I know a lot of U19 teams roster age-eligible college players, maybe most (including my son's team). But I'm curious what other parents think about it. I have mixed feelings -- my son and a number of his teammates are pushed down the roster by these players, and others are pushed out entirely. But there's no doubt his team is better because these players are part of it. At one of his State Cup games against a team with no college kids, some parents from the other team's sideline yelled snide remarks at the players about being "college boys," ...
If I ran a state assocation.... I'd say you enter state cup with the team you rostered for the spring season. Assuming max 22 roster, 18 dress on game day. If the club maintains a relationship with their college players and they will come back and play, let's say you have 16 guys there all spring and 6 returning college players. I don't see why it's a problem. State cup is usually for competitive/select clubs, not community programs, right? Teams that submit a different roster for state cup vs what they played with in the spring, then yeah, that just goes on the pile of "thousands of crappy things about youth soccer in this country"
What's wrong? Last year they were "high level" HS players. Now they are a year older and still playing soccer.
Nothing wrong per se -- it's within the rules, and these kids were part of this club last year. I feel for the handful of kids who were bumped off the roster in their last year of club soccer, hence my mixed feelings. But I'm mainly curious how other people think about it since it's a new issue for us -- it's been a minor topic of conversation with a few parents.
I am one of those parents who had a child not 'good enough', not for state cup club team but for his HS varsity team and I still don't see what the mixed feelings are. You are not good enough for a state cup club team, I'm sure there is another team that kid could play for. Teams have tryouts and give everyone an opportunity. Players will find the level where they belong.
I don't understand the question either. Even if they're playing in college, they still had to be born in a certain year to qualify for State Cup. I mean, yes it would suck to attend all a team's practices, all the teams games, then when the "important" games get here not even dress, much less play. But I'm not sure how you could, even if you wanted to, write a rule to prevent it. Age groups are done based on birth year.
That's the gist of it -- this was a team (or at least a consistent player pool from which teams were chosen) and then, when it really counted, the club added what some think of as ringers (not my position, since they're kids who were in the club a year ago) and bumped other players. It isn't out of the question my son could be one of those college players coming back next year -- he'll be eligible. The rule would be simple to write, I'd think: No players with college or pro experience allowed. FWIW, I put the question today to a basketball parent (of a former DI women's player) who seemed surprised it was possible to do this, said it wouldn't work this way in hoops, ... Not sure if that's correct (or if it's an apples to apples comparison). The small-sample-size opinion here seems pretty unanimous, though, that it's fine.
Why would you need the rule though? Eligibility is based on birth year. So I think this year the 04s would be the oldest age group. So you have some 04s that have a year of college behind them and some 04s who are finishing HS. What is so special about post HS experience that should prevent those players for playing in State Cup? And you could in theory have someone as young as 15-16 get "pro experience". Sorry, sounds like a solution in search of a problem.
I'm not proposing it, simply saying it would be easy to do if you wanted to. The NCAA bars pro athletes from coming back to college competition in their sport. The Olympics barred pros (with some major caveats) for decades. You can certainly debate the wisdom of doing so. Again, this came up among some parents (and clearly was an issue for the one team that didn't have college players) so I was curious about what people here thought. It's a question, not a complaint. That said, a year of playing in college definitely makes a difference. They've spent a year playing against adults. Two of the college players on my son's team are now significantly better than they were a year ago and you can see a real difference in particular in how they handle hyper-physical play (the third I wasn't aware of last year, so who knows with him).
Actually, I'm pretty sure as long as you don't accept money from your pro career, you can still play NCAA. IMO of course, but the issue isn't "college players", it's using "ringers". Our State Cup rules say you can have 22 on a team roster, and only 18 can participate in a game. But couldn't you say the same for a player playing "up"? Let's say a U16 player is also playing on a U18 team. When it's time for State Cup, he can't play with the U16s because they've been playing with the older team? To me, it makes more sense to say in order to be eligible for state cup, a player must be on the GAME roster for at least 50%(?) of the season's games. So, if a coach wants to keep a "ringer" eligible for state cup, he needs to tie up one of his roster slots.
My experience with ringers is unless the team wins a trophy, the ringer always gets blamed for the loss.
Was the team aware that college players where coming back for the end of season and State Cup? This is one of things I have come to appreciate the most about soccer, fluid game day rosters. This develops a competitive nature for a team each and every day, practice and game. Be competitive and a player will find a roster spot and playing time. And there are a lot of ways to be competitive and help a team. The good coaches now this. Also, the boys on your sons team did not have to be better than the college players, just the others on the team. It is competitive soccer.
Also, those college players who came back were probably very hungry for playing time. As freshmen, they probably saw very limited time on the field and that is why they came back to play.
We've seen that with a guest player added to one of my son's teams for depth at a particular position for a tournament who didn't light the world on fire. The other side of that coin, I guess, is the guest players added to elevate a team that hasn't had much success who wind up playing a bigger role than anticipated. At a much-younger age my son was among two or three added to a team for a tournament -- I want to say the team hadn't won a game over some long stretch and got a win that weekend. There was some definite parent grumbling alongside the celebration.
I don't know that anyone ever said "we'll add college players for the the competition," but I don't think it's a surprise. If you've been around this club or those it regularly competes against, you'd have to know this was part of the deal (alongside not making every roster unless you're one the core group of nailed-on starters, ...).
The club my son used to play for revamped their whole 'A' team (which has always been nationally ranked) this spring. With the player limit from the same HS roster being lifted (since HS eligibility was done), nearly half the roster got changed, with another 3 or 4 players from one HS being added (multiple time state champions and the HS coached by one of the club's founders). While completely within the rules, I did have to feel a little bit for some of the players who would have been squeezed out - boys who had been on that team since U10 or U11. Granted, one or two might have dropped club soccer because (like my son) they're not moving on and playing in college. But at least the roster (as far as I know) has been intact for the whole spring season.