SC Soccer Forums SCSoccer.com Forums Boys Varsity Soccer Adding academy players for tournament rosters ?

I know I'm sticking my next out in a public forum with this but I think that some discussion is at least warranted. The timing of the post may also seem like sour grapes as Dutch Fork ruthlessly dumped us out of the playoffs last night 5-0 but I can assure you that it is not. The game was also far from a spanking and before jumping to any conclusions that I am clearly a madman, perhaps read the Herald article covering the game. It was only a freak own goal seconds from the half that put them 1-0 at the half. Another couple of unforced errors puts us in a position to chase the game and breakaways put the gloss on an error strewn night for us. Did we deserve to win the game ? No. They scored, we didn't. End of story. However, the devil is in the details as they say.

http://www.heraldonline.com/sports/high-school/article20469387.html

So here is an interesting quote from the Dutch Fork coach “First 10 or 15 minutes they had a lot of good chances, they attacked us pretty good,” said Dutch Fork (15-8-1) coach Todd Woodward.

So what changed after the first 10-15 minutes? Enter two academy players who hadn't played a lick of HS ball for the program all season. Two game changers who turned down the chance to play all season only to be added to the roster purely for the playoffs. Scoring a goal apiece and a hand in another.

I want it to be on record that coach Woodward seemed like a real nice guy and just before the end of the game, I was very respectful in giving him my opinion on their decision and he listened and respectfully gave me his reasons. There was no shouting match, we shook hands I wished them good luck. They showed remorse at one of our players who dislocated his shoulder in the game and we all moved on amicably. With that said, I wrote to the league yesterday for their position on this and clearly stated mine and felt the same way about the issue before losing. I hope you can read from the tone of my letter that I am more concerned about the precedent that this sets and the future integrity of the playoff structure rather than simply upset at losing a game.

Here is the exchange and note the ambivalent response from the SCHSL league.

Dear SCHSL,

Do we have ruling or does the league have a position on Development Academy (national pool players) who are added to HS rosters purely for post season play?

If the information that has been given to me is correct, tonight there will be two players for Dutch Fork who have not played for their HS team all season long yet have been added for post season to help their team win. I don’t fault the players for wanting to play but I do take issue with a win at all costs mentality and fear for the precedent that this sets. What about the kids who have busted their tail all season to be dropped at playoffs?

I am a club soccer director of coaching, former college coach and watched the game grow at the grassroots level for 20 years, so I don’t write this from a position of sour grapes or fear of simply losing one playoff game. I am looking at this from 10,000 feet so to speak. This is about integrity. It doesn’t sit well with me that players are forced to choose one program over the other and have to forego their HS career but that is the direction that the US soccer federation has taken to compete on the world stage. Its a bold move that’s deserves respect to challenge the current paradigm in the US with HS and college being the traditional conduit to professional sports. However, once players in a respective school zone have made the decision to NOT play HS ball, should they then be allowed to come back for tournament play only ? We are talking about nationally ranked players who have the ability to affect outcomes. With the DA structure growing, I fear that this is a dangerous precedent being set for the SCHSL in regards to Soccer across ALL classifications. It will be open to abuse and erode the integrity and honor to what we hold dear in High School sports. Those players who feel that they can’t develop and become challenged at the HS level should not be allowed to join for playoffs only, period.

I don’t wish to deny any student the opportunity to play HS Soccer. There will be extenuating circumstances in all cases. In many cases, DA players commit and sign to play with great college programs in their junior year. Then they can play their senior year with their HS program. A fitting way to go out as a senior and I will never have a problem with that. DA players sign contracts that they will NOT play HS ball during their 10 month season. If they break contract and change their minds pre or mid season, they should be able to join their HS teams but at what point do we decide that this is fair so it is not abused and what is the motivation behind suddenly wanting to play HS Soccer ? Perhaps players should fulfill a minimum region play requirement ( 25% of your season for example ) for tournament roster eligibility. If something is in place, then please accept my apologies but I am not aware of it apart from the regular eligibility paperwork. At the very least, some kind of discussion on the matter is needed because this is going to come up time and time again from here on out. In club soccer, there is a “roster Freeze” date that comes into effect leading up to playoffs to avoid the movement of players at key moments in the season.

