SC Soccer Forums SCSoccer.com Forums Club Soccer & ODP CSC/NECSA merger

Again, a great debate!

In terms of uniform/equipment acquisition, the typical scenario is that one or more of the coaches and/or executives in a club own a retail outlet that sells uniforms and equipment to the club. This is a no brainer -- you can't allow it -- because it puts the coach/executive in a no-win position in which they have two fiduciary responsibilities -- one to their store and the other to their club.

Could this be in reference to Tripp Miller and Soccer Plus?


In terms of tournament management, again, you can't have someone in the club profiting by promoting, managing, etc. tournaments. Tournaments can rake in tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars (rumor is CASL does at least a million on its showcases) -- an executive or coach in the club taking away tens of thousands is a clear conflict. Any club large enough to have tournaments should be running them with volunteers so that the vast majority of the money goes straight to the club.

Could this be in regards to Dennis Cook who organizes the officials in the Midlands and some tournaments for CSC?

I have another question in regards to this. How is Mt. Pleasant SC countering all the movements in the Upstate, Midlands, and of course our local anomaly in Bridge FA? Any word?

Talon: The only person I was implicitly referencing was Andrew Hyslop, who used to own a soccer store and is now a co-executive director at CESA. Again, I want to make it very clear -- Hyslop was on board on this from day one and not only understood but actively helped in eliminating any and all conflicts of interest -- however, it was really a tough process for him and I think he earned everyone's respect by handling this so well with no complaints.

I honestly have very little understanding of the internals of any Columbia-area youth soccer club. Before she went to CESA, my kid played at a pre-LCSC club and it was a strictly volunteer club (it was against the rules to pay coaches while my daughter was there.) Coaches Paul Armstrong (U12G) and Shaun Jacques (U13G) did a great job in that environment of each winning a state challenge cup title.

I was just replying to "Mikensc" in kind of a "lessons learned" piece -- I thought CESA did a good job of getting rid of all potential conflicts of interest in the merger process before the CESA board was formed -- and I know that while I was on the board of CESA that we were religious about keeping clean on this kind of thing. I honestly do believe that mergers/alliances (e.g., CESA, Bridge, CSC/NECSA, etc.) can happen without perceived or actual conflicts of interest -- I just think you have to be rigorous in making sure that you don't allow even a hint of them.

I have a bit of a problem with folks calling people out on this board due to their professions. I can understand to a limit why they were mentioned, but still this is a soccer board!

Tripp Miller has been a beacon to the NECSA community for years and has always been straightforward with me and my kids. He does not overly solicit the Soccer Plus angle, but of course he benefits from NECSA's involvement with Rec/Classic affiliations. I just think some of this is unjust.

202677: I just called Andrew Hyslop and asked if he had a problem with my "calling him out" on this message board -- he said he didn't. That's the only person I named other than some coaches winning titles; so I assume your reference to "folks" is directed at "Talon."

I'm pretty careful on this message board. My profile clearly states who I am and there are many postings that reference any dealings I have with clubs. I wish everyone was so forthcoming in terms of their identities, but I understand that this is just not what some folks want to do.

With that said, I'm not sure what "Talon" said that was objectionable. If a club decides to have a conflict of interest, then at the very least it should be a "disclosed" conflict of interest. It sounds like from what Talon said that there are some "disclosed" conflicts of interests that exist that folks know about -- and that have been "disclosed" again here. Would I rather names not be used except in a positive way? Of course -- check any posting I make. But in reading what "Talon" has stated so far, I don't see where he's doing anything but stating a potential fact -- and I say "potential" because I honestly don't know who owns a store in Columbia (maybe because I live in Lexington and have never heard of the store mentioned -- I guess I'm more of an EBay or Eurosport kind of shopper) or who gets tournament fees or whatever.

While it's true that I believe that conflicts of interest, whether disclosed or not, in 501(c)(3) organizations are not in the best interest of the organization, I'm not sure how it is wrong to profess that belief either privately or publicly. One thing I can tell you: for everything discussed on this message board, there are 100 other things discussed between a couple of parents irritated about some aspect of a club. Trying to hush them up isn't really an effective treatment; opening up discussion typically is much more effective at resolving an issue.

>>[Mikensc] We live in a state that has 3.5 million people, about a million people less then the city of Atlanta. If you look at the dominant clubs in our region they come from area’s that have a large population… CASL, NTexas, Atlanta, etc. And most of these areas have gone to a single dominant club in their area. [...] it’s not in the best interest of the elite soccer player.<<

A few quibbles to start. According to 2003 census data, SC has a population of 4,147,152 and the Atlanta metropolitan area has a population of 4.4M -- so we're not that far behind! However, your point probably still stands. No South Carolina club has been able to achieve the level of penetration into a metroplitan area's population needed to do consistently well against RIIIPL opponents.

