[Preface: Bias alert. I like Bridge...I like what they've done for competitive soccer in South Carolina. And while I personally like CESA more since I have relatives that play there, I don't see youth soccer in South Carolina to be anywhere close to being a zero-sum game and thus I want to see Bridge thrive and grow.]>>[Big Daddy] Why would this be damaging to the team, the club and the State?<<It would possibly be damaging to a team if the players are suspended, in jail, etc. It would possibly be damaging to a club if the parents who are paying the bills become concerned that (a) their children are associating with other children that may induce them to engage in poor behavior, (b) their children are in an environment in which supervision and/or punishment is perceived as lax, etc.
I don't know how it would be damaging to the state.
>>Relatively speaking, shoplifting is small taters. Not meaning to sound callous but from a societal perspective I'm far more concerned over the values implied by parents convinced their 12 year old is on track to get a college scholarship to play soccer.<<Well...one is a possible felony, and the other is self-delusion. I'm a bit more concerned about kids committing possible felonies when it comes to my parental duties...but that's just me.
Seriously, I have not a clue as to how a kid shoplifts at Sticky Fingers...
>>My 12 year old is convinced he's playing in Barcelona, so this doesn't apply to me!!!!<<>>This is a personal matter that has nothing to do with Club soccer.<<Again, I want to stress, that I don't personally care about this specific situation and I can't imagine that it has anything to do with me or mine -- which is why I didn't get involved until folks began berating other folks for asking questions. I believe that Bridge is a good club and that any group of teenagers are going to misbehave to some degree.
However, I respectfully disagree that issues like this have nothing to do with club soccer. Clubs have tremendously more responsibility for handling misbehavior than do high school athletic administrators. The higher level the club, the more time that parents are entrusting the care of their children to club administrators and the more parents are subjecting their children to peer-group pressure. Thus the board and operational management of a club has to take this stuff incredibly seriously.
Does that mean it's the responsibility of a club to respond publicly on issues like this? Absolutely not. Each club has to decide to what degree it's going to address issues like this for the good of the kids, the good of the teams, and the good of the club. I pointed out Darren Sweet's [the former president of Bridge] behavior only because what I perceived he did was to adroitly directly address an issue and kill it off.
I'm sure that the folks at Bridge are dealing with this issue -- but to pretend that things like this don't take a life of their own among other parents/children is simply naive. The best way to handle things like this is to use media like message boards to kill it [but carefully and keeping names and the like out]. Otherwise, they tend to fester -- in the long-term hurting the reputation of not the kids but the club and its administration in terms of dealing with these types of situations.
