SC Soccer Forums SCSoccer.com Forums Club Soccer & ODP Columbia Soccer: How Does It Get Better? *

>>Every time I start on one of these threads, I'm reminded of how imperfect the format is for real discourse. I could pick up the telephone and call you, but then everyone else would not get the benefit of our collective wisdom.<<

Multi-way communication is tough -- but rewarding. You have my thanks and gratitude for engaging in the dialogue.

>>First, I obviously did not take enough time to craft my initial post. Overall, my experience on the SCYSA board was very positive and my opionion of SCYSA members is very high. SOMETIMES, I felt like I was dealing with cheaters. I should have been clearer on this.<<

I thought you were. I didn't think you walked around believing that the membership were a bunch of cheaters all of the time. It's the moments you felt that way that are so telling.

Sometimes it's tough to empathize with those sitting across from the table. Imagine how they feel -- they're being accused of something, they have absolutely no power while SCYSA holds all of the power, and it appears new rules and bylaws are being created out of thin air. Tough situation unless they meant to do something wrong. That's why it's important to always be working on your bylaws and not be afraid of making written rulings and communicating them -- there's much less chance that the people that you're ruling on feel like you expected them to read your mind.

>>Regarding the SCYSA by-laws and rules--they are less than perfect but are the result of years of hard work, as you have noted. SCYSA is constantly looking for volunteers to help with these kinds of things. Would be a good use of your time.<<

Unfortunately, quite a while ago I had to drop out of volunteering for a personal issue. When I resolve it, I will absolutely go back and look for the best way I can help South Carolina youth soccer. At this moment, I don't expect that it would be the SCYSA nor would the SCYSA welcome me. However, I'll certainly consider it when I can.

>>How long do I expect folks to wait for a resolution? I have no idea, since I don't know when the clock started ticking. From the sound of it, this is a messy issue. Messes often take time to clean-up. With this kind of issue there are hearings, appeals, more hearings, etc. All done by volunteers who are also trying to earn livings and live real lives outside of soccer. So yeah, sometimes it takes a long time.<<

And in the meantime, because there's an attempt at secrecy, there are increasing numbers of rumors. Now...in my experience...there's two ways to handle rumors about on-going events. One is try to clamp down on all rumors -- didn't work for Nixon, probably won't work here. The second is to be straightforward about what is known and what is going on.

>>SCYSA and transparancy??--I'll have to agree with you there. Communication is not their strength.<<

I see you wrote a post modifying this statement after issuing such a "scathing" criticism. I'll address this subject more in that one.

>>I didn't really care for this comment: "Respectfully, I doubt you would be advising such patience and sensitivity if it were your child directly affected." You obviously don't know me.<<

I'm sorry if it offended you; and yet I do believe it. I believe that if your child were put on a team by one club, then that team was listed in Hotstat, then the team suddenly disappeared -- you'd want to know a lot more information immediately.

Does this in any way lessen my immense respect for you? Absolutely not. What little I know of you, and what little I've interacted with you, you truly seem like an honorable person.

I'm now interested in this for a selfish reason as well as a larger concern about soccer. For years, long before CESA, my kid has trained in Columbia with CESA. If those requests are granted, she will no longer be able to. With all due respect -- I'm not going to sit around and wait on a ruling before I speak out -- I think it's wrong for anyone to try to not let my kid practice with anyone anywhere she wants.

If it were your kid and you didn't have a relatioship with the people at NECSA or the SCYSA, I respectfully think your position on this might shift at least a little bit closer to mine.

>>Finally, based on what you know, your belief is that the request by NECSA "transcends impolite behavior and appears to be bullying and coercion at its worst, plain and simple." We all make judgments based on the information we have available. However, as I read your post, it seems to me that you are making a judgment about someone's motives and motivation.<<

I am absolutely making a judgement about someone's motives and motivation if the post earlier in this thread is valid. I am careful in my language; that's why you see things like "what appears to be requested by NECSA." I am judging that it appears that someone put the narrow financial interest of his club ahead of the children of Columbia. I am also judging that it appears that someone appears possibly vindictive -- not only against a competitive club, but against children, parents, and coaches. Finally, I am judging that if this information is valid, and if CSC board members didn't know about it, then that would constitute -- well, something not very good. My guess is that CSC board members absolutely knew about all of this; it would be suicide if they didn't.

