SC Soccer Forums SCSoccer.com Forums Club Soccer & ODP Youth $occer is an eliti$t $port

Boy, this topic went all over the place. And I apologize now but so will my response.

Minorities:

I can not speak for all ethic groups but I feel I have a good understanding of the Asian culture, at least in South Carolina. Asians place a higher degree of effort on academic success over athletic success. They want their children to be doctors, not soccer players. I am not sure when this will ever change or if Asians want it to change. And as a side note, Asians do not believe females should be playing sports at all. They believe it makes them to manly. My daughter is Asian American and has played soccer a long time. Her grandmother never came to a single game. We have a son 12 years later and the same grandmother is able to make about half of his 5 year old rec soccer games. My point is that you could give soccer away for free and that does not mean that minority cultures will flock to the sport.

Costs:

I saw in one post the REC/Classic/Challenge are the same at $930. All I can say is that they never had a child play any of those levels. REC is $65 at most per season, that is a far cry from $930. Classic and Challenge could be close to each other depending on the club and the mix of players.

BTW, try doing Karate as a sport. That is a VERY expensive sport with almost no chance of a financial reward from college.

Academy Travel:

That was not suppose to happen. SCYSA, given to them by USYSA, put out a template for clubs to use to create their academy pools, not teams. That template focused only on player development, which included NO travel outside of 30 miles, no tournaments, relaxation of the rules and training pools. There was suppose to be ZERO focus on wins/losses. I know CSC and NECSA, at the time, and I am pretty sure CESA followed that template. The PARENTS went absolutely ape crazy over it. They wanted travel, they wanted teams so that they can prove that Johnny is better than Bobby, they wanted strict enforcement of the rules, and for the love of Jesus and all that is good in the World they had to have wins and losses. So do not blame Soccer, the Clubs or the Coaches. The parents control the boards at this clubs and how the money is spent.

Final Thought:

I do think it is a elite sport right now but I truly believe talent will go up and money will start going down once my daughter's generation starts to have children and they start training at home because they know what they are doing. I played with my daughter a lot when she was growing up but I quickly became a liability in training because I never played a lick until she came home one day and wanted to play for the School Rec team. But her children will be a different story. They will learn from the ground up on the correct ways to do things. And then like all sports it will move from being an elite sport to a true backyard sport.

Chapindad,
Are you going to see the U17 girls South Korea National team play CESA tonight at Mesa? Maybe this will help change the attitude/interest of Asian girls and soccer. I think they are ranked #1 or close to it.

chapindad: in regards to your minority post , i think your missing the point. i think were talking about people who cannot afford the sport of soccer at the youth level because of their class, not neccesarily their ethnic background. unlike the big three sports in the US of A, soccer is not affordable for the lower class, a strain on the middle class, and the upper class has no problem dishing out the money for their child to play at the highest club level. i've been part of the soccer scene for several years and have never seen our big club have clinics, build a soccer field or target youths in lower income areas. I think this is why the sport of soccer has peaked in this country because the best youth athletes are not given the opportunity to play soccer like the other big 3 sports. look at pro baseball, and now basketball those sports are loaded with minorities. I went to a Greenville Drive baseball game last week a majority of the starters were from the caribbean and south america, i doubt if a majority of those kids came from middle or upper class families. i think soccer got off on the wrong foot in this country, once the clubs saw that there was big money to be made they killed any opportunity to get the best athletes in the country. Even golf that was pretty much a country club sport has conformed to the needs of taking that game to low income areas, They have a very successful "1st Tee program that gives low income youths lessons and play for free. If you asked one of the big soccer club director to offer something like this they would run and hide.

my big concern is, why should a player have to settle for playing at a level below his ability (which is what many posts have stated) just because of financial reasons. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't know if that happens in sports such as basketball

Perhaps if a player proves his/her talent, potential and dedication playing at a lower and more economical level for a while, that might be the avenue through which he/she could attract the attention of a club and get some financial assistance to play at a higher level. Not so different from a student spending a year or two at a small two-year college and earning a scholarship to a major university.

I know a young lady who is playing on a Challenge team this year who worked her tail off at the Classic level to prove herself and earn the skill and recognition to get there...we'll miss her on our team this year but I'm very proud of her progress and accomplishment in moving up! Progressive steps can often get you where you want to go where trying to leap right in from the get-go can leave you hanging.

Coach, but it is conceivable that there are players out there that can't afford to play even Classic. I'm sure there are players that can't pay the tryout fee or even money for rec. Do the club coaches go around and watch pickup games and offer quality players a spot on their team. I would say no and for a variety of reasons. One being that maybe there aren't any pickup games to watch. I know there will be some cost but I tend to agree that it is a rich persons sport. Also, I don't think club scholarships actually offer very much. Seems like at CESA it covers the club fee and not travel or coaches fees (which are the biggest part of the equation.

I also want to reiterate again that working hard and having skill does not always translate to getting an opportunity. The girls game is a totally different monster from the boys. From my observation (and from what a coach actually told me), the boys coaches will take a bigger, stronger, faster player. I know of one coach that I believe will be sorry once the season starts to find out that after 5-6 years of travel soccer by certain players, he is not the magician that other coaches could not be and that he will not be able to make these guys 1. better players 2. harder working players and 3. more dedicated players.

You're right; I was just responding to the question of someone having to play "at a lower level" due to economics; if that's the issue, then there is at least a possible path available to reach the higher levels with performance and effort. You're right, though, that the issue for many is being able to get in at the entry level at all. I know a lot of young people who love soccer and would enjoy the chance to play and hone their skills outside of high school season, but the financial aspect of playing club even at the Classic level is a consideration that prevents many of them from joining in.

There are some organizations who do try to provide opportunities for players at the lowest cost practical; I know several that offer club/coaching fees of well under half of the $930 average quoted above for U15-U18. I know outfits like Cainhoy are trying to reach as many younger players as possible at the lowest cost to get them involved in the sport; some, (GCU, for example, I believe) have found sponsors to provide uniforms to the club at no cost to the players. In some, the club can offer scholarships taken out of the club portion; in others, coaches have the option to waive portions or all of the coaching fee for those needing and deserving the assistance.

Still, it does cost a certain amount of money to put a club on the field no matter what; league fees, performance bonds, insurance, referee fees, administrative costs, transportation, uniforms, game and practice equipment--all of these things have to come out of SOMEBODY'S budget. It takes a minimum of $850 ($500 bond fee, $350 registration fee) just to REGISTER a Classic team with SCYSA. For a Challenge team, it's $1050 ($500 bond, $550 registration). It also takes a reliable administrative structure of people who can handle the books, the money, the registration process, the insurance, communication and compliance with SCYSA...all of this has to happen before the first coach rolls out the first ball of the season.

It seems that sponsorships are the only way to take the pressure off of players and parents. Several people have mentioned the possibility of higher-level clubs that are making a good profit sponsoring "farm teams" to get young athletes involved, develop them, and identify the top players to move up through the system. At any rate, while the individual clubs and coaches can do things to cut the costs to players and parents as much as possible, it's going to take a broader system in place to bring quality soccer at a price EVERYONE can afford--possibly a redistribution of earnings from the higher-profit areas as an investment in growing the sport.