Yep. I see eye to eye with you on a lot of stuff, Stan, but I'm firmly in evangel's camp on this one. I understand your general point. Human myopia (and narcissism) has always led us to believe our era, our generation, our moment in history is different from the rest. But here it's truly the case. The Internet alone has caused a cultural acceleration unlike any we've ever seen. There are plenty of studies and theories out there on this front. Certainly, one of the best-known pop-sociology treatments of the material is James Gleick's book "Faster" from a few years ago. Now, the thing is, I actually think sports are a little more immune to rapid transformations than other cultural arenas. One of the very defining features of sports fandom is loyalty -- it's a quality that separates sports from, say, pop music, showbiz, even politics. There's something of a familial aspect to following a team (and thus a sport). It's harder to budge that, no matter how powerful communications technology becomes. Still, evangel is right. If nothing else, the Internet -- and the accompanying shrinking world -- certainly give soccer more potential than ever before to grow quickly in the United States.
Thanks for reminding me of that book. We've definitely gotten to the point in the conversation where that would be relevant. It's a good read. Another specific thing I'd like to point out it that because of all this mass communication, soccer doesn't need many decades to become big at the professional level. Ideally, it could happen within the next decade. Much of the youth development system is already in place, and the growth of local talent is probably the most time consuming thing in growing the sport. But again, I'm only speaking about the potential to grow that quickly, not that I'm fully predicting it will. Maybe we've delved too deep here.
You can see the progression just by looking at the men's national team... In the 70's the USMNT wasn't even a factor, even though the NASL existed at the same time. 1986 - Didn't qualify, but the games were more available on TV for younger kids to watch and learn. 1990 - Qualified for the WC for the first time in forty years, 15-20 years after the NASL inspired those kids to pick up the game. 1994 - Host country for the WC; knocked off a good Colombia squad (even though from an own goal), and gave eventual champs Brazil all they wanted until giving up the winner in the 72nd minute. 1996 - MLS begins. 1998 - Three losses in group stage of the WC, but we're now qualifying for WCs on a consistant basis. 2002 - Best result in a World Cup and scared Germany for long stretches of the game. 2006 - We're starting to stake our claim on the top spot in CONCACAF by winning fairly consistently versus Mexico; poor showing in WC but drew with eventual winners Italy. 2007 - Win CONCACAF Gold Cup and beat Mexico twice. 2008 - Easily into the Hexagonal and won at Guatemala. And that doesn't include the domination by the Women's Nats either...
I'm figuring out why. My son's schedule so far this week - Monday 6:15 Alarm 7:15 - 3:40 School 4:30 Leave for soccer match 8:30 Return home (with fever) - homework 10 PM Bed Tuesday 5:00 Alarm (finish homework) 7:15 - 3:40 School 4 - 6 Soccer practice 7 - 10:30 Homework 10:30 Bed Wednesday 6:15 Alarm 7:15 - 3:40 School 4 - 6 Soccer practice 7 - 9:30 Homework 9:30 Bed (exhaustion) Thursday 5:00 Alarm (finish homework) Etc. I do enjoy the periodic posts on bigsoccer.com about slacker suburban kids who are no good at soccer because they have no work ethic, and are doing Playstation all the time.
Actually, I strongly doubt the contention is true. High School football is almost certainly more popular than any level lower than that--because without the physical part, the sport is a little absurd. Swimming, track, tennis, etc, all require facilities that aren't as easily available to younger kids. I suspect the same is true for basketball, at least at organized levels, though I'm less sure. Baseball, as I pointed out in a previous sport, is the only sport that has a version widely accepted at nearly every age group once the kids are old enough to run without difficulty.
I can't vouch for the posts that you've seen, but most of the legitimate criticism is not leveled at kids being lazy, it's that they don't play/train enough from a young age and with enough constancy. Even the schedule that you outlined, while heavy, is almost entirely schoolwork. Obviously, school is important, but it doesn't help kids develop soccer skills. These are two separate issues. Becoming a bona fide expert at anything by nature requires an unbalanced lifestyle. You don't get really good at anything without devoting the bulk of your energy toward it. Sports, in this regard, are no different from mastering a musical instrument or becoming a respected scientist.