What I've noticed is that very few people (if any) want to debate the specifics. I understand your position -- don't talk about it, don't think about it, until it's decided and maybe someone lets you know what's going on.

>>Unless you have spoken to Ron, I don't think you are in position to make an informed judgement on this. Sure, you can judge a person's motives by their observable actions. You have acknowledged [I think] that you don't know all of the facts. If that is the case, then perhaps assessing motives is premature and it is not "plain and simple".<<

Making judgements with incomplete information is a fact of life. This is particularly true with respect to SC Club soccer since the information is incredibly difficult to get. However, to establish my bona fides with regard to this, when I am wrong I will publicly state I am wrong and will go to great lengths to make that clear. What began this thread was a public apology, in fact several public apologies, in which I stated that I wasn't going to be a part of publicizing a rumor. Well...someone published an apparent reference giving dates and actions proving that I believed people much too quickly.

I don't know the facts either. I do know Ron and the folks at NECSA. I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.<<

I understand your reaction; it's human nature to be loyal to people you know and like. But at the same time I guess that's what disappoints me the most. I understand your loyalty to your former board members. Heck...I think that the folks at CESA are great too.

However, I can promise you that if NECSA were trying to expand into Greenville and CESA wrote this, that I would be taking the same position I am today except against CESA. I believe in loyalty to an idea first [in this case, best helping all of the children of Columbia] and to people I like second.

>>Just thinking about part of my last post.

Sounds like I was being critical of SCYSA over transparancy and communication.

I think I need to add to that--in the interest of fairness.

I DO believe that the board could do a better job of communicating with the the broader soccer community. I said that many times while I was on the board.

However, in fairness to them, the task is enormous, in part because so many people want their questions/problems addressed--NOW.

One board member tracked his e-mails (not counting regular mail, telephone calls and other forms of communication). If I remember correctly, he had over 21,000 in-coming e-mails relating to soccer business during one year.

Again comes down to volunteers trying to serve The Game on a part-time basis. It is not easy.<<

I don't really have any problem with the SCYSA. In my mind, it's an elected association serving the perceived needs of the majority of the club it serves. I thought it was disappointing when the North-South game almost foundered and the SCYSA missed a golden opportunity to step in for the good of its mission statement; but one of its members did and at least to date no one has written a complaint to the SCYSA claiming that violated a bylaw.

I do understand the difficulty of trying to cope with 58 e-mail's a day as a volunteer. And yet from my time volunteering I found I was getting about half that number. What I found early on in youth soccer was the same I found in the corporate world -- the best way to reduce the number of e-mail's claiming to need urgent response was to (a) proactively communicate to my consituents and (b) design structures that allowed others to help. I also made a decision that if I couldn't find the time to effectively communicate as well as do my other jobs, I'd need to step down. That's what I did.

As you know, the SCYSA is not a small organization; it had [from memory] revenues in its last reporting period of $600K+ (note: I'm still investigating how revenues increased very healthily over the last few years while registered membership decreased -- but it sounds like an excellent financial organization.) If the organization is too overwhelmed to communicate effectively, and it believes that it needs to do a better job at communicating, I would guess that it has sufficient cash flow to at least partially remedy the situation.

If I could offer one suggestion to the SCYSA, it would be not just communicating but spending a lot more time communicating about its mission. Again, I believe elected associations typically do an okay job serving those that elect them -- what I don't see (and it could be there, just hidden) is much work being done to develop and promote youth soccer.

