This is not about churches not wanting kids to play soccer. Instead, its about a recent article in Slate.com on why people join strict churches, which you can find at http://www.slate.com/id/2118313 You might ask why this is relevant to youth soccer? The relevance, IMHO, is that the reasons some people spend every weekend facilitating their kid's youth soccer experience has much to do with the reasons why some people join strict churches. My local paper ran a series a few months back about youth sports, and concluded that scholarships were the reason why people invest so much in these youth activities. However, that runs contrary to my own experience. A scholarship would be great, if it happens, but obviously the numbers suggest that it won't happen. For instance, in my state there are three levels of "State Cup". For all three levels, at girls U18/19, there were approximately 120 teams competing. Most of those teams are not ultra-competitive, but still they are playing all the way through high school and probably at least 100 of the teams, if not more, do not have a single player who will qualify for a scholarship. My own kid is a few years away and may qualify for a scholarship, but thats not why we make the committment we make. My older kid played all thru high school and never played in college. The slate.com article on why people attend strict churches is based upon a study by economist Laurence Iannaccone. The article states, "Iannaccone starts by asking why people join strict churches, given that doing so exacts such a high price. Eccentric customs invite ridicule and persecution; membership in a marginal church may limit chances for social and economic advancement; rules of observance bar access to apparently innocent pleasures; the entire undertaking squanders time that could have been spent amusing or improving oneself. According to Iannaccone, the devout person pays the high social price because it buys a better religious product. The rules discourage free riders, the people who undermine group efforts by taking more than they give back. The strict church is one in which members with weak commitments have been weeded out. Raising fees for membership doesn't work nearly as well as raising the opportunity cost of joining, because fees drive away the poor, who have the least to lose when they volunteer their time, and who also have the most incentive to pray. Fees also encourage the rich to substitute money for piety. What does the pious person get in return for all of his or her time and effort? A church full of passionate members; a community of people deeply involved in one another's lives and more willing than most to come to one another's aid; a peer group of knowledgeable souls who speak the same language (or languages), are moved by the same texts, and cherish the same dreams. Religion is a " 'commodity' that people produce collectively," says Iannaccone. "My religious satisfaction thus depends both on my 'inputs' and those of others." If a rich and textured spiritual experience is what you seek, then a storefront Holy Roller church or an Orthodox shtiebl is a better fit than a suburban church made up of distracted, ambitious people who can barely manage to find a morning free for Sunday services, let alone several evenings a week for text study and volunteer work." To me, that is exactly why people get so involved in competitive youth sports. Passionate members, knowledgable souls who speak the same language and cherish the same dreams. The article also says, "Among the nondevout, piety of this magnitude is often dismissed as a social pathology. The mildly religious are more respectful but no more helpful; they just shake their heads and say, fine for them, but not for me. Not even the pious have figured out how to communicate to the rest of the world why strict religious observance appeals to them. They just say that they do what they do because God wants them to do it—an argument that simply isn't going to make sense to a nonbeliever. " How many times has a relative of mine questioned the investment our family puts into youth soccer? And when the non-believing newspaper runs a series, they look for a reason this is all happening, and come to the wrong conclusion, that it is scholarships or living thru the kid. It will be interesting what happens when our last kid ages out of youth soccer. What will we do, when the motivation for the communities that we built simply vanishes?
We simply move on to the "next level", and that most likely would be the "College Soccer" discussion forum, if our kids are one of the very few talented players who made it to D1 level. If our kids do not play college soccer or when our kids become adults (i,e. hopefully graduate out of college), we could then move on and read or participate in the MLS, National Men's or Women's or International Soccer forums. There will certainly come another set of soccer parents who will join the "Youth Soccer" stage. The bottom line is that more and more Americans who would be more and better informed (i.e. more sophisticated) about this "beautiful game".
Very intriguing article. Thanks for sharing it. Soccer definitely provides an organizing principle in our lives! We aren't in this soccer "business" for the economic return. If we had saved and invested all the money we have spent for monthy fees, tournaments, travel, camps, uniforms, etc., our children's college funds would be much healthier!
Not a perfect analogy, but a provocative one nevertheless. You're right, (at least boys') parents don't spend money & time on soccer because of scholarships. I know parents who believe that they are preparing their U12 kids for professional soccer. (Yes, they do.) I know parents who expect their U12 kids to be playing D1 college soccer. But I never heard a single parent ever refer to, ask a question about, or mention scholarships.
An interesting thesis, but flawed, at least for me, in a couple of ways. First, the experience of playing at top level in athletics is not about the parent communities. It's about the experience for the kids. I happen to like all the parents on my son's club, but whether I do or don't doesn't really matter. It's not about me or any other parent. Second, part of the elite soccer experience is having your kid learn what it means to be involved in a quality endeavor. REAL quality, not the crap he or she might hear about in school or from peers. You kid will know what quality means, they feel it, they experience it. And since they have experienced real points of comparison ("this is where I used to be, this is where I am now") they can then immediately extrapolate that to other areas of life -- business, the arts, all kinds of human activity. This ability is a huge benefit as a kid moves into adulthood. Third, competitive elite sports is about learning the value of teamwork and collective effort. About asserting yourself when it counts, and subordinating yourself when required. Finally, the best kind of high level soccer team should be objectively meritocratic, or as close as possible to that. And while bonding with one's teammates always happens, and is good, the real lesson to be learned is that there may be one or two or more kids there who you DON'T like but are there because they have the talent and ability to be there. Learning to work with folks you DON'T like, and to get the job done, to pull for a common goal is a huge lesson. So in that sense it's not a religous-like ethic, where everyone feels warmly about everyone else, but rather the professional ethic, where the goal is what matters, not the comfort of community.