One thing that is an issue for the sport with regards to elite player development is the fact that soccer is not a popular game among African Americans. Disregarding any theories or flat out stereotypes regarding race and athletic ability one of the unfortunate facts of Sports is that the best players tend to be drawn from the lowest socio-economic classes. This is true even outside the US in racially homogenious countries like Europe and latin america (not including Brazil) for soccer or Canada for hockey. It seems that limited opportunities outside athletics tends to sharpen focus on sports as a way out of inner city poverty or rural obscurity. The suburban kids who play soccer (white, black or whatever ethnicity) are exactly the kids least likely to pursue athletics at a high level since they have so much more opportunity to pursue academics or to take part in family businesses or what ever. It seems to me that soccer is not being played by the inner city blacks and also rural whites who disproportionately make up the rosters of the NBA, NFL, and MLB.
I think you're right, and I think that's true partially because of what Kot just said: Kids from middle and upper middle class backgrounds usually have a lot else going on in their life besides soccer. While some kids can still become great this way, on aggregate I suspect their lives are too balanced to produce as many great players as would be if all SES strata were involved.
The bolded part ,while true at one time, is not true now. The AAA development model is rapidlythreatening to price many Canadian kids out of the sport at a young age.
There is plenty of opportunity for youth tennis and youth swimming. Golf and track are certainly examples of sports where there is not much going on at early ages. I don't accept your analysis of football in this respect. I grew up in Texas. Everyone played football. We had a school team in elementary school. The YMCA had football for kids who were not old enough for the elementary school team. I played on a YMCA team in 5th grade with a kid who played Division I football years later. The junior highs have football teams. In order for your analysis of participation rates to be correct, a lot of kids would have to start playing for the first time when they reach high school. My experience was that a tiny number of kids started in high school. There are always a couple of giants who get talked into playing for the first time because of their size. Otherwise, everyone on the team played for the junior high and elementary school and/or YMCA and/or Pop Warner teams. I can assure you that many of the players on my YMCA football team did not play in high school. Same pattern as soccer. Pop Warner is one organization. When I played YMCA, Pop Warner was a competing organization at our age in Texas, playing at the same time of year, so you played one or the other, not both. Your comparison of Pop Warner numbers alone to high school numbers is meaningless. The bigger picture is that every athletic kid I know of played more sports at a younger age than at an older age. It is easy to play lots of sports at age 8. The sports get more competitive and more serious as you get older. Most kids are no longer satisfied to play at the recreational soccer level, and its equivalents in other sports, after puberty. They (especially boys) are competitive and begin to realize that there is not much prestige in playing rec soccer, rec baseball, no-cut football team, doofus league basketball, etc. The only way you can fit multiple sports into your schedule is if they are not all that serious, i.e. they go for 3 months and then you drop them for 9 months, in which case you never get very skilled, or you practice one day a week, meaning recreational soccer or its equivalents. My younger son just played the finals of a tennis tournament today. He just turned 13. When he was a little younger, we was on the baseball all-star team, played in the state championship baseball tournament, etc. He did travel soccer right up through last spring season. He realized that he could not get great at tennis with travel soccer occupying him for 4-5 days a week, while all the serious youth tennis players were working on their tennis games about 5 times as much as he was. So he almost joined the statistics of "they give up the sport as teenagers," except he tried out for ODP and made it. He did that because ODP is only one day a week, not 4-5. When they find out he is not on a club team any more, he might get the axe (does the state ODP organization want to invest resources in a tennis player who is just having fun with ODP soccer, playing for the love of the game?) He gave up baseball 3 years ago, because soccer/baseball/tennis was too much and seasons overlap. His opponent in the final today also did not dedicate himself to tennis until this past summer. Before that, tennis was one of his FIVE sports, including soccer, swimming, baseball, and basketball. (Several of these five are on your lists as not having facilities for organized youth participation before high school. Hmm.) Nobody does soccer, basketball, swimming, baseball, and tennis in high school, but this kid did them in elementary school. Talk to any parent of a multi-sport child and ask them if they tend to add, drop, or keep the same number of sports as they age.
The problem is I believe it's the largest. And like I said, it covers eleven years rather than four. HS football involves 250,000 boys a year--that's more than 10% of the entire male student body in high school at any given time. Warner is 36,000. Further, some of even those kids are high school age (it goes through 16). So there would have to be a whole lot more than two or three other similar organizations for as many kids to be playing organized football. At least 8 of similar size would be necessary. I'm not saying I'm certain they don't exist, but if there are that many younger kids playing football, I can't find a lot of them. As to facilities for sports like swimming, tennis, etc, there are facilities, but they cost money. At HS, they're paid for. That's why they aren't "as easily available."
That was the other thing I was thinking. If you're measuring by elite athletes, that is also unrepresentative of the whole.