I understand why people don't want to "wait" until the information becomes public. They feel it may be too late to say anything by then. Let me give a personal analogy. I went to an expulsion hearing in January. Fours students were caught drinking on a field trip. At the hearing, three students had attorneys. The school district had an attorney present but he did not talk with me at any time before the hearing. I had to write a statement of what happened before I attended. I did this while still trying to teach my classes, cover my other duties, etc., all while the students got to sit at home and talk with their legal counsel. At the hearing, one attorney actually tried to claim that since the trip was sponsored by the YMCA, it wasn't a school function and therefore they broke no school rules. Because I didn't have the luxury of counsel before hand, I didn't even think to send in the District Parent Permission forms. Nothing new could be added at the hearing. Luckily, I said the coreect things when questioned and all 4 were expelled. But it could have been different. I think that is why I, and a lot of others, want to know things NOW.

In addition, I think a big can of worms could be open to the interpretation of the bylaws if CESA is kept out of Columbia. As I posted on page 3, what happens when this bylaw is challenged?

Do all organizations in the State follow bylaw 214, Section1 (4)?

4) provide and coordinate opportunities for every player under its jurisdiction to participate in soccer at the developmental, intermediate, and advanced levels;

Case in point, not to pick on CRSA, but their website says they are serving the children of a certain part of Columbia, not their whole jurisdiction. What about Bridge? Are they offering opportunities at every level? How about every club in the state? Do they offer programs for handicapped children, whether they are deaf, blind, amputated, etc.?

Food for thought.

No time to respond to everything, but a few thougts:

"Tautology"--what a good word (no sarcasm intended).

Actually, I was not trying to say that SCYSA can't make mistakes. I know that they do make mistakes. I was on the minority side of votes quite often. Sometimes all alone. (And it is certainly possible, but not probable that I was on the majority side of some mistakes).

What I was trying to say (apparently not very well) was that you might not agree with a decision and that the decision might be wrong (for you or your child or your club), but you should be careful about questioning the motivation for the decision or concluding that there was a lack of care.

Intersting, Chico, that you said you would not be welcome at SCYSA. There must be an interesting story behind this comment. Probably not appropriate for a public forum like this, but you have certainly piqued my curiosity.

Regarding the team that was on Hotstat and now is not--I assume the parents called the coach/club to find out what happened. Does anyone know what the response was?

Chico, I understand your point about straight-forward communication in order to deal with rumors. Easy to say they should come out and talk about it, but if the process is not complete, what can they say that will not just fuel more speculation and rumor? It can be a tough judgment regarding when to go public.

>>[thomaspietras] [...] Actually, I was not trying to say that SCYSA can't make mistakes. I know that they do make mistakes. I was on the minority side of votes quite often. Sometimes all alone. (And it is certainly possible, but not probable that I was on the majority side of some mistakes).

What I was trying to say (apparently not very well) was that you might not agree with a decision and that the decision might be wrong (for you or your child or your club), but you should be careful about questioning the motivation for the decision or concluding that there was a lack of care.<<

Thanks again for engaging in this dialogue -- I honestly really appreciate the chance to understand other positions.

I actually did not mean to imply that you were saying that the SCYSA couldn't make mistakes; I'm sorry if I gave that impression. All I was noting was that if someone wasn't careful and ascribed any reasoned objection to a decision to bias, then that might lead to a situation in which there was no basis for questioning decisions.

>>Intersting, Chico, that you said you would not be welcome at SCYSA. There must be an interesting story behind this comment. Probably not appropriate for a public forum like this, but you have certainly piqued my curiosity.<<

In my very, very few interactions with selected members of the SCYSA, I have found these selected members to be...I'll try to put this politely...less than tolerant of opinions not their own. You were actually copied on one very small incident quite a while ago. In addition, it appears somewhat rare that someone who is not a relative of an existing member joins the SCYSA. I fear I lack the pedigree.

