SC Soccer Forums SCSoccer.com Forums Club Soccer & ODP Pounding Theses Into the Red Door

[Preface: I've been asked publicly what I would do to make midstate soccer better. Here goes...]

Okay...so I guess I'll take up the challenge of pounding the 95 theses onto the red door of youth soccer [apologies to Martin Luther.] Of course, this is figurative -- I'll just work on the top few theses.

In the name of better midstate soccer clubs:

1. Recognize that the midstate area needs at least one professional (as defined by the USYSA and USSF for youth soccer clubs) soccer club. If you want to give starting one a try, hire a full-time administrator (and a DOC -- and if you can find someone who can do both, then that's great) to operationally run the soccer club. This needs to be the person's job, not their hobby.

2. Recognize that coaches aren't children to whom authority and responsibility must be rationed; allow the coaches to run the program under the supervision of professional administrator(s) while the parents volunteering help with only high-level strategies and values.

3. Recognize that coaches are the intellectual property of any soccer club; value that intellectual property with both respect and with the appropriate salary. Your goal on salary should be to pay as much as some benchmark club or clubs that you admire.

3. Stop trying to eliminate club-level competition for financial reasons and welcome anyone who will provide services to youth soccer players. In other words, compete on service, not with lawyers or through monopolizing scarce resources (e.g., municipal fields). Other areas of SC show clearly that the problem isn't too many clubs, it's not enough clubs differentiating themselves in terms of their services.

4. Work to increase the number of children playing soccer rather than squabbling over a handful of elite players. Either spend the money to penetrate underserved markets directly or give money to clubs focusing on this task.

5. Be inclusive, not exclusive. Have an open door policy; welcome children from other clubs in to train with your teams. Focus on providing the absolute best training possible.

6. Be honest. Ambition is great, but don't go around advertising yourself as a premier (or elite, or whatever) club unless you're willing to take the hard steps to become one. And in your eagerness to become an elite club, still be straight with your players regarding their chances to achieve their dreams in your club versus other clubs.

7. Don't allow perceived or actual conflicts of interest; this will eat away at the trust of the parents paying fees to the club. Pay your administrators and coaches what they are worth up-front in salaries/wages; don't make them recoup money through non-arms-length transactions.

Incredible, you are the man. I guess I will see you at the next board meeting.

Chapindad: You don't need me; just keep focused on the data, don't look away from the obvious yet uncomfortable facts, and don't allow others to sway you from the truth. Remember Martin Luther's most famous quote: "Here I stand! I can do no other!" when you receive the enormous peer pressure you will to continue doing things that you've done in the past.

Below is all the women's side data in one place so that you can easily print it out.

You might want to develop this further into women's D2 and men's D1 and D2 to get a more comprehensive review. If you need help developing it, and will agree to keep it public and at least try to use it, I'd be glad to help. And of course you have access to the South Carolina and Columbia area reviews published previously.

An update on 2006 women's recruiting from a club perspective. Things aren't looking very good so far. Not many schools have reported, but of those that have:

Division I
USC: 2 (Bigbie (CESA), Mattern (CESA))
Clemson: 0 (Ficklen played at NC club CSC.)
Furman: 0
Winthrop: 0

Division II
Newberry: 0

(Note: I'll keep updating this as reports come in. I do know of quite a few women who have signed, but I'm doing this from the college's perspective and waiting on them to report.)

>>[Chapindad] I have learned from you that all SC players, except CESA players, stink including my daughter and none deserve to play college ball.<<

The more I've thought about this over the last few days the more it's bothered me. The reason it bothers me is that I wonder if the statistical evidence I showed a few months ago is simply misunderstood by some. This post is an attempt to clarify what that statistical evidence means.

To recap, there was a wonderful discussion a few months ago that first started in the "College, Pro, and International Soccer" thread. I became engaged when this post appeared. This led to a discussion of local versus national recruiting and it was posited that USC needed to recruit more locally (both in the state of South Carolina and also in the midlands.) I advanced a theory at least part of the "problem" with respect to midstate girls recruiting was in my opinion the quality of the services that the midland clubs offered, at least on the girls side.

I then went off and did some research for a few weeks. What I found was fascinating (at least to me.) A post in this thread is a consolidation of the results.

What this data shows is that statistically the midland area clubs (note: not midland area players) have shown over a four year sample period to be at a significant disadvantage to upstate and lowerstate clubs in terms of girls who played their last year with a club signing and staying with college women's soccer programs.

Does this mean that "all SC players, except for CESA players, stink"? No. First, it has no meaning to the boys side at all -- I don't have that data but my guess would be that there would be more parity between the regions on the boys side. What it means to me on the girls side is that midland area clubs have not been offering the types of services to midland area girls that help them be recruited, signed, and stay on playing that the upstate and lowerstate clubs have been offering.

There is further proof of this if you take the time to study the girls region pool for the last few years or the Gatorade girls POY award; you'll find the lists dominated by upper state and lower state girls and while you'll find some midland girls on these lists, in every case I've seen they play in the upper state or lower state (e.g., Stacy Simpson, Gatorade 2002 girls POY, lived in Columbia and played at RNE HS but played for GFC.)

I have found in my experience with having a competitve girl playing in SC that CESA,MPSC and
CUSC are more girl friendly when it comes to training girls.What I am saying is these clubs put the same emphasis on the girls programs that they do with the boys even though the numbers are lower.Let's remember that soccer has become more popular in America because of a group of GIRLS!!!
Mia,Brandi,and others

coldhardtruth: I would tend to agree with you. What's interesting is that the Columbia area had a club, CFC, which was intended to be an elite girls-only club. After a "merger" with CSC it seemed to get swallowed into CSC and while there have been some very good teams, there hasn't seemed to be an across-the-board focus on the girls program that you see at the clubs you name.

At this point, it seems that the best/only hope for the midlands is to see how much focus and how many resources are devoted to the girls side in the new CUFC club and how the merger is actually operationalized.

Then again, maybe it's time again for an elite girls-only club in the Columbia area...

At least 4 of the new officers have girls in the club. And the current officers of the respective clubs have more girls in the programs then boys.

Chapindad: Is it planned that the CUFC board will operationally participate in the decisions with respect to tryout structure, coaching assignments, field/time assignments, and the like? Or will the board be responsible for hiring a leader (e.g., DOC, executive director, etc.) who will handle this on a day-to-day basis?

Here's why I'm asking. If you hire a leader who has shown a tendency to focus on the boys side, there is a natural tendency of parents to at least initially believe that the boys side will get most of that person's focus.

well, we know a lawyer will be hired! perhaps tryon will be the doc.