Not sure what part of Texas you are referring to but MOST kids start playing Football in the Middle School years in North Texas. I have not heard of a single elementary school around here that has an elementary school Football team. You do see some small kids around 7-8 years old playing in some sort of club but nowhere near the amount playing Soccer, Baseball and Basketball. A prominent North Texas H.S Football coach once told a friend of mine, there is absolutely no reason you need to have your kid start playing Football before 9th grade. You can pick up everthing you need to know starting then. He also talked about liking Soccer players because of their quick feet and coordination. My older son is in 9th grade and the promotion of everyone getting involved in something Football as a show of your devotion to school is pretty alluring and strong to these kids. What I mean by "something Football" is that it's more the event than it is the sport. To me, it looks like Football is used as the mode to support the event, this gathering of school spirit. You have the 100 or so piece band and all their parents, the kick line girls and all their parents and friends, you have the cheerleaders, parents and friends, and the 90 or so players per team and all their parents and friends, the student trainers running around, among others doing little things. The fact that you already have this crowd based on families then draws others as it is now, an event. That makes for quite an atmosphere. My son's school has a Varsity, 3 JV's, and 3 Freshman teams. Nobody gets cut. If you can stand upright, you play.
New Survey came out for the past academic year: 2008/2009 Baseball: 473,184 Soccer: 383,824 Difference: 89,360 Soccer made up 5,108 from last year's gap. The slow but inexorable march towards parity marches on. At that rate of closing, soccer and baseball participation would be at parity in 17.5 years. What's also interesting is that this year, the recession seems to have thrown both sports for a loop. But where it merely halted soccer's growth rate, it actively drove baseball participation down.
i went to a public high school in the south east in the country where sports are everything. soccer owns baseball in high school, thats a fact.
Strange. I always thought HS soccer was more of a Fall sport (except on the west coast) that went up against football.
yep, went for a bit to a west coast high school, and surfing was their main sport, and nobody really cares too much about american football or basketball in those schools next to the beach, and they do take soccer a lot more serious than in the east in the south, soccer is in the same time with baseball. honestly, soccer owns baseball.
Here is the ratio, state by state, of boys' soccer players to baseball players, state by state, as of the '08/'09 academic year: Code: Ratio State Soccer Baseball n/a MT 805 0 n/a WY 728 0 148.53% AK 912 614 140.89% VT 1678 1191 139.65% NE 2638 1889 117.84% DE 1684 1429 117.55% NJ 17553 14932 117.19% NH 3204 2734 116.32% ME 4306 3702 113.03% CT 6964 6161 111.19% NY 24651 22171 106.28% CA 44705 42064 104.33% UT 3106 2977 103.20% MD 5813 5633 102.88% VA 9614 9345 101.34% MA 13211 13036 98.69% WA 8745 8861 97.12% FL 13918 14331 96.99% RI 1613 1663 94.37% PA 20475 21696 90.70% OR 6137 6766 88.14% HI 1538 1745 82.42% CO 6684 8110 80.80% SC 4957 6135 78.25% MI 14603 18663 77.89% AZ 6205 7966 77.01% GA 9288 12060 75.76% NV 1860 2455 75.75% ID 1937 2557 75.07% TN 6577 8761 74.29% IL 18214 24517 73.58% NM 2348 3191 73.55% IN 8465 11509 73.16% WI 9836 13445 70.49% KY 5219 7404 69.76% OH 15610 22376 68.20% KS 4118 6038 65.76% TX 27439 41726 64.64% WV 1797 2780 63.00% DC 143 227 61.74% MN 8718 14120 60.64% NC 6274 10346 52.27% MO 8515 16290 50.81% MS 3664 7211 50.70% IA 5792 11424 47.20% ND 565 1197 44.14% LA 3648 8264 39.86% AL 3601 9035 38.79% AR 1948 5022 24.29% OK 1801 7415 Note, Montana and Wyoming at the top there didn't report any baseball varsity players at all.
it seens to me that the numbers state "baseball" is played by a majority of athletes? you may be right about that. as far as "popularity" other than the baseball dudes gfs, everybody would tell you that they wont go to baseball games bc they are boring, and sometimes even the dudes gfs would tell you that. i guess i didnt go a "hardcore" baseball high school, but it really seens to me that soccer would take over baseball really soon at any level. the really hard one to compete with would be college football, in the south, you cant touch college football. i think in college, baseball is still bigger than soccer, i think...
Wow, USSF and MLS needs to set-up shop in the South big-time. It seems like soccer owns the NorthEast compared to baseball. but you can see the gap in the South and Mid-north/West even for soccer even against baseball.