's been improvement and growing respect in the community.

    One of the boy graduating seniors--the first class to have played all four years--is going to London to attend college while playing for Crystal Palace's U-19 team. It's some sort of program that a handful of universities and their local clubs in the UK have set up for foreign players.

    I doubt this kid is going to be anything more than a college student who has the time of his life training with an actual professional soccer team in England, but the fact that he's even doing this--that he wanted to--is another sign of soccer seeping it's way into American life.
     
    CoachP365 repped this.
  20. CornfieldSoccer

    Aug 22, 2013
  21. Backyard Bombardier

    Manchester United
    United States
    Jun 25, 2019
    There is no question that soccer's popularity is growing in the midwest...and will continue to as parents steer their boys away from football, even here.

    Glad to see some other Cornhuskers around here too.
     
  22. mopdogsoc

    mopdogsoc Member

    Chelsea
    United States
    Mar 16, 2021
    I grew up in South Dakota and no one I knew played soccer. We had a golf course and tennis courts and baseball diamonds and footballs fields in my small town, but no soccer. It's nice to hear that the sport is making its way to the rural midwest.
     

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