Thanks everyone for your input. I have to agree with you, getinthegame, that some of the younger kids are essentially clueless, which is one of the reasons for my posting the question in the first place. I feel my son is getting far better coaching with his club team and the ratio of coaches to players is small. The kids on his team are very knowledgable for 11 & 12 year olds. I wasn't impressed at the ODP training that I took him to and still trying to ascertain the benefit other than making statewide friendships. He has guested with other teams and made lots of friends without ODP. I'm thinking that maybe as a 13 or 14 year old, ODP is much more important. My biggest concern is if we wait, will he be at a disadvantage? Every parent thinks that their child is awesome (hey, that's our job
), however, I do feel my son has some potential and want the best for him but at the same time want him to be able to just hanging out on off weekends....with soccer games and tournaments the amount we are traveling is already high - do we need to add ODP as well?