Eddie Pope was from North Carolina, and he knew that he wanted to go to UNC, a strong academic school where his family could attend all his games. However, he was undecided between playing football and soccer. In the end, his parents paid for his first in-state semester, so that he could wait and decide which sport's scholarship offer to accept. If Pope had been from Texas or Florida or Illinois (or many other states), he would not have had the option -- he would have ended up a football player. People may point to O'Brien, Beasley, and Donovan and claim that college soccer doesn't matter to the National Team. However, a glance at the current player pool quickly refutes that idea. 29 of the 40 players have collegiate experience (72.5%). Of the remaining 11, 4 were not raised in the United States (Regis, Llamosa, Stewart, and Gutierrez). Down the road, more players will forgo college. However, there will also be a lot more Eddie Popes. Unless men's college soccer gets support from the big schools, most of them will be lost to the National Team.
There are many threads about college Soccer and Title IX, here so I would hate to bring it up. Illinois has 2 big mens sports: Football and Basketball. We don't even have a Hockey team. I don't understand why year in and year out Michigan State has a great basketball team, great football team and the best hockey team in the country. Texas is mostly for football. I though one of the Florida colleges had a team. Not sure though.
In the future 80-90% of the players will be funnelled into a system where they will choose what sport they want to play at much earlier ages. Players such as Pope(who is generally a poor distributor despite his great defensive talent) won't make it because there will be more complete players available. There will be hardly any of this splitting time between sports on our future players' resume.
Re: Re: The Importance of College Soccer Feel free to just point to another thread or link if it's more efficient than explaining here, but why do you think that will be the case? I'm just asking as someone who thinks that would probably be a very good development, but don't know enough to understand why it would happen. Thanks.
Re: Re: Re: The Importance of College Soccer I think he is just giving his future idea of American soccer. I dont think it will ever happen becuase American kids are told to play many sports when they are young.
Of course preMLS the best soccer players we could find were college soccer players. I'd imagine that within 5 years only about half of the US born players in MLS will have played any college soccer if that. Anybody who goes from 18 to 22 with that little competition experiences a dropoff in ability compared to the pro 18-22 year olds around the world.
I agree with your comment about Title IX ... hopefully this thread won't take that path. I just want to sound out my opinion about the importance of the college game. Most American kids will continue to play multiple sports (because it's fun!), and most will (sensibly)prefer a college education to an uncertain future with a professional reserve soccer team. This year, a couple of US players even abandoned top European youth programs to come play in the NCAA. As those decisions strongly indicate, the college game is here to stay. The guys who skip school will (almost always) be a lot worse than Eddie Pope has been.
Yes, our college players are not in an ideal environment. Still, the great majority of kids will choose college, at least for a couple of years. This season, MLS added only three American-born players who had no collegiate experience (IIRC). None has received significant playing time yet.
Right. Usually. However, the Revo just added a college player, Daoda Kante, who has stepped right in and has been our best defender. College soccer will continue to play a role, probably dininished from the past. We're going to have a lot of players coming through different pipelines. Teenagers turning pro with MLS, kids playing in college, others hooking up with clubs in Europe, JOB, Kirovski. It's a numbers game. Eventually, we hit the lottery and find the American Ronaldo or Beckham. Our problem for decades was that the national team pool came solely from the college ranks.
We'll see. The best players we have now are ones who have spent their whole lives playing soccer like Reyna, Mathis and Donovan and not dabbling in other sports. Twellman may be an exception, but I will continue to say that Twellman would have been even better had he not dabbled in baseball. The kids who play soccer their whole lives from 8-10 through their teenage years are the ones who are going to be the best players.
The college game isn't going anywhere. But with MLS' committment to eventually have reserve teams the college pool will be for only a few exceptions. Four year college players will probably make up 5% or less of the future pool. $10 says that those European youth guys did not receive substantial offers to play there, so I'll leave it up to you what you think their potential quality is. "The guys who skip school will almost always be a lot worse than Eddie Pope has been." Hopefully they'll be a lot better at distributing the ball than Pope.
Re: Re: Re: Re: The Importance of College Soccer Of course this whole thread is Beineke giving his future idea of American soccer. I agree to a certain extent--they'll be certain players that come from college.
Other exceptions include JOB, who played lots of different sports before heading to Ajax, and DMB, who was apparently one helluva point guard. I agree that there comes a time when a kid must focus intensively on soccer. However, most American soccer players will continue to play multiple sports as teenagers, especially if they're cut out to be central defenders. Carlos Bocanegra, Pope's soon-to-be partner in the back, was mostly a football player until college. He's another guy who would've ended up in D1 football if not for a strong local college soccer team.