There is also the professional ethic in separating emotion from merit with respect to team formation. Friends get cut. Players who aren't friends get added. If you want to play at a high level, you learn to deal with it. And you realize that someday, at some level, you'll get cut too. It's something of a cold-hearted business, this youth soccer thing. While loyalty does play a place in the equation, at the end of the day at the high level it's about coaches finding better kids to replace the ones they have, and kids finding better teams to replace the one that they have. There are hard lessons to be learned from the word "professionalism." I do disagree with Karl on the parent thing, though. As the kids hit high school (and to some extent) junior high, the youth soccer thing revolves around them. At the ULittle age, though, it's a kid/parent/family thing, and family-to-family relationships are fairly powerful. It's more churchlike at the younger ages.
And, of course, less serious at younger ages, at least for rational people. The hypercompetitive nut parents will always be that, however.
This article has little to do with soccer but a great deal more to do with the author's thinnly veiled attack on religion that does not meet her own view of how she believes individuals should be free to live their own life. In her view, the church should change to fit the individual rather than the religion changing the person. I won't go into all that because she obviously has her own bias and so will most who rally around her viewpoint. My view is obvious; if the religion doesn't make YOU a better person, then you shouldn't bother. But if you want to improve, then you do what the religion teaches. That is where the link to youth soccer comes into play. Having coached high level youth and HS for 20 seasons, it is my experience that players and parents that come to the team to better themselves, do so. Those who come for the social environment often better themselves also because they get caught up in the learning and improvement that is going on and they too become better. However, those players who come to the team because they are a right back, or a center forward, and that is all they are interested in being, are the ones who learn nothing, progress little, and wind up leaving the team because "it just wasn't a good fit." In other words, the strict committment required to become a better player/person just wasn't there. This reflection is usually the kind of selfish, self-centeredness that is typical of immature players/people. They want the team/world to revolve around them not the other way around. So while all this stuff is pretty self-evident, it is typical of the kind of person who becomes committed to a particular religious philosphy as a means to improve their lives in the same way a player commits to a team. So in this way, there is a link in the article but the author has the same selfish viewpoint that many selfish players bring to a team; she focuses on what people are FORCED TO GIVE UP as the result of adopting a focus on a religion instead of WHAT THEY GAIN from the experience. Sad that she uses youth soccer as a vehicle to attack religions that require a committment to personal improvement and caring for others instead of just a good "feel good" time on the weekend.
You encounter such people? I don't believe I've ever seen a kid change clubs because of the position that he was playing. I'm sure that it happens on occasion, however I haven't seen it.
I think you completely misstate the author's viewpoint. The article is saying that one of the attractions of strong churches is their unwielding nature. My way or the highway, which sorts out the believers from those who just kinda want to go with the program.
Yes, I have had that situation occur on a couple of occasions. Also had players/parents come to me to inquire if I "needed a rt mid," etc., because their son wasn't getting pt on their current team or the last team they were on. These are often selfish inquiries from kids who are not good team players. The topic also comes up frequently at tryouts as well. My standard response is, "I am looking for soccer players first, and positions will come later." My intent is that I want players to commit to the team first and be willing to play another position if that is what is necessary for the team to be successful. In this respect, I am like the minister that says, "you have been allowed a choice but this is what God expects us to do." Well, not quite THAT authoritatively, but I think you get the picture.
Having just re-read the article, I would modify my view to say it is not about the unwielding nature of certain religions and more the fact that many people want to hear a clear message about truth and personal improvement. I still troubles me that she concludes with a paragraph that characterizes all of these religion, or religious groups in a negative connotation as "sects," rather than a direction that leads to a major goal, which is what the economist she quotes would suggest is the case. So I guess if one wants to classify comp youth soccer as cultish or sectish in nature, you could, but to judge the player who willingly makes that committment in that vein is not the most complimentary thing one could say.
I don't think Smashfoot is necessarily agreeing nor disagreeing with anything in the article, and I don't believe he/she is making any sort of comments (veiled or un-veiled) on religion, either. They are (I believe) just sharing an article written by someone else that seems to have some parallel ideas to competitive soccer. What I get from the comparison is that the more serious (strict) soccer clubs/teams will weed out those players whom don't have the same level of commitment that they do - whether right or wrong. But, this higher level of commitment also comes with a cost - which is that the more serious player will lose some level of social skills/status because of their higher level of devotion to soccer. I think that is a very interesting article, and seems to parallel pretty much any serious commitment to any sport, whether it be baseball, tennis, etc. I can definitely see how a higher level of commitment to soccer would hurt your child in other aspects. Think of how many birthday parties or other social gatherings your child has missed becuase he/she had a game or tournament. I guess you just have to make a choice. Great post.