SC Soccer Forums SCSoccer.com Forums Club Soccer & ODP Cesa establishes in columbia.

By the way...I know I can not spell for crud so stay off my back about my spelling!

Pop,

The CESA/Congaree plan takes into consideration all demographics, including race and income. I applaud their efforts to bring affordable, competitive soccer to a market that has long since been ignored since the evolution of "paid coaching".

Now that I agree with...If the Cola. area is going to flourish it needs to break out of the "paid coaches" market and back to the voluteer coaches. Those who coach because they truely love to coach not because they are getting paid.

If you look at any set of bylaws for any NPO they are going to make the same claim. Can they do it is another question. If they can it will be outstanding

I'm not speaking for CESA or Congaree, I'm just trying to read between the lines. The Congaree boss said that there is no money exchanging hands for fields. If there is any money changing hands, I imagine it is going to subsidize the coaching and training for those children who have not had the means (but may have the talent) to play organized/competitive soccer.

The people doing the training would probably be compensated. Again, I'm not part of either organization, I'm just trying to put two and two together and make five.

SoccerPop9194: Thanks for the opportunity to discuss this. There are several potential fundamental errors in your analysis:

1) According to US Census methodology, Greenville, Spartanburg, and Columbia are three separate MSA's. Aggregating two MSA's and comparing against a third MSA is nonsensical -- in census terms what you are doing is comparing a CSA (Combined Statistical Area) against an MSA (Metropolitan Statistical Area.) For more information on why an MSA is the appropriate unit of measure, please see the sources cited -- but the bottom line is what you note when you question your own results concerning apples-to-apples county comparisons. [Source: US Census Bureau, Metropolitan and Micropolitan Statistical Areas; Specific Source of MSA's: http://www.census.gov/population/estimates/metro_general/List1.txt, December 2005]

2) You need more rigor on your team counts; you're off on all of them. For example, the Columbia MSA has 6 SCYSA teams: CSC, LCSC, NECSA, CRSA, Lower Lexington, LCDOR. All of these fall within Lexington and Richland Counties. [Source: SCYSA Web Site]

3) Breaking the population down into a 5-17 age demographic doesn't have the effect you cite. You are creating an effect by mixing county data and what may be CSA/MSA data (although it's difficult to tell.) For example, here are the 5-17 demographic for selected counties:

Greenville County: 5-17 [2000]: 17.8% 379,616 67,572
Lexington County: 5-17 [2000]: 19.3% 216,014 41,691
Richland County: 5-17 [2000]: 17.9% 320,677 57,402
Charleston COunty: 5-17 [2000]: 17.3% 309,969 53,625

[Source: US Census Bureau, 2000 Demographics]

As you can tell, Richland and Lexington actually have a higher percentage of people aged 5-18 than Greenville or Charleston. So trying to explain away gross population counts by demographics is actually a losing proposition for you. But the real trouble is that you can't just pick any county or combination of counties that you want (see point #1), you have to pick equivalent census-oriented entities. If you don't, the results are subject to incredible self-selection bias based on "stacking the data" by county/area selection. Again, see the MSA definition and history for the reason that the MSA is the appropriate unit.

I think the point is that there are talented players who are not being reached. I still coach a Columbia YMCA team and can count the number of hispanic players in the Y League last fall on two hands. I don't blame anyone for this. It's not NECSA, CSC, or the Y's fault, but I'm glad that CRSA and CESA want to reach out to these kids and others. There was a team in Lexington Soccer Club that tried to do this last year. It's principal sponsor died suddenly last fall, but I hope the team continues to play.

Chico, If you use the MSA as the measure the numbers get extreamly lop sided. If we take the just total MSA population numbers as set by the US Census Bureau...

Charleston-North Charleston, SC MSA = 549,033

Columbia, SC MSA = 536,691

Greenville--Spartanburg--Anderson, SC MSA = 962,441

(source: U.S. Census Bureau
Census 2000 - P1 Total population - Census 2000 summary file 3)

Now if we look at the population under 18:

Charleston-North Charleston, SC MSA = 141,342 or 25.7%

Columbia, SC MSA = 133,922 or 25%%

Greenville--Spartanburg--Anderson, SC MSA = 235,319 or 24.5%

(source: U.S. Census Bureau
Census 2000 - Universe: population under18 years - Census 2000 summary file 2 100-percent data)

So you are correct, Cola. and Charleston do have a higher percentage of children under tha age of 18. However, it is a .5% and 1.2% difference of a much smaller number and that is before we start to break those numbers down into "classes"

I do not like using the MSA as a measure (at least in this case) because when you look at the Greenville--Spartanburg--Anderson, SC MSA you are talking 3 metropolitan areas sread over 5 counties. That is the reason I had lumped the counties together using just Greenville and Spartanburg, maybe not as accurate but a more equitable measure.(in my opinion)

Something which shocked me was that Lexington and Richland counties have more black children than all 5 counties in the Greenville MSA combined.

SoccerPop9194: You're using 2000 MSA's: MSA's are by their design changed as communities change. In other words, you've got to use 2005 MSA's. You'll get what you want in that Greenville, Spartanburg, and Anderson were disaggregated into separate MSA's. It doesn't change the numbers; whether you take the under 18 demographic or if you do what I tend to do and take the 5-17 demographic.

I have a ton of data on this that I've been developing for 2+ years. The split of Greenville, Spartanburg, and Anderson was a shocker; and yet it was valid given both census data and traffic patterns.

I wonder if population and demographics were at least partial thoughts in the mind of the clubs involved in the CESA/CRSA partnership?

Chico, aren't the census's done every 10 years? so if you are using 2005 msa's your using "estimates" aren't you? I have not seen where they broke them up...but it would make sense!

Yes...I'm using US Census estimates. The details are in the cited sources.