I am on both sides of the argument in my school zone. I have players who have come back from academy and played the whole season with us as it wasn’t for them and players who are playing academy in my zone who have made that choice to not play. I will say that there is no way, hand on heart, that I could look a player or his parents in the eye and tell them that he/their son will lose his spot to a kid who hasn’t been around all season, regardless of his talent level. I don’t and won’t ever want to win that badly. So is this something that the league feels is simply a individual school / district decision ? I think it has greater implications for the HS league as a whole and needs discussion and implementation of a protective measure to make sure that the integrity of the game remains intact.

Sincerely,

Coach Stafford

Clover Men’s Soccer

On 5/7/15, 12:54 PM, "Skip La" <skip@schsl.org> wrote:

Coach, Understand concerns but this would be a school issue whether they
allow those players to compete .-Skip

I dont want this thread to turn into a slanging match. I don't want dirt thrown at anyone as I know these topics can be emotionally charged. Bottom line, I have a disagreement and I think it deserves attention because I fear for the future of the game as academy gains traction. I simply am looking for guidance from the very many respected coaches and Soccer folk that frequent this forum because the league has basically washed its hands of it.

So with that said, i'll turn it over to you....

Excellent post Coach Stafford and kudos to you for having the courage to post this position in a forum. I agree with much of what you've stated in regards to this particular issue.

I also agree that some type of minimum requirement should be given towards postseason participation. I like your region requirement, but believe a minimum of 50% should be mandated.

This is something that the SCHSSCA should take seriously and make appropriate proposals to the SCHSL via our Principals and Athletic Directors.

I didn't know this was allowed......I thought that a player had to play a certain amt of games to be eligible to play in the playoffs............crazy.

As for my $.01, I agree with what Coach sent the HSL. There should be a minimum games requirement for a player to be eligible to participate in postseason play, especially if they've committed to being an academy player & signed an agreement to be exclusive to that. If a kid is forced to choose b/w academy or HS, then I don't think it's too much to make sure we have a fair system where a future Messi who's been playing academy all spring doesn't magically pop up in the playoffs w/o having played a single minute of HS soccer before that

I can't speak for anyone else on the topic, only for my own school and how I would handle it. We had a D-1 bound player who played academy all season. He would have made an immense difference to our team in a playoff run, but I would not have considered adding him just for the playoffs. I have coached this kid several times starting when he was 8 years old and love him dearly, but it would not have been fair to take minutes from the guys who got us there, nor would it have been the right thing to do in my mind. Was it unethical? It didn't break any rules, so I would say no from that perspective. Is it the right thing to do? For me, it is not. I think the state needs to look at this just like the NFL does every year with the Patriots pushing the envelope on any grey area they can find with subsequent rules changes made seemingly every year.

There is no easy answer, but it needs to be reviewed. A player should have to play a minimum number of league games if coming from another team would be my opinion. If a player were injured all year and came back at the end of the season, that would seem to be a different set of circumstances. So maybe the minimum game rule should only apply to athletes competing concurrently on another team.

To me, it is ironic that the number 1 thing discussed at the rules meeting was sportsmanship. I just can't help but feeling this is not the best way to exhibit sportsmanship. However, no rule was broken, so that is just a judgment call.

I would be strongly disappointed if the state did not take Coach Stafford's request for a review of the situation into consideration and at least have an open discussion with some Principals and Athletic Director's on the matter.

Congratulations to Dutch Fork as we played them during the season, and by all accounts were a respectable bunch of young men, and I enjoyed meeting and talking with their coach.

Hats off to Coach Stafford for posting this. I agree that this is a problem that needs an answer.

I'm sure many schools around the state could benefit from some academy players joining them this time a year. If this is allowed to continue, what's going to stop a coach from going to "recruit" them to play.

