[Preface: In another thread on the Dallas Texans, the subject of high school soccer rose once again. Rather than immediately post, I wanted to sit back and think about what people were saying before I replied. In any case, I’ve moved some of the key posts over to this thread to discuss this subject specifically.]
>>[Beezer] Eliminating high school for year-round club is an obvious step in favor of development because it's 3-4 more months of better players being together. Unfortunately, the ra-ra and social aspects are more important then development to most people. It's a hard sell and causes alot of bad feelings between the club and high school coaches.
Another example? U17 Eclipse (IL) women decided to go with NO high school in 2006. Result? A National Championship. During what would be high school season, they trained in specific and intense environments to improve; 3-4 months they would have lost.
People don't want to hear it but a small percent of top players need to stay with clubs while the rest of the large percent can go to high school because they won't be good enough anyway for the next, top level. That way high school has their ra-ra, social environment while the elite players continue to develop in the club system. Best of both worlds!<<
This is an interesting argument. Certainly, training with better players is one of the best ways for a player to get better. And certainly a very good high school soccer team does not have nearly as many of these “better” players than does a very good club team. So at first glance, what you’re saying makes a lot of sense.
Of course, you can compare this to other sports such as basketball in which the better AAU teams certainly have more talent than most high school teams. Or moving further afield, you can compare it to football in which high school is not only dominant but pretty much the only game in town for players.
What I don’t understand is the “either/or” mentality. We in South Carolina have what seems to me to be a potential advantage – our political system actually stepped up and passed the dual participation laws a few years ago that mandate that public high schools allow club participation during the high school season.
There’s no doubt in my mind that South Carolina needs more clubs that offer year-around programs. I’m pleased that the club my kid goes to, CESA, offers both year-around training and games and also that it offers an open-door policy in which they’ll train and allow game participation by players from other clubs. I’m glad to see other clubs beginning to do this to some degree; although I worry that it’s less a decision to offer year-around service training and rather a knee-jerk reaction against what is perceived as a threat.
But why is it that year-around club training means kids shouldn’t play high school soccer? The two hours of touches in a high school environment – those are worthless? Why aren’t our most ambitious kids doing dual training – doing high school training in the afternoon and individual/club/whatever training at night?
I’ve spoken to a few high school coaches and the truth is that these “great” players often try to coast through their high school practice rather than challenging themselves. If that’s occurring, then that player isn’t self-motivated enough to become really “great” – and the player (and parents, depending on the kid) need to examine some character deficiencies that might hurt that kid not only in soccer but in the rest of her/his life as well.
Shouldn’t our ambitious soccer players be learning to adapt to different environments and be flexible enough to work on the skills that environment demands? For example, a great player might work more on moves with the ball in high school but have to content herself/himself with fewer touches when in possession when playing on a state select team.
Look – I’m all for more and better services by our clubs. But I think that there are two other sides to this – first, ambitious players need to spend time on the ball by themselves training – and secondly, I think smart players are going to try to integrate high school and club (and state select, and regional team play, and even national team play) into an advantageous training program for them individually.
Might these kids run out of time in terms of practice hours in a week? Sure. And what should their priority be at that point? That’s up to the kid – I think that when one of our national team players a few years ago chose not to play high school that she made the right call due to the demands on her time from all of the soccer she was being asked to do. But until they run out of time, why try to tell them to stop playing something that they love by telling them that they have to do one thing or another?
