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continued:

Dex --

So what you really mean is what you originally said. Right? Just own up to having made an attack on ICE -- I'm sure you have your reasons for this meanspiritedness.

There are lots of ways to compare the quality of soccer in different parts of the state. Good soccer thrives where there are good athletes and good coaches. Certainly having 5 State Cup champions between GFC and St Giles is a feather in their caps. We could also check and see where the bulk of outstanding athletes chosen to the Super 18 list (for example) are from. Or ask Mauldin High if they have respect for low country teams, perhaps.

My point, again, is that we don't get up in the morning down here and plan our lives around what GFC may be doing. You'd have to have an inflated sense of self worth to think so.

lpaf

ps: My best thoughts are always afterthoughts.

pps: Did you mean to say "droll yet beneath you"? It doesn't make good sense the way you wrote it.

So now we are talking about grammar.How many things are we going to bandy around? I'm game though. Yes, you could use the conjunction YET. BUT, YET is usually used for a contrasting emphasis. AND the conjunction AND is used for joining like terms, such as "droll" and "beneath you." These two terms share basically the same spirit, SO the conjunction AND is an apt replacement for YET, BUT feel free to use YET. Since you also seem to have an interest in grammar as well as soccer , here is another lesson. When using quotation marks, you should place the period within the marks, not on the outside.You did this with the hilarious "Abbott and Costello" barb. See the example I used above for clarification.For any other grammatical questions you may have refer to a good book.

What's next? World hunger?

I capped some of the conjunctions. I know how much you like them.

Dexter --

Side stepping the issues of gratuitous personal attacks and your own particular brand of bait and switch, I see. I'd do the same, I guess, in your position.

Grammar and syntax. I've never been the best about the finer points of punctuation, close to or away from quotation marks. I appreciate (truly) your lesson. Mostly it's well chosen words I like. There's much to praise in your prose. I was particularly fond of your use of "droves" in your first post. Not a common word but very applicable to the way soccer scouts move about at big tournaments. Very well chosen. I pondered for a very long time the first sentence of your second post ("far be it from me to imply what the "dubious" intentions of the other two teams are.") Clearly, if you felt ICE's intentions were dubious you implied exactly what you meant to imply -- that they were opting out of State Cup to avoid competition with GFC. Then I tried to make the case that you had used "imply" when you really meant "infer". The sentence makes better sense read this way, but can stand as you wrote it. I decided to give you the benefit of the doubt.

You were clearly out of line calling S1 obtuse, but stronger language is heard daily on FM radio.

Finally, about "droll". In almost every sense of the word it is a positive adjective. Derived from the old French word "drolle" it means amusingly odd or whimsical or simply funny. By any stretch of the imagination it stands in contrast to "beneath you". "Afterthoughts are droll and beneath you" just doesn't work, or make much sense. Everybody has afterthoughts -- it's the brain's way of replaying events.

lpaf

Folly,
I give up. You must be kin to Jim"The Last Word" Rome. Thanks for the compliment about my prose, I think. I'll take that as a starting point of a truce. I will also make a concession. If we can agree that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, then I am guilty. But I use this rhetoric as a means to prove a point. To be fair, I really don't care what the intentions of the Ice are or were. I will admit that from the outside the whole thing looks odd, but if you are in the know then I have no real reason to doubt what you say. I'll take you at your word. The real concern that I have is the much bigger issue of the sanctity of the State Cup and SCYSA- yes Folly, I know that is a paradox. Teams in SC need to play in their cups. That point I will not back down on. Can you imagine what this precedent could potentially cause. You said earlier that some things should have been done about checking dates and were not is not an excuse. It is not fair to the other teams in the state that had premier league opportunities take away from them, or the remaining teams in State Cup that want to play the game at its highest level against the best teams. This for me is not about the Ice- I really don't care, nor is it about grammar. I think everyone is missing the big picture. "We want to go to Raleigh so college coaches can see us" is just lame. If you are a player college coaches already know about you by early December- I know this as an absolute fact. I'm tired. I need a nap.

Dog gone it Dex! If you would quit impugning a the integrity of bunch of young girls I could ignore you and just enjoy the holiday season, but I have to rebut a Scrooge who insists on trying to put coal in their stockings. You say you do not care why ICE skipped State Cup but yet twice you again questioned their motives.

You accused me of being naive earlier so I have to return the compliment. I do not have a player on ICE but I did have a child go through recruiting last year so I do speak from some experience.

(1) If as you say Raleigh was of no value and you know this as an absolute fact, why then did ICE run out of their 75 brochures that they brought to give to coaches watching their games? No- Anson Dorrance wasn't there but plenty of other coaches were. Most were looking for specific players to fill specific needs that they learned of after their college season had ended.
(2) Why then did several players have college coaches tell them they needed to play at Raleigh so the coaches could get a final look and then make specific scholarship offers?
(3) Why then did 1 girl (who was trying not to commit to college A early but wait for other offers) be told by Coach A that if she didn't commit by Raleigh he might find someone at Raleigh to take her place?
(4) If recruiting is all done why are so many SC U-18 teams going to either Disney or Ft Lauderdale
for Christmas tournaments?

For these girls it was apparently more important for their college soccer futures to play. Who are you to question their motives?
As the web site for CASL said, there were over 600 college coaches in attendance and everyone got to finish in time to go see the NCAA Championship ( every girl got a ticket).

