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I heard from some players that Tripp Miller is telling them that they cannot play high school soccer if they play for his club team. Is that right? I thought that the high school league lost that battle when dual participation passed through the legislature. What is the recourse for parents and high school coaches who have to deal with this kind of garbage? Any help here?!

The recourse would be to not play on his team. High school coaches have made the same types of statements, saying " I do not care about dual participation, if a player plays on this team he will not play club." I think this was the case at Dutch Fork, but the coach later thought better of it and let those players play both because they took the action of not going to play high school soccer. I am not aware of Tripp's statements so I do not know if he has said this, but if he did there may be other circumstances that we are not aware of. For example, if a kid plays for GFC Black and is getting advanced training, and also plays for O-W, then I could see that a coach would not want his club players playing High School soccer.

Hey, no club coach can demand that his players not play high school, just like a high school coach should not be able to tell his kids not to play club at the same time. Who the heck is Tripp Miller and where does he get off telling kids not to play for their high school? Is he also a high school coach? Where does he coach? That's just not right to deprive a kid of playing for the school he attends. There is a certain pride, sense of community and such that comes from representing "your area". Much like the top players in the world that return to their home country to play for their national team, albeit in many cases a "step down". I think that players should be able to do both with some restraints and good sense used in all cases!

I am not aware of the exact circumstances of the case you are speaking about,but I imagine the coach is asking that the player be commmitted to the club team and put it first. Tripp only coaches a U14 team right now so you are talking about club vs JV.My son attends a private school that has not had the dual participation problem and he tried to play both club and school soccer at the same time.It is impossible to be committed to both teams and you WILL have conflicts.You end up letting teammates and coaches on both teams down.It is also very taxing physically at this age to play/practice weekdays and play 2-3 games on weekends.If a player from say Spring Valley varsity told his coach he had to miss games/practices to attend club practices,what do you think would happen? There is a reason why there are no U15 and up club teams this spring though it would be legal to have them. You really have to make a choice, there is no way to play full time on 2 teams.I know, my son tried.

When in doubt, go to the source.

I just talked to Tripp about this. He has several players who are also playing for their schools. He does not tell them that they cannot play for their schools.

What Tripp tells them is that if conflicts arise, they have to give preference to their club team.

If Tripp is telling them that, he is in direct violation of the law. It clearly says that participation on outside teams shall not interfere with the high schools.

S 1157
"During the season for any high school league sport except for football, a student...may become a member of or participate in an organized team...independent of the school's control as long as participation DOES NOT INTERFERE WITH THE SCHEDULED LEAGUE GAMES OR PRACTICES OF THE SCHOOL SQUAD OR TEAM."

The law also requires that the athletic director "shall have on file... a statement signed by the parent or guardian indicating their child or children have permission to participate on both teams and signed by the independent coach ACKNOWLEDGING THAT THE STUDENT'S PARTICIPATION SHALL NOT INTERFERE WITH THE SCHEDULED LEAGUE GAMES OR PRACTICES."

I am so glad that the club coach and parents and palyers I deal with have been so cooperative. The situation referred to above is exactly why the law was opposed to begin with.

Wayne:

Not sure how this means a violation of the law. Tripp is telling his players what he wants. No different than a coach telling players that he does not want them playing basketball and soccer at the same time.

Ultimately, the players have the right and the power to choose which they want to do. Players are free to tell the coach to "stick it". And they often do.

Wayne

The problem at hand is different than most. There is a u14 spring season for club so a child must then decide between Club vs. JV as stated previously by Bdad11. Now here is the problem. One can argue that both of this childs team (club and JV) are in the middle of their main season. The law as i understand it is to stop Club or High School coaches from keeping kids from doing both. If a conflict arose with some of your GFC kids between going to a DF match or practice or attending a GFC match or practice, you would require your kids to come to Dutch Fork right? That would be correct because it is the high school season and not club season. Then on the weekends, the GFC kids can go train or play with their club. That is how dual participation is supposed to function. However, how do you make the distinction when the kids can only play JV because they are 8th graders. One could argue that its the main club season and high school could take a back seat since at that level, the club season crowns a state champion and the JV season does not. With myself both a club and high school coach, i would allow my players to do both, but understand that at the u13 and u14 level (where they get mediocre JV coaching) that when conflicts arise, they are too side with the club team. But when they get u15 and above (mainly 9th grade and up) then they side with their respective high schools in cases of conflicts. It all depends on how one looks at it.

You guys are missing the point. The law is the law. It makes no distinction between jv and varsity or U-14 and U-15 for that matter. It does clearly say that club coaches and parents should agree in writing not to conflict with league games and practices. PERIOD. I wonder how many club coaches/parents have provided the required letter. Mine have.
Mr. Pietras, it is clear that during HS seasons, if conflicts arise the HS is to take precedence. I quoted from the law in my previous post. This is not to say HS coaches can NOT allow some levity.
Lowerstate4A, if a conflict arose it would be simple to resolve, by law, not because it is HS season, but because the law is very clear. My players understand that. They have organized weekend club practices. Everyone is cooperating with each other and the law. It is working quite well. As far as I know there have been no problems.