On the positive side, it appears things are getting better. First-seeded RIIIPL teams from South Carolina this year were ranked on average 5.8 out of 10 with a median ranking of 6 of 10 -- about midway in the pack. Of course, second-seeded RIIIPL teams from South Carolina averaged 7.9 with a median of 9 -- far back in the pack -- and it would have been even lower except for the outstanding play of second-seeded DSC (ranked #3).

First seeded SC RIIIPL teams had an average goal differential of -1.8 with a median of -4; second seeded SC RIIIPL teams had an average goal differential of -14 with a median of -14.

Clearly South Carolina soccer needs (1) better elite teams and (2) more depth. The question from your post is whether we can only try to fix one of these at the same time or whether we can fix both of them simultaneously.

>>The elite soccer player needs to be on a team that will get some entrance and recognition to the better tournaments where collrge coaches will be. The elite soccer player needs to be able to have a player profile that shows that they played, and were competitive with regionally/nationally ranked teams. We see from our results at ODP that our teams can play in the region, but few players advance because SC doesn’t have the respect that other states have earned.

So if you’re being told that this merger in Columbia is for the betterment of the player, it’s not. The best thing for our players would be a state club, a club that would provide them with a vehicle to be seen by college coaches. This merger will only continue to dilute the quality of the teams from SC, continuing our image of mediocrity. Yea, this merger will give Columbia a little more competitiveness in the State Championship, then they’ll go to regionals and the premier league and get destroyed. [...]<<

I believe that it's possible that this merger will help the Columbia area if it is executed properly. I think we agree on that; as you note, Columbia teams may possibly do better in the state challenge cup. In addition, I think that the increased resources may enable the combined club to increase the participation rate of soccer in the areas that the clubs serve, which is the long-term answer for increasing competitiveness.

So that I don't avoid the issue you raise, however, I believe what you're stating is that in the short-term this merger will hurt, not help, the goal of trying to achieve better elite teams in South Carolina. It's possible -- but only if players lie to themselves about where the best team is.

People complain about Columbia soccer not being competitive; but no one has ever forced an outstanding player to play for a less competitive team. Players make choices; in my opinion to date the reason Columbia soccer isn't better isn't because the clubs wouldn't merge but instead because the "elite" player too often decides to go to the second-, third-, or whatever best team.

For example, there's nothing -- I mean NOTHING -- in the way of the best U18B players from CSC and NECSA playing on the same team -- except the choices that the players make. I've found in the upstate that even before CESA, players tended to group to the best team whether it was at SGU or GFC. Columbia doesn't yet seem to have that culture; instead, players have had a tendency to value things other than playing with the absolute best players available when they decide which team to join. That's fine; but it's hard to fault the clubs entirely for that. At least the folks at CSC and NECSA are trying to jump start a process that might make the choice clearer.

Chico,
First of all I’d like to say that I agree wholeheartedly with your first post about the conflict of interest in soccer clubs. I have no idea who Trip Miller is, nor do I have any idea what his affiliation is with the club, nor frankly do I care one way or the other. But I do know that if you have a person who is the DOC and they have an outside interest in a company that is profiting from decisions that he makes at the club, then you have what is know as a conflict of interests. Now you can easily excuse that if it’s a politician that’s awarding unsolicited contracts at the taxpayers expense, but we’re talking about peoples children here.

You are completely right, if a club wants to have a conflict of interest then so be it. But that conflict of interest should be fully disclosed. Like the reference you use for CESA, the person in charge should be able to make his profits from the club public. Or even better, the person in charge should dissolve those conflicts.

Now your second post I have to disagree a little. While I do believe that most players will gravitate towards a certain team, the local clubs will still convince some better players to stay with the club. Now the club will typically use various rational to convince the player, and yes the ultimate decision is the players. But usually that player will be convinced by people that have the clubs best interests at heart, not the players.

I have to go back to the comment that 2004striker made about the U18 boys. We have the CESA U-18 boys that are ranked 27th nationally by GotSoccer getting knocked out by an unranked team. They lose one game and now we have an unranked team representing SC at regional’s. I haven’t seen either team play so I have to assume that both are good, but that’s about all we can say… they’re good. Now if we had a single team with the best players from those teams we might have a top 10 national team. Instead we have two good teams.

Chico,
After my post I went and checked other area's for national rankings and found some discrepancies with the U18 rankings. So while the rankings my be incorrect, the point I'm trying to make of team dilution is IMO still sound.

I have a question for the CSC/NECSA folks. What did the clubs do for their current U18 players this year as far as assistance in going to college to play next year? Who's going where?

I know there are quite a few from the CSC NECSA u18 teams playing college, but I'm not sure all where they are going. I do know that Andrew Evans and Zack Prince are playing at USC. Many from both clubs are playing at other smaller colleges around the state such as Lander, Francis Marion, and Furman.