>>[...] Chico, I understand your point about straight-forward communication in order to deal with rumors. Easy to say they should come out and talk about it, but if the process is not complete, what can they say that will not just fuel more speculation and rumor? It can be a tough judgment regarding when to go public.<<

I do understand what you are saying and I certainly empathize that it's a tough thing to do; however in order to avoid rampant and out of control rumors it is my opinion that you actually have to manage limited releases of information with the promise (and subsequent delivery) of additional information whenever it is possible.

But in my opinion that's not the crux of all of this. Here's my prediction. If the SCYSA ever does rule on this [I think that they either have or will] and subsequently publicly release information concerning this, they will not explain their reasoning by quoting bylaws or rules. Instead, They will reference any vague bylaws possible with the word "district" in it and they will out of whole cloth create a ruling. They may even go for the brass ring and create rules that don't exist by stating the converse -- that because a bylaw doesn't say anything about allowing something it's not allowed. A far-fetched example of this: because the bylaws don't say anything about web sites, clubs are herefore prohibited from having web sites.

I would bet a lot of money on one thing. Any decision that the SCYSA makes will never reference their mission of administering, developing, and promoting youth soccer. Again, I think that you are an honorable and well-meant person. But in the last few years I've seen SCYSA registered membership declining and I have seen absolutely nothing that leads me to believe that foremost in the minds of the "inner-circle", or even second-most, is a driving passion for delivering on the SCYSA mission.

With regard to bylaws, I predict that they will completely ignore the bylaw that kdlsc posted earlier: Bylaw 214, Section1 (4): provide and coordinate opportunities for every player under its jurisdiction to participate in soccer at the developmental, intermediate, and advanced levels.

If I'm wrong, I'll apologize. I'd be absolutely amazed if I have to apologize.

I've sat around and lurked for years. I got an
account and posted because I can't believe what
CSC is doing. I don't expect much from NECSA but
I sure expected more from CSC. Does the board
believe that all these emails your doing aren't spreading to us

I read Eddies resgination letter to the board
and coaches. Nothing about family issues but
something about differences. But instead of
being honest you says its something about
family. Eddies to much of a nice guy to call
you out so you know your safe

I know about you having a mom send Eddie a letter
asking what he was doing next and Eddie replying
with a big if and CSC sending that to try to
penalize Eddie for unethical recruiting.
Thats low-gutter low. I've read what CSC wrote,
looked at the letters, and cant believe that
just becuase he went to a club you hate that you would try to ruin him. Shame

The camels back broke when someone sent me the
NECSA complaint trying to keep CESA out of
Columbia and told me that CSC backed. I never
even thought about my kid going to CESA in

Columbia. But financial reasons are what that
lawyer said and now hes trying to justify it as
something not in any rule and I hear the SCYAS hates anything changing so much that theyl go long so all the couples agree. Explain how a big
succesful club coming to Columbia hurts my kid.
It doesnt - the merged club doesnt want to
compete. Your screwing my kids over for your selfish to protect this new club. Shame

You dont think that the coahces know what is
going on. And while most parents may not care
there
are some that are out raged

If theres any alternative my kids wont be at CSC
or whatever the d*mned merged club is next year

oh by the way sp9149s wife is on csc board & wdc is on csc board with chapindad. sp9149 & wdc lied straight to your face & I got attacked on this board hahaha

Soccer-sc, get your facts straight...my wife is in NO WAY affiliated with the CSC board.
To bad you REALLY have no clue what you are talking about.

I guess I'd still like to know why CESA training in Cola has suddenly become an issue since I believe it has been going on for several years, even pre-CESA.
And I still want to know the reason NECSA/CSC or SCYSA would need to know the names of people who contacted CESA. What is the problem? And what will happen to the people who did contact CESA - possible blackballing? I cannot believe that more people are not upset about this issue alone.

Soccer-SC at least I don't hide behind a handle, like yourself. SHAME....

Scotland, I have to agree with you on the name issue....way over the top!

I still want to know EXACTLY what the allegations/complaint was that was sent to SCYSA.