I personally wouldn't do it. I agree with Coach Stafford that my loyalty is to the kids that got me there and I'm not about winning at all costs.

Club situation: we (Summerville Soccer Club) had a U14 that didn't give up a goal all spring season and was the #1 seed in the east division of PMSL1. They go to play a team in the first game that has 4 new players that came from another club. Come to find out, the rule says players can be added to rosters the Wednesday before State Cup.
What sense does that make? That team won state cup and now is trying to "recruit" 5 of our players to go to regionals with them. He is willing to leave kids behind that played all season at the risk of getting embarrassed at regionals instead of letting the kids that earned it go.

This certainly is a question that bears discussion, especially as this is a relatively new issue facing high school teams since otherwise-eligible players have been prevented by contract from representing their high schools during the Academy season. Once the Academy season is complete, they are free to play on the high school teams for the remainder of the season/postseason.

At this point, the SCHSL does not have a deadline by which a player must be registered on a high school roster; after the original roster submission, eligibility for individual players may be submitted at any point in the season. As Alister points out, club teams are also still able to (and often do) add players just for State Cup play who have not been with the team all season, because even though there is a roster freeze date, it is after the last game of the regular season and immediately before Cup play begins, so currently the practice is legal both in SCHSL and SCYSA play.

I guess the question is, does "legal" add up to "right"?

I can tell you what our Athletic Department policy is. On a team where there are tryouts--and cuts--it is considered improper to have players competing for a spot on the team during the tryouts, and players cut from that team based on tryouts, only to add other players later who did not have to go through the tryout process.

I personally would have a hard time telling a player who had been at practice working all season, and on the field fighting for the team all season, that he/she had lost a position to someone who showed up at the last moment because they had something more important to do while everyone else was working to get us to that point. I'm not saying it wasn't important--I'm saying they made a choice of what was important, and sometimes choices mean having to give up one thing to achieve something else.

I'm a big believer in the old saying, "you dance with those that brought you." The players who worked to get their team through the season got you to the playoffs; personally, I think they should be the ones to continue to compete. Playing devil's advocate, though, I have to wonder how the team feels at that point. Are players willing to step aside to make room for a strong player who can help their entire team extend their season? Or are they being forcibly displaced?

Lots of questions...again, the rules of both high school and club soccer at this point allow for the additions. I look forward to seeing how the discussion and the responses from both organizations go.

Agreed, great post!

I like the idea of a minimum requirement for postseason play. My question would be, how do we police it? Maybe that's something we (SCHSSCA) could talk about as well. I would like to see a "freeze date" in the season on when you can turn in eligibility. That way if an academy player shows up at the end of the season the school can't send their name in to the league. Maybe there is one already? Obviously that wouldn't stop a coach from sending academy players names in at the start and playing them later.

Ultimately it would come down to the coach and you would like to think they would do the right thing.

One of the posters brought up a good point.......what about a player that is injured before the season & doesn't recover until right before the playoffs. How would one handle those kinds of instances?

An injured player would probably be on the roster and attending practices.
In 3A and 4A, playoff seed is based on region record. I like the idea of having players be rostered for a minimum number of region games. If a player is hurt, they can still be listed on the roster since their is no maximum number of players that can be listed.

If a player moves in or any other circumstance, they should have to file a petition to the high school league to be approved. From the sounds of it, it sounds like it's a school decision.
Our school got fined and wins vacated because we had a swim coach that teaches at Stratford, had her middle school daughter on the team but they live in a different attendance zone, and the school didn't file a "hard ship" for her to be eligible. I know that isn't the same thing but the high school league does hear appeals like this scenario.

Great Post Coach,

Our stance on this is very simple. You must attend tryouts to be considered for the team. If there is an injured player he is expected be at tryouts. This shows he is committed to his team. If it is a first year then once he is healthy he is given his 3 days of tryouts. I have had this "academy player" situation numerous times and had to tell the player "sorry but I hope to see you at tryouts next year".