Brigham Young University to the PDL

Its odd alright.....

 

Interesting stuff... will also be keeping a close watch on this one, too-- as should any American soccer fan, in their right mind, as well as the collegiate-vs.-professional sports debate in general.

What the BYU coach is essentially admitting, in subtext, is that NCAA soccer, and particularly that in the Mountain West conference (or whatever affiliation thay have had in collegiate soccer), isn't cutting the mustard.

Definitely a pre-emptive strike against the inferior level of play in the collegiate soccer ranks.

 

The BYU team that's going PDL is their club team. Does BYU have a varsity program? Also, does club ball face the same restrictions as varsity ball with regards to practice hours, etc?

 

None of the state's three major universities has soccer as a men's varsity sport. Utah has always been a basketball state. My guess is that basketball (both Utah's men's and women's teams are now ranked in the top 25) and football are too important to the major schools (Utah State, U of Utah and BYU) to shift money to fund men's soccer.

Utah and BYU have credible women's teams. But, being a Utah alum and not having a men's soccer team to also root for pisses me off.

 

An interesting note from the article. It mentioned that they average about 1,000 paid attendance today and they expect it to go up. If that's the case, they will be on the upper end of supported teams in the PDL.

Also this may be a way for some other big schools to get involved with men's soccer at a higher level. There are some big schools (for example Texas) with pretty good club programs. Also by retaining club status, they aren't effected by title 9, because their budget doesn't come from the athletic department.

 

Coaches

Are the coaches paid by BYU? Does BYU underwrite any loses?

 

Oh I think this is GREAT !!!!

It is not unusual at all in Europe to have a University team play competitive league soccer. In Rumania there are at least two university teams in the first division, and if you look at the Mexican league they also have one or two. Certainly this is not a professional team, but I think it is a great idea to develope our young soccer players. We need more like it. WONDERFUL !

 

I also think this is a good idea, and I'd like to see other school follow BYU's lead.

Obviously, PDL is not for every school, but it's a good option for schools that don't have a varsity program but do have an active club scene.

Like Soccerfan said, anything that grows the development of soccer in this country is something to support. And it seems like this does that.

We'll see how it goes. I hope it works out.

 

Wow. This is one of the more ingenious ideas I've seen, I don't recall hearing anything like this conjured up before.

Time will tell if it will be a success or not, but conceptually, it sounds great.

 

This is ingenious. Of course the best way to go for amateur players is to play college ball AND PDL during the college off-season.

Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if this opened the door for some schools to drop men's soccer to comply with Title IX, which would not be good.

 

Due to Title IX, BYU has never had an NCAA men's squad, but the team has dominated collegiate club soccer for the last decade.

Their roster is mostly made up of players from Utah and California. Because BYU is a Latter-day Saint (Mormon) school, BYU has also had LDS players from Scotland, Ireland, Brazil, Mexico, etc. They spend their off-season playing and beating Mexican and European reserve squads.

I did my undergrad at 'the Y,' and I'm excited to see how this works out for them. Check out the team @ http://soccer.byu.edu/chhp/extramurals/soccer/home.html

 

Check out their upcoming schedule:

http://soccer.byu.edu/chhp/extramurals/soccer/2003_schedule.htm

- Paul

 

I think this is brilliant idea and it might be able to save some struggling soccer programs in big cities like TCU and FIU who have killed or are killing men's programs. Put USL teams in Miami and Fort Worth this way.

College kids play for PDL teams anyways - this might actually enable students to concetrate more on their studies if they don't have to miss half of the fall semester playing games.

 

No real other choice

As a big soccer fan and recent BYU alumnus I also find this interesting. But really BYU had little other options. Wrestling and M Gymnastics went down to appease the Title IX gods (The AD at the time was a former All American Wrestler for BYU, tough medicine). Mens Volleyball is a two time NAtional Champ and draws 5 thousand a match, so they are staying put, and Club soccer wasn't much of a real challange for them anymore.
They have good support. There is no real conference or other affiliation for BYU, and the new schedule may actually cut on travel costs. But attendance may dive in the summer months when fewer students are around. Personally I would prefer to see them as D-1 with scholorships and a chance to take on the Clemsons and Virginias of D-1. But this is about the only way for BYU players to get draft recognition and added support. I doubt the players will ever be paid, us Mormons are known to be a little tight with the cash. But they could compete and hopefully get attention brought to the current state of mens college sports not on ESPN every night

 

I am back in this thread, I just can't say enough of how briliant idea this is . Soccer development in our country seems to stagnate once kids get to high school and big time when in college . I have a good feeling that this is just the begining of a trend to come. This should work perfectly and I expect more colleges and Universities to follow suit.

 

I think one of the reasons that BYU has for making this jump to the PDL is that its club team has a paid attendance of over 1000 a game. A similar division 1 school or a school that contains a club team with a much smaller attendance figure wouldn't seem so wise to do it.

I wonder what other college club soccer teams have similar attendence figures? I know of other Division 1 varsity programs that do relatively well at the gate. SLU, UVA, and JMU on a good day.

 

two more articles

Here are two more articles on the subject. Both good reads:

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,460031042,00.html

http://www.sltrib.com/2003/feb/02262003/sports/33046.asp

 

I know a guy who is on the BYU team....
He played with me on my varstiy team in my highschool in brazil...he was our captain....he is brazilian....good player.....hope he tears things up.......

his name is Felipe Amorim.....watch out for him....

 

BYU has dominated club soccer for a long time. Back in the 70's, when U San Fransisco won the NCAA a bunch of times, BYU played them in a scrimmage and they were ahead 8-0 at half-time. The San Fransicso coach stopped the game.
This is an interesting developtment, Provo is an area with lots of families who play soccer and their could be quite a gate tournout for these games. BYU is also one of the universities where their summer session, although down, still has tons of students on campus. They should do well,

 

anyone know how many garanteed home games they will have and how big is the stadium they play in ?

if they got 1,100 for college attendance i would guess they could double that, they could be making in excess of $ 10 k a game, with sponsorship , this could be a money making affair, I assume this players do not get paid

 

Really just bleachers

It is a hangout thing to do, sports at BYU are like that. Real social event with no drinking and all, you got to do something. Hope it catches on in spring. The field is just about 1500 seats worth of bleachers, like a small varsity football field.

 

That didn't happen all the time...

In '75 the Dons came up to Provo and handed us our lunches, dinners, and next morning's breakfasts, 5-2.

I was on the bench that night - thank goodness, or it might have been worse...