SC Soccer Forums SCSoccer.com Forums Club Soccer & ODP Challenge vs Classic Gap

soccerdog6.......BINGO!, right on the money.

Soccerdog6: At least for the girls up until about U16 soccer provides mostly a social function.

If there's any single reason that I'm such a fervant proponent of clubs in an area offering diverse services to players, this statement lies at the heart of it.

There are kids that want to play serious soccer. There are kids that want to play social soccer. And there are kids that want to go to the mall, or play video games, or whatever.

A kid who is serious needs to have the opportunity to go to a place to play with others who are serious. A kid who wants to play socially needs a very different type of team. And the kid who only wants to go to malls or play video games -- I hope that that kid has parents who offers them the choice of physical labor, athletics, or more studying.

For years now, the major club-related issues I've seen are parents [mostly] and players [sometimes] that want to play serious soccer and social soccer at the same time. Parents/players want to stay with the same group of friends, and want to play at a high competitive level, but don't want to train and don't want to travel.

It's natural to "want it all"; however, the price paid for achieving it is a dumbing down of our most ambitious kids -- whether that "dumbing down" is in athletics or academics. The academic community figured this out and thus classes aren't focused on keeping the same group of friends together year after year; instead most schools figured out that their main function was to offer each of its students the best education that they wanted and/or could achieve. Soccer clubs, or at the very least groups of soccer clubs within an area, need to learn the lesson that their function alone or together is to offer services that address the widely divergent needs of all of the players that they service - whether those needs are serious or social.

I must preface my comments here by saying that I hated Statistics at Carolina........so I cannot speak in those lofty terms. It taxes my less than massive brain and overworks those few cells up there that get me thru the day. But I can speak somewhat about the social/personal side of things.
The stat comments that zzzzzzzzzz made.......
"Although total SCYSA enrollment is down almost 8% over the last four years (3/01 - 18,386; 2/05 -16,951), female participation has risen over 54% (3/01 - 4,282; 2/05 - 6,599).One in four guys have migrated from soccer as male participation is down almost 27% (3/01 - 14,104; 2/05 - 10,352)."
......should reveal that it is the guys who are giving up on soccer to a much greater degree than the gals. Why is this? I propose these social reasons for the benefit of the discussion (anyone but Shearer please feel free to disagree or offer a rational rebuttal):
1. Girls have proven to be more mature than guys throughout the adolescent years.
2. Guys may have been pushed/disciplined harder at early ages and are just burned out with it all.
3. If the guys do not attain some of their early objectives,i.e league, state, region success, then why continue at ages 17-18. Guys want more immediate results than girls and are less patient by nature.
4. Girls get into soccer initially, and to a large degree, for the social interaction of it. That interaction usually continues for years.
5. Guys don't know what social interaction is. They just want to compete and win.
(Please dont take my comments as sexist. Girls have as great a tremendous desire to win, yet, they don't give up as easily as the guys when things don't go their way.)
6. Girls are more devoted to their respective club teams than the guys at ages 17-18.
It may be that the numbers do reflect the social differences, needs, wants in male/female athletes. Just some thoughts......

From my post in the other thread:

I believe the model that will work best for the Cola area is a Bridge model, assuming it is succesful. This will provide the 'choice" that Chico is referring to for the player (and the parents who foot the bill) as to the direction they would like to go.

The problem is not that dissimilar to ODP pool.
(A whole different subject.)

Nevertheless, Chico if you look at the map again, you will note that the majority of the smaller clubs do not offer anything above classic ball.

At the challenge and Premier level of play, CESA leads the way with 25 teams (23%), CSC is next with 14(13%), Bridge 11(10%), NECSA 8 (7%), Lex 7 (7%) with thee remaining clubs all having 5 or less

61% of the teams in the higher levels come from 5 clubs. 3 of these clubs are in the Cola area.

A merger of LCSC and CSC (geography)will yield the same numnber of teams as CESA without loss of numbers, and one can argue increased competitivenes.

Other numbers:

25% of the teams come from the low country.
42% from the midtstate (N. Augusta to Rock Hill area)
33% from the piedmont
(all classical definitions of the old 3 tier division of the state)

Assuming 16 players per team - there are 1712 players in the upper levels.

Looking at these numbers a set-up similar to bridge in Cola may benefit all involved without loss of numbers and teams.

Could a decrease in registration be a result of the number of younger kids playing at the YMCA?

kdlsc,
Good observation. Thats possible. I do not know the stats on YMCA soccer. If the Y leagues have experienced a tremendous increase in kids playing in their leagues, then that would account for some of the numbers. It is possible that parents have heard negative stories of the costs, travel, time for classic soccer and have opted to do the most convenient thing.

2004striker: The SCYSA data doesn't support or disprove your social "thoughts," but for your gender based discussions to hold water, we must assume that the gender dynamics you mentioned have only surfaced in the last four years.

To see if guys are abandoning the sport faster than girls we would need to track particular age groups over a period of years. For example, we would need U13 male and female enrollment at 3/01 and again as U17 at 2/05.

I think I will check at 2 of the Y's in my area. Seems to me I have heard they were busting at the seams.

zzzzzzzzzz,
I was only going on your stats that said total boys participation was down and female was up over that same particular period of time. What does age have to do with it? And I dont know if it will hold water or not, but those were my personal impressions. I do not claim to prove or disprove anything.

2004striker,
None of us can "prove" anything as most of the deck of cards is missing. That said, we are left with our impressions.

I inferred from your first post referencing the SCYSA data that your explanation for the documented decline was social.

My response attempted to suggest that if these social reasons do exist, and they may, that they have existed for longer than four years. Therefore, the social attrition would have existed in the 3/01 base line data.

In order for the social reasons espoused to have caused the decline, the problem must be getting worse. Where's a sociologist when you need one?

The age reference (U13 to U17) relates to one of the missing cards. If we knew how many males and females that played the game four years ago were still playing the game, we'd know which group had the highest attrition. We still wouldn't know why, but could offer more specific conjecture. Unfortunately, we don't have the necessary information available.

I hope that helps.