SC Soccer Forums SCSoccer.com Forums Club Soccer & ODP Cesa Voted Down?

>>[Happy Daddy] As I type this it occurs to me that the fundamental question I'm asking can be distilled to: How important are the CESA brand and the involvement of Tormey and Hyslop to SSC's attaining its presumed goals?<<

It's a fair question. From what I've seen, predating CESA and going back to GFC and SGU, there have been two and only two individuals in South Carolina who have regularly and reliably been able to achieve consistently outstanding results at a club level and who are willing to do not just coaching but all aspects of management it takes to run a successful business. If I were on a normal company's board of directors, I'd consider moving heaven and earth to get them involved with my company -- because of that. But non-profits are always trickier -- because in general even board members are not often truly aligned with the goal of doing business better and instead have various reasons for investing their time and energy.

What I tend to see in business are a lot of people who underestimate the combination of brilliance, tenacity, and passion it takes to do something better than most others who are doing it. In normal business, I like that -- because it means the winnings are bigger for those that don't underestimate it. In SC soccer, where I honestly believe win/win is the right approach, I don't like it as much...

Coach Chass: I've always wondered why business professionals simply don't go around in loincloths.

The good news is that now SSC can continue to use the name "Summerville" and its historic colors to ensure that they receive full credit for all of their upcoming tremendous success!

>>[Coach Chass] What does the color of a uniform have to do with reflecting a change in the way operations are run (Essentially, it's the same garb, only a different color...not exactly "business dress" vs. "business casual")--except perhaps to mark possession by an organization that wants to claim full credit for any success?<<

After kidding around, I think this deserves a serious answer. Of course, this will only be speculation -- a "if I were in their shoes" kind of answer.

If I had achieved what has been achieved by those leading CESA (e.g., respect in the region, leadership in the state, tournaments, etc.) and someone asked me to come in and help a club, I wouldn't want to start from scratch. I'd like to use what I had created previously to give me an easier first step on what I had to do with the new entity. In addition, since the organization CESA still paid the bulk of my bills and I led it full-time, I'd be interested in pursuing this such that I tried to help both organizations.

Practically, this means that I would use the name and colors to try to attract those players who weren't previously attracted to "SSC." I'd try to use the name to create bigger tournaments (note: I always thought it was a mistake to name this thing CESA-Summerville -- no one wants to go to Summerville for a tournament -- but there's a great chance people want to go to Charleston.) I'd use the name to try to push into tournaments I'd had trouble getting into before (e.g., Disney, WAGS, etc.)

Now -- at the same time -- if a company wants me to come in and lead a radical change in the company's operations, I'm going to do so both on an operational level and a symbolic level. I'm going to investigate changing the name -- and do so if it turns out that it makes business sense from a brand-awareness perspective because I know it's going to make sense from the perspective of sending the message that we are going to fundamentally change the way we do things (e.g., daddy ball is out, professional management and coaching is in, etc.) Even if I can't change the name, I'm going to change the logo (e.g., the colors) to reflect the new culture and environment. I'm going to use those changes to reinforce the operational changes -- because I know that human beings HATE change and will in a passive-aggressive way do anything they can to nod their heads and then still do things the way that they used to.

I know that it's easy to demonize people when you disagree with them. But it's all too often the easy way out and doesn't get at the root issues. As "cht" said, if people really made the decision to reject this deal not because they think they can do it better but instead because the don't like names and colors -- well, I just can't imagine explaining that to my kid. But as I understand it, a fair number of the people rejecting it had already made their mind to leave SSC and go to Bridge -- so I guess in the end at least some of the folks that voted made a rational choice...

i was told once that people do not like change when it is not their idea no matter if the change is good for them or not.
maybe it will all work out for everyone.

(note: I always thought it was a mistake to name this thing CESA-Summerville -- no one wants to go to Summerville for a tournament -- but there's a great chance people want to go to Charleston.)

This is one of the big reasons that Baptist College changed their name to Charleston Southern University years ago. To use the "Charleston" attraction although they are not located in Charleston proper.