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The topic is club tryouts:

Initial post:

Pointguard
posted on 4/4/06 at 11:23 AM

hi, y'all,

i'm going to be sacreligeous and say something a lot of parents i know are thinking.

my daughter's a pretty fair player, likely to get on one of the stronger U-13 teams down here for the coming year. first season of challenge, we're happy with the coaching, we're in the correct division this spring so the games have all been close, most of the parents of the other teams have been a lot of fun -- aisde from that little town that has the parents who yell directly at your kid as she runs past and a biter on their team (we didn't know she bit someone every week until we started comparing notes with parents from other teams).

being as how we're down here in charlotte, we're paying some astounding amount of $ in club fees. no prob, i figure in a few years inflation will explode and we'll pay back the debt at pennies on the dollar. (insert rueful laughter here)

what we have issues with is the travel, and the almost complete lack of anything between rec and classic soccer in these parts. we -- and our daughter -- have come to seriously question the wisdom of spending, say, 7 hours on a saturday taking a trip to asheville (where everyone's extra super nice to be on the sidelines with) for an 11 - 12 year old kids soccer game. we wonder whether, as parents, it might not be our duty to say, hold on, this is excessive unless its your kid's ONLY talent. i look at our daughter and her teammates and see that of course it isn't, but other talents -- talents that last a lifetime -- are going un- or underdeveloped for lack of time. as parents, we're charged with making the decisions that DON'T indulge our fantasies, and DON'T pander to the wanna instead of the shoulda.

reading this thread reminds me that what we're all in is an arms race, and the craziest and most exploitative people are setting the pace. want to be on your middle-school soccer team? better play classic soccer! those girls are, you'll get left behind. wanna make the HS team? better try out for Super-Y, you'll get left behind. can't afford the fees? your parents better borrow the money, because there your kid'll be, sad and alone in 5 years, wishing you'd made her give up the school play and the piano lessons and the academics so she could be out on that field with her friends. better get on it -- the other parents are! one weekend in DC, the next in Florida? get after it -- they will.

we would cheerfully pay the same amount of money for the same coaching and a league that's local. everyone who thinks that your kids are super elite athletes, maybe they are. and maybe, to some extent, they're on a playing field self-selected by affluent or irresponsible parents and driven by unscrupulous, self-aggrandizing organizations with NO sense of social responsibility and NO qualifications to be molding children.

and we're happy with our club. at least they don't pretend to care about the kids.

PS: my son dated a girl who scored over 100 goals in HS, something like 85 of 'em on headers. (and an even better person too). she had a full ride from Ohio State, and blew out her knee playing lacrosse after her senior year. OSU, to their credit, would've honored the offer, but she went elsewhere. i'm sure the glory was great, but what must it be like to put all your eggs in one basket, then have that basket snatched away?

tell me where this goes & i'll move it from here to there. i dread -- DREAD -- tryout week. we completely fear the possibility of the kid making the "A" team. their goals are beyond rational for 13 year olds.

does that make ANY sense to any of y'all? whoever the guy is with the wonderful challenge team, i envy you and your players experience.



REPLY:

Tornado66
posted on 4/4/06 at 11:35 AM

What I want to know is who is holding the gun to your head to participate in something you seem to have such disdain for ?? If you are unable to use the phone and need us to send the authorities to your house, just type 911....

Pointguard replies:

posted on 4/5/06 at 01:12 PM

tornado66, that response is why in over a year on this board, i've posted only a handful of times. NO ONE is holding a gun to my head. you either intentionally or unintentionally miss my point. my kid just wants to play a good level of soccer, without devoting her every waking free moment to it, and without the artificial structures imposed by the adults.

the unresponsiveness of sevrice providers is my point. the unwillingness of clubs down here -- the adults, not the kids - to get it together to provide a full range of services, services we'll pay for -- is the issue. the idea that some folks have that in order to have a positive soccer experience your kid has to travel about the country at 11 or 12 years old, and miss out on things that you may think is important -- and the alternative is no soccer or rec league soccer (and that's hardly an option here) is the issue.

what i disdain is a circular daisy chain of adults reinforcing each other's mania and no one ever standing up and saying, hey, wait a minute, is ALL this such a great idea? questioning the wisdom of some of this stuff -- is this a good idea for my kid, all kids, whatever DEVELOPMENTALLY -- by which i mean FOR LIFE, not for soccer, gets the "stone the heretic" response.

the Fusion -- with whom my kid practices once a week -- is an awesome team. wonderful team, lovely and fun to watch, as is the Fire, the SCSA Gold team, that FCCA "A" team. one of those teams beat our kids 9 - 0 or something, it was a joy to wacth. i love soccer, and my kid love s and wants to play soccer, but according to the fundamentalists here in Charlotte, you're either all in with soccer-as-life or you're all out, and an infidel, and that's just WRONG. it's the ADULTS who're making these choices, and for reasons having nothing to do with their love of children (or they'd resolve their differences).

this weekend, i'll be the dad over there cheering for BOTH teams, the one laughing with the parents of the other team, that POSITIVE guy. you would never know i feel this way because it's nothing i want to show the kids. never have, never will, but at the same time, if any of y'all rank priorities in your kids' lives and put soccer ahead of, say, grades, religious beliefs, family, high moral standards, whatever, wouldn't that give you pause? and where you put your time and money is who you ARE, not what you profess.

my kid loves to PLAY soccer, but none of us are quite ready to turn pro.

lastly, now that the NCYSA rules about club affiation are in place, there's a wonderful opportunity for someone to organize an independent club, try to join the league, then sue the pants off the NCYSA and the existing clubs in a restraint-of-trade action. it won't be us, but sometime it'll happen, and whoever does it will win, and big.

have a great day, everyone.

PS: when we joined our club 2 years ago, several people walked right up to me and said things i couldn't imagine coming out of responsible, educated adults' mouths, and suggested after a year, we'd be ready to move over to (rival club, same in every instance). nope. not likely.

Another good "take" (remember, in NC Classic is higher than Challenge)

flatlander:
Look here's the things you might want to think about.
Is classic soccer a good experience for my kid? Will it have been a good experience for my kid and helped develope them as a person after they can no longer play, for whatever reason. Do they enjoy it? Is it keeping them from doing things they would enjoy more, or from things that would be better for them? Am I willing to make sacrifices and truely be ok with it if I think it is good for child. For me I think it is helping my child be better person, stay in great shape, adding to self confidence which helps in all area's of life, possibly being part of reason they do well at school. I always listen to child and make sure about what level they want to play at. If you decide it is good for child and ya'll are in it for the right reason, then let go. open your wallet and don't dread or especially let you're kid know, you're dreading tryouts. (That's a big warning flag to me) Choose what seems right but don't fool yourself that playing lower level is going to develope kids soccer skill anything like playing with/against classic players,and coached with the long hours of classic. good luck.