As to damaging other teams' opportunities at Premier league - that is also misleading. Mt Pleasant and James Island were in Premier League
because of finishing 1 and 2 last year. GFC was in Premier League because other states did not enter all their eligible teams and Premier league was begging teams to play. All 3 teams played all their Premier League games. There was no 3rd or 4th place teams from SC from last year to ask. CFC and NECSA did not field fall 2003 teams. Neither ICE nor James Island took anyone's Premier League State Cup spot away from them.

In fact you could say that 2 more teams got opportunity to experience the thrill of State Cup because of their ( MP and JI) choice to go to
Raleigh. There is a deadline ( I think 11/1) when every team has to declare which level of State Cup they are going to play at (if at all) and post a performance bond. Neither team applied for State Cup and then withdrew. They simply elected not to apply. It is a shame SCYSA could not be as flexible for this unique conflict as they were with boys' week end. Great minds should have found a solution.

Happy Holidays!

Yo man. I said I believe you- reread the post. I'll take you at your word too. It is not about the Ice- I really don't care. They mean absolutly nothing to me. I'm sorry if my villany has hurt their Christmas.

This again is about SCYSA and its cup. Also, I hope you don't think this went over well with Beiber or Bynum and SCYSA. Again, I can assure you it will be addressed for the future, which is more important than anything else. I want to see that this does not happen again, and I hope that all the Ice players go to good schools and get their Christmas wishes. OK?

You are spouting off an ad from the Raleigh Tournament. "There will be over 800 college coaches in attendance"- please mail us a check for 800 dollars. I know all that dude. Been there , done that, but if it makes you feel important. Obviously GFC saw fit to go to state cup and they are hands down the best team with the best players and it obviously did not hurt them- they not only won state but also the premier league and their players are going to D1 schools. Now, I'll be bashed for making this a GFC-Ice thing. Again, if you are a player you are already noticed. So the Ice players skipped state cup to be seen by Catawba and Limestone. You are right. Colleges can pick up stragglers during the late months, but how many other tournaments could you have gone too?

I think I'm looking at this objectively. I don't have a daughter that plays for GFC or the ICE. Maybe you are too close to this, both logistically and emotionally.

You can say whatever you want about me. You can talk about my mother, call me unpatriotic, say soccer is a communist sport but I'm done with this. I need a Stripe bad and you need to go for a long swim.

I'm out.

I don't mean to butt in, but it looks like swimmer1, dexter, and laplageauxfolles need to get a room!

Poor, poor Dex,
You just can't help it can you? The first time
you just stick to facts and quit slamming other people's motives then I will quit having to correct you.
1 - 600 not 800 (post tournament count not pre)
2 - I can assure you that D1 coaches were at ICE and JI games too.
3- Congrats to GFC too. I congratulate all their players that have gotten scholarships. If you will note all prior postings neither LPAF nor I have ever derided any GFC player or coach.
4- I checked other tournament web sites and GFC and ICE both went to Kohl's Atlanta Cup and WAGS. So do not know your intent with that comment.
5- Having attended SCYSA annual meetings, I would encourage them to try and be more attractive to clubs and players not less. There is competition brewing .

Swim felt good at lunch. Much better for you than drinking at lunch don't you think?

Sometimes I think you have to back up and ask what exactly is the fundamental irreducible element in soccer. By this, I mean what is the thing the ultimate focus has to be directed toward. At different times over a soccer player's career this changes. And for everyone involved with soccer this focus can be different. When my daughter was 8 and just learning the sport there is little doubt for me that the fundamental element was the game itself. Its skills, rules, traditions. The team was probably the next most important element. Over time the team and club came to have increasing importance. Throughout the classic/premiere experience club team and HS team have seemed the most important element. But as the girls get in their junior and senior high school years the individual player undoubtably becomes the fundamental unit, in my opinion. Teams come and go but each player has to find her own way in soccer at that point in time. It appears to me that some teams leading up to this moment decided that to best promote the individual players (the fundamental unit of soccer) they would be better served to participate in a high profile tournament rather than compete in the State Cup. My daughter's team (including parents) debated these options openly before deciding to compete in the State Cup. ICE decided differently, acting in what they felt was the best interest of their players. I don't think SCYSA is diminished when one of its premiere teams opts to persue and promote the best interests of their players as ICE did. But then that's just my opinion.

I think this horse is dead for me.

lpaf

ps: My family would tell you that, for me at least, puns are the lowest form of wit.

Gosh, this is what everyone goes to the message board to see, a good brewing donnybrook. Not to leave Dex out there alone...but I'm sure he doesn't need my help.

Like it or not, true or not, it appears there was some dodging of GFC. S1 and LAPF you can't imagine anyone thinking that? If State Cup at U-18 wasn't important, why register for U-19....oh, because they could...exactly!! Where was the state? U-17G or U-16G or U-15G couldn't do that unless they were willing to play U-19...but they shouldn't get the exposure yet? There are seniors on numerous U-17 teams?

I'm sure both teams did get seen at Raliegh, hope some good things pan out for those individuals, but the state chose the dates for state Cup, right or wrong(some wanted to take the SAT), you tell me a date with no conflicts.

Essentially, an exception was made that now will be difficult to not allow for what ever reason in the future.