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

cht: I in no way mean it as a slam on anyone. It's just that a lot of the arguments being made didn't make sense. Trading out what's best for your children in the name of names and colors would be dumb. And since I could construct (and did on this message board) a logical argument for renaming and rebranding, I didn't understand how intelligent and reasonable people could be coming to such a different conclusion.

It was yesterday's posts that helped me understand it. I'm not saying that I agree or disagree with the assessment these parents are making; I'm not close enough to understand the relative tradeoffs of the decision to terminate the alliance with Bridge. But at least now I can understand a rational basis for the decision -- which honestly was my goal here.

This has been an interesting thread. It seems pretty clear that CESA/Tormey/Hyslop had a set of conditions precedent to their taking on the role of managing SSC. Like them or not, think they were "necessary" or not, they were disclosed. The vote failed.

I predict that the issue will be re-raised and passed.

(Sorry, but this is just funny: Like him or not, Clark Brisson has built in B.F.A. the closest thing to a rival that CESA has)

HappyDaddy: I swear that I wrote responses to the same statement you quoted three times and deleted each because I thought that it wasn't on point. My reaction was the same as yours.

But I do understand the perspective of the poster. CUFC has focused on offering services across all ages and particularly genders. Bridge has offered some great opportunities for a couple of ages and primarily one gender. If you're lucky enough to be in those ages and genders, then it might appear that Bridge is "the closest thing to a rival that CESA has."

However, from the amazing growth in the select ranks (39 teams!) to the number of teams placed into the final 4, CUFC has in its short lifetime eclipsed Bridge in terms of a viable "CESA rival" when taking into account both genders and all age groups.

P.S. I think you're probably right that it will be re-raised and passed. But at this point I've got to admit that I agree with "pitchparent" -- I'd rather see them walk and SSC live with the consequences. It's a childish view and not one of which I'm proud -- because it's punishing the majority of players and parents for what (from what I can tell) is a combination of a passionate few people who want the old Bridge alliance back and what seems to be from 100+ miles away the worst corporate governance since Enron.

Fascinating. Do you really believe a single tournament is the method by which college coaches decide to recruit a player? Or is a single tournament yet another recruiting opportunity -- as are CAP games, RIIIPL-East games, the region championships -- heck, even practices that these coaches attend if they're interested in a player. And that doesn't even begin to include ODP (if your kid is serious about higher level play.)

One division 1 coach walked up to me and told me about a kid as a sophomore that they'd been watching since eighth grade. I asked if this was normal; I was told that these folks track kids over a period of years (not just months.)I'm pretty sure that missing a single Disney tournament with a sprained ankle wouldn't have significantly diminished the interest.

DeltaDog: What a great idea! I'd love to hear more of your theory that a player isn't going to get recruited because they miss a tournament.

It seems to me that you set up a false paradox. A club can use its "branding", contacts, or whatever to be able to get invited into tournaments without deciding to attend those tournaments. The decision of CESA to attend Disney as its sole "prestige" tournament doesn't mean that SSC wouldn't want to be able to attend one or more equal or lesser "prestige" tournaments.

The question isn't how many tournaments CESA decides to attend (the direction you took this in); instead, it's how many tournaments you can gain entrance into.

Now -- it's a valid argument to debate whether and how this would extend to another club -- but it just seems silly to ignore the difference between the tournaments a club can get admission to versus the tournaments a club actually attends.

But with all of this said, who cares? The people who voted to reject this deal can use Bridge as its mechanism to get into these prestige tournaments as soon as their child is good enough to abandon SSC, right? (I'm not being sarcastic -- I'm just saying that we can stick with this rationale and it makes sense.)

You're beginning to scratch the surface of an issue that many don't get.

In my experience, SSC (and most low country clubs for that matter) is a collection of teams individually governed by the respective group of parents. Keeping it relative to the tournament discussion, parents want to decide what tournaments they want their child's team to attend, not follow the direction of the club.

Call it branding, club unity or whatever you want to call it, but in the low country parents appear to think that players are members of teams, not members of the club. A difference that exists with other clubs is players are members of the club first, team second.

This is a big issue that is and will be difficult to change.

Bear: Sincere question: does Bridge operate in the "unified club model" or as a "collection of teams"? If the former, then doesn't Bridge represent a clear alternative that will allow parental choice and allow SSC to continue to operate in its current mode?

Shibumi,

I haven't been deeply involved with Bridge for a couple of years now. However, while I was still involved, we were attempting to move to a club centric mode. In the end though, it was still team centric. It may have changed, but I doubt it, because it is do deeply rooted.

This team centric environment adds a dynamic to the parental choice, i.e. if you leave what will that do to "our" team. That brings up the "loyalty" discussion that has been talked about on the message board.