What you dont understand is that Tripp is not preventing his players from playing high school. He is just stating that to be on the u14 team, you must committ to the team. Then if the child cannot committ and still wants to play jv then they may quit. I know for a fact that Tripp's team has 2 players that have done this. Actually, by reading the law, it appears that the school is in violation of this law because they would not get a signed letter of that nature from Tripp. So the school must be violating the law not the club. If everyone would make the necessary concessions as i attempted to point out above, then there would be no need for this discussion.

So, by a club not complying with the law a kid could be declared ineligible for his school? This is good? Hopefully you are just making a point.
If what Mr. Pietras wrote is accurate, "What Tripp tells them is that if conflicts arise, they have to give preference to their club team." , then it sounds questionable to me. That is just my opinion.
I agree with your last statement only if said concessions are in accordance with the law.
End of discussion, at least my participation in it.

I dont know of many people who follow the "Laws" by every word. I know alot of players that play high school and club. They miss high school sometimes, and sometimes miss club, but nobody is going to crackdown on the school, coach, or player if the one of them breaks the "Law." And would anyone but the coach and player care?

Two of my sons played on the U14 team that we are speaking of last year. They now play on another team. One of the main reasons that we left was because that Tripp was going to allow player(s) to do their own thing and not be committed to the team in the fall and then try and get them to be committed in the spring. My sons (2 of them) team played this same team a few weeks ago. They only had 11 players due people quitting. They did have one very good player hurt, but that still only leaves 12 players. I do not believe that Tripp told his players that they could not play, but would rather that they didn't (I could be wrong, my eyes were opened in a major way about Tripp and where his allegiances lay). I have nothing against Tripp, except for the way that he treated my 2 kids AFTER they chose not to go his way. Maybe his allegiances laid with the wrong people (who knows). This team that Tripp coaches (U14 NECSA Impact) has some extremely good players and parents that are getting hosed because the cards weren't all laid out on the table at the beginning. I think that maybe this request (if it occurred) could be a little bit of panic because everything didn't pan out the way Tripp thought.

As for high school, we have been very fortunate that Wayne (unafraid to use his name, as am I) has chosen to work with us on this issue of dual participation. All he asked was that we furnish the letter from our club coach and that we put HS first. My son has been able to practice whenever there wasn't a conflict. As I said many times before, rational people can come to smart decisions. Thanks Wayne.

I am still and will always be for dual participation. Compromises can always be worked out that are the best for all of the players involved. Hopefully, more coaches (HS and club) will figure the best way to work with the needs of the players and the teams involved.

Good luck to the U14 NECSA Impact. If we can't win, I hope you guys do well. Great job - Sean, Mark, Jordan, Parker, Jonathan (both of you), Davis, Ian, Zack, David, Stiles and Kyle. Good luck to all of you in the future. All of you guys and parents are the committed ones on that team.

Thanks for the positive responses on this topic. I know that the boys in question would like to play both club and HS. The HS coach would not interfere with their choice. He would give them all of the support they needed. We are aware that some of the club coaches do train their players well and that the HS are the ones who gain from that quality training.

Actually Tripp, who is the director of coaching for NECSA, made this law club wide girls and boys all ages.

He could not stop any of the players from playing but he said that they had to make all the practices, which is not bad except they made no attempt in working the practices around the HS league. My daughter was willing to play both but NECSA forced her to choose, when there was no real reason, so she left the club to play HS only. All they had to do was make a HS friendly practice schedule and most of these teams would have had plenty of players for the season. While a good coach is a great thing, they do not play the game, so they have to learn to bend if they want the players.

That sounds like Tripp! NECSA is a great place to play if your goal is to play at Presbyterian or Wofford, but if you aspire to play real DI or higher play where you can have a chance without your coach dummying you down for DII!!! 29223 always breeds talent, but then problems for that talent arises and they never live up to their billing. Andy Kwon is the only exception! This is only soccer, not student-athletes! I'd like to see Tripp coach an average team with average players and not conglomerate teams - will never happen though! Name one team that Tripp has not brought in outside talent to win with?

Irmo has kept their kids at home with CSC in most cases with a few headed to other clubs - but our high school ALWAYS wins, with NO NECSA kids!

Hammer:

Difficult to read "tone" with e-mail, but sounds like you have an ax to grind.

Truth is that some NECSA players have gone beyond Division II. I don't pretend to have all of the facts/statistics available, but a few individuals come to mind. Ozmick (sp?) went to Maryland, but did not stay. There are several players at the Citadel, which I believe is Division I? Stacy Simpson and Amanda Brackett are at Furman. There have been others who could have played at Division I, but chose not to (James Danko for example--Vanderbilt on an acamdemic scholarship and decided not to play soccer).

As for bringing in "outside" talent--Tripp coaches the U15 Ambush. Still the same boys that were there two years ago, when Tripp took the team. You can look at their record--not great, but they have a good time playing soccer (still what this is about?).

Kind of funny. In other treads in this forum, NECSA is criticized for being an obstacle to consolidation (which we are not). Yet here, you criticize Tripp for consolidating talent on a team. Doesn't seem fair.