I am both a big critic and simultaneously a big fan of college soccer. Do I think that talented players will usually develop better in a pro environment than a collegiate one? Yes. Do I think that players who play 4 years of college soccer can still make it to the higer levels of the sport and play for the national team and a European first divsion? Yes. Do I fault top prospects for not passing up a valuable scholarship and guranteed playing time - not to mention higher education and the social life of college - for MLS' paltry salary and minimal initial playing time on an MLS bench or the sturggles of being a young Yank abroad? No. College soccer is what it is which is to say a potporri of levels of play and players. Games between top teams, like in the ACC, are beneficial to a player's development. I mean, a game between Virginia and Clemson or Maryland and UNC is gonna feature a lot of pro prospects and they'll all benefit from playing in that game. The problem is games like that are few and far between and too often teams like Virginia and Clemson play 2 games against the likes of Liberty or Elon for every game against a top team. But, the reality is that college soccer is going to be part of our developmental lexicon until MLS both offers prospects enough money to justify giving up a scholarship AND having a forum for them to play if they aren't getting games with the first team. In otherwords, reserve teams. While I would rather see the top players skip college, I think that the US can still be competitive with players who play 4 years of college. Here's a potential team of 4-year college players: Keller Suarez, Pope, Gibbs, Vanney Mastroeni Sanneh, Lewis Mathis McBride, Razov Not an ideal national team but certainly not a bad one and it includes 7 players who have played in a World Cup, 2 others who were WC alternates, 5 players who have played in a European top-tier and 2 more who have played in a second division. Now, I could just as easily put together a solid and competitive national team of Americans who played no college soccer and one with players who played 1-3 years of college soccer as well. But that's not the point. The point is that playing college soccer isn't going to prevent top players from becoming good players. Migt it stunt or delay their development? Probably, but it doesn't ruin a player either. Having said that, I think the ideal situation for most top players is 2 years of college. I think it's a happy compromise that allows the kids to develop as both men and as players and makes their adjustment to the pro game, either in Europe or here, a little easier. At the same time, it gets these players in a pro environment earlier than if they played 4 years of college ball. I think history has shown that players who have 1-3 years of college soccer have a smoother transition to the pros and a better chance of playing time than those who sign out of HS. See Ben Olsen, Josh Wolff, Nick Garcia, Nick Rimando, Carlos Bocanegra, Ross Paule, Dan Califf, Chris Carrieri, Kyle Martino, Brad Davis, Kelly Gray et all. If I were MLS, I would make signing the top collegeiate sophomores every year one of biggest priorities. Of course, if I were MLS, I'd do a lot of things differently.
Michigan State the best hockey in the country?!?!?! YIKES!!! Must be that other Michigan team you're thinking of but even then, they're not THE best. GOPHERS!
Well, first off that is given a relatively new pro soccer environment in the US. If the MLS is around in a decade, I have a hard time seeing more than a handful of players coming thru from the college ranks. At that, if anyone wants to have a chance at being the best of the best, they need to go pro in their mid-teens. And they need to take some risks during their careers. For example, how much better of a player could someone like Eddie Pope be today if he had gone over to play at PSV instead of staying at home with DC United? Where would he be today if he had decided to forgoe college and go get involved in a youth system in Europe?
That may come as a surprise to all the teams that have won a national championship since MSU's last in the '80's. (MSU is certainly one of the elite hockey programs, but there are a number of others, including Michigan, that fall in that category.)
I'd be surprised if it winds up much different than it is in the other two North American sports with strong development paths both out of high school and through college. That is, the hottest of prospects will be better off going pro early, but college will remain a viable development route for the late bloomers and others who aren't ready to be pros when they finish high school.
lol - only because Ryan Miller left. *curses the Buffalo Sabres* I just went to see MSU's soccer team today - 4-0 over Wright State, ranked 22nd in the nation currently. Not very good finishing, or else the game ends 8-0. We've also beaten #4 Virginia and #20 Kentucky this year - so it looks like it's gonna be a good one. Go Green!
Craig, you seem to have missed one of the first rules of BigSoccer.com - that is that you must ignore any and all evidence that comes from other sports, or should I say "hand" sports. Before I came to this board, I had no idea that skill with the hands is fundamentally different from skill with the feet. But now I understand how this one simple fact, if bought into with one's full heart, can make one impervious to even the most rational, logical argument based on all the other evidence available in the context of this country of ours.
Re: Re: Re: Re: The Importance of College Soccer You're right. Nor is there anything wrong with this. Plenty of athletes are very good at several sports.
He might have been as good as Jovan. What a pity. Pope is a damned good player and I sure as hell wouldn't go want to go back in time and take any risks. A large number of players will come from college even if MLS is around for 10 or 20 years because there will be plenty of college players that were not noticed at younger ages.
Let's say Twellman split seasons between baseball and soccer for 5 years during his teenage years. Let's be conservative and say he missed 4-5 months of soccer play per year. That's 20-25 months of playing time missed--or close to two years at an age that is pretty crucial to skill development. Twellman has pretty good athletic ability so it hasn't hurt him much. But other players? Who knows. It can't be optimal IMHO. DMB played basketball, but he quit that around 14 or 15, no? Of course sometimes his touch shows that he played basketball and soccer instead of just playing soccer Mathis played pick up games with his brothers, Reyna never dabbled in other sports AFAIK, nor did Donovan. I'm talking mainly about in the early to mid teenage years where players are going to have to choose their paths. Chris Albright played football for awhile and ran track IIRC. It shows too. At the youth level all he did was run past people because he was so much faster than everyone else. Fast forward to MLS and it's more sophisticated than that. Most players should go to college if they've got the chance. Like mentioned, college will be good for late bloomers,players unsure whether or not they want to play professionally, etc. And it's great that lots of these college guys have caught on to playing in the PDL in the off-season. The elite player who knows what he wants should try to find other environments.