SC Soccer Forums SCSoccer.com Forums Club Soccer & ODP CESA Press Release: Establishing a Columbia Program

And the reason you need answers is???

[Sorry for the late replies on some of these; it was a busy week.]

>>[dhunter] What is curious though is the belief that to be a great soccer player you have to participate in a specific club.<<

I believe that this is an example of the straw man fallacy.

I've never seen any post, or heard anyone, say that to be a great soccer player you have to participate in a specific club. Please let me know if I'm simply ignorantly missing who said this. The truth is much more nuanced and lies not in a specific club but instead in a specific environment.

The role of the club in helping a player realize his or her ambitions lies in at least the following:

1. Level of training. This is determined by the players with whom you train and the coach doing the training. A very talented group of players can offset a less talented coach, and a very talented coach can offset a less talented group of players.

2. Level of competition. This is determined largely by the skills of the team members and the coaching a player receives. You get to play in better leagues, and against better teams in better tournaments, the better your team is. In addition, there may be the opportunity for even stronger competition in the form of college scrimmages if the better college teams will schedule your team [or pool].

In terms of supporting your child as a highly ambitious soccer player, you have to first figure out what are the available clubs given your situation and then of those you have to judge which clubs and teams offer the highest levels of training and competition.

>>[Cola Fan] ...the silence is deafening!<<

I think the reason for this resounding silence is that everyone has decided [with help from the moderators in locking some of the more egregious threads] to try to keep names and personalities out of this. At one point, this board began sounding like the Georgia message board; I think that most participating in it want to keep it as civil as possible.

Chico.....Say it ain't so you repeated something!!!!! WOW!!!

You have already used the Straw Man on me!! I am shocked you used something twice!!

I can see the application of the 'Straw Man Theory' to Shearer and dhunter as quite appropriate, yet I do feel a further application, 'The Scarecrow Theory' is appropriate for both, as well. That is the theory from one of the great classics, The Wizard of Oz, in which you may recall that the Scarecrow was in search of a brain.
>>Scarecrow: I haven't got a brain... only straw.
Dorothy: How can you talk if you haven't got a brain?
Scarecrow: I don't know... But some people without brains do an awful lot of talking... don't they?
Dorothy: Yes, I guess you're right.>>

Shearer: I calls 'em like I see 'em.

No...seriously...I tend to use the fallacy stuff a lot...simply as a way of trying to communicate what I think is going on in a dialogue.

I found the following on the NC soccer message boards. Someone was looking for info on CESA, here is one poster's reply:

"CESA dominates SC because of lack of appropriate competition, not even more so than Greenville FC did pre-merger. Their teams go in the following order: Premier, Challenge, Classic, and from what I have seen their Challenge teams can hang pretty well with the 1st division here in NC."


It's a credit to CESA that they can perform so well on the Regional Premier level, when they suffer from a lack of "appropriate competition" here in the Palmetto State.

Time for the Bridges, NECSA/CSC's and the rest of the state to step up and "give them a game". We'll all be better off for it. Congrats CESA and keep up the good work. You've proven to be the bench mark and you have represented the state very well.

The scores in the challenge cup last year were for the most part very, very close...

Here's another thread (dated 11/2/05) from the NC Forum that shows a more common view of South Carolina soccer:

>>MR: Anyone know anything about these teams?

CESA 91 Challenge
Carolina FC 91

Comments welcomed!<<

>>Crawdad64: I've got money on them being from Other Carolina.<<

>>mattbman (Administrator): Yes, Crawdad is correct, they are from the lesser Carolina.

CESA challenge would be their second team, but their top team won the state championship, so you don't know.

I think Carolina FC is a new club or a merger because I never heard of them before this year. But, they have to have some financial backing behind them, because they are in the process of building an 11 field complex there in Spartanburg, SC

>>Amused: CESA is by far the strongest club in S. Carolina.<<

>>LDSM: That is not really saying a whole lot. As a rule SC soccer teams are very weak compared to other Region III teams.<<

Will CESA be operational this spring in Columbia?