SC Soccer Forums SCSoccer.com Forums Club Soccer & ODP New ODP Organization

They'll never get the girls that now play in the ECNL league back to ODP. My daughter and another girl were the only ones that played both in ECNL and ODP last year from their CESA team. To much $$$$ for the same exposure to colleges. Soccer overkill at its best.

I don't think they have to worry about three teams in the older age groups..I believe teams should be picked by trainers and then assigned to a coach..This would make it alittle more level playing field..Whatever the state does is going to take time to grow..Nothing is going to happen overnight and the attitudes towards ODP has to change..The only thing that will change that is to see some progress..

the impression that i get is that they'll pull a regional team from the three, but i think it gives more kids exposure to better coaching.

does anyone know the approximate cost of the developemental team for the 99 and 00's?

Lets look at the price. $250.00 - $300.00 sub-regional, ODP region camp $800.00. Am i missing any other costs? You can go at least two maybe three college camps for the cost of ODP.Have done this route and was a good experience at the younger ages but the older the player becomes i begin to wonder if its a good economical decision. Also, dont forget the political aspect as well!

My impression is that the proposed changes are largely cosmetic, with little or no bottom-line implication for most kids. I hope I'm wrong.
Let's start with the name: Olympic Development Program. Olympic? Not. Development? Not in my experience. Program? To me, that word implies exactly the uniformity and quality of evaluation and coaching ACROSS GENDERS AND AGE GROUPS that's clearly lacking in SC ODP as it's currently constituted.
Don't get me wrong. ODP can be a very good experience, if your child draws the right, motivated, capable and committed coach. It can also be very frustrating for kids who aren't on the right preliminary list or radar screen, and therefore never get a fair shot.
As a parent, all you can do (other than spend oodles on demosphere) is hope your kid draws the right coach and doesn't get buried behind last year's flavor of the month.
If that concerns you, ask questions of your CLUB and local COLLEGE coaches. Listen closely to the answers.
If you're not convinced, set aside the grand or so you might spend on ODP and invest in a couple of high-quality residency camps.
In the space of 14 days this past summer, my child attended BOTH Region Camp in Tuscaloosa and a college camp attended by kids from three countries and 10 states, with coaches from five colleges on hand.
Guess which experience was more worthwhile.

The regionam system would seem to facilitate more practices. In past years sone teams were based in Greenville or Charleston giving some players long trips for practices. There should also be fewer club conflicts within each region. So, more practices and less travel would seem to be a positive. Whether one region is so lopsided with talent that its players who don't make the cut are better than those selected in the other regions remains to be seen, but I suspect that choosing 3 regional teams will result in more players included at each level. I've never counted. Does one region currently produce much more than a third of the players on the current teams?