SC Soccer Forums SCSoccer.com Forums Club Soccer & ODP Youth Southern Regional scores and updates

>>[Kevin Heise] I'd like to see a Super-Y team in the Midlands area for summer play -- much like the AAU baseball and basketball teams.

What is the process to get this done? This could be a great tool for summer exposure.<<

You either create a new club or take an existing club and you register it with USCS. You then go through the same process of attracting and selecting players that you do on teams registered with USYSA/SCYSA except that once the team is formed you register the team itself with USCS.

I perceive the difficult thing here given the increasing competition between the club, USYSA/SCYSA schedules, and the USCS schedules to be attracting the players that are ambitious enough to do this and not already involved with a program, team, and/or club in which there would be conflicts.

>>[Beezer] ALL age groups, both genders! It's ignorant for clubs and coaches in South Carolina to think with the "we have it all" mentality.<<

Isn't it equally ignorant to believe that based on demographics alone that a South Carolina-wide state team can compete with the top clubs? After all, Dallas as a metropolitan area has more people than South Carolina as a state. And the top Dallas clubs draw from an area much wider than the Dallas metropolitan area.

>>Men and women, the player pools ARE NOT deep enough to compete CONSISTENTLY and top players have to be together all the time.<<

Using population/demographics to predict competitiveness is an excellent foundation for any type of youth soccer discussion; however, it is extremely limiting if that's the only thing you're using. Basically, if you look at the top youth soccer clubs in the nation, you can find plenty of exceptions -- CASL out of the Raleigh area and ESC/HFC out of Oklahoma City are the most obvious.

>>A random example here and there doesn't equal improvement and consistency.<<

I agree that anecdotal evidence of one team isn't compelling. And yet assuming that the only thing we have to do is to form a statewide team and expect kids to spring up in Charleston and Greenville and Aiken and Rock Hill that are so ambitious with respect to soccer that they are willing to drive 1.5 hours to multiple training sessions per week doesn't seem valid.

In my opinion, if you're going to try to compete with top club teams nationally, the first and foremost thing to do is to increase your foundation of kids playing soccer. In other words, focus on getting more kids involved at the recreation and above level so that over time you can achieve a critical mass of kids that might be willing and able to participate more broadly on any team, regardless of geography, that has the ambition to compete regionally and nationally.

>>[Beezer] Will it happen? No, because that would effect results and income for DOCs.<<

Let me try to recap your argument here; please correct me where I'm missing something. The only way for SC to compete consistently on a regional and national basis is to create statewide teams that train together a lot. The only thing in the way of this are the club DOC's who stand in the way because of their focus on winning and money.

Basically, it's the competitive structure among clubs in SC that is the issue with the individual profit-motive of DOC's causing behavior that is not only ignorant but malicious as well at least at the DOC level.

To fix this, we need a less competitive structure in the state so that we can communally work together for better results at a regional and national level.

Using the ODP structure but changing it significantly to increase competency within that structure is the answer.

Okay...let's get to your specific proposals.

>>1) The ODP program has to be restructured with new personnel and curriculum<<

It seems to me that the ODP program has changed significantly with college coaches taking over most age groups and bringing "next level" training with them. Specifically, are there other personnel being excluded or curricula being ignored that need to be included?

>>2) People like Mary Bynum and other administrators can not be making soccer decisons at all.<<

Specifically, what soccer decisions are being made by the ODP administrators that are the issue?

>>3) The player pools from the state have to be playing together year round, from a young age, with top coaches. Bottom line! There are not enough good players.<<

As I noted before, this is a bit of a chicken and egg problem. You condemn the club/DOC structure on the one hand but you've offered nothing that would increase the depth of our player pool beyond aggregating the best players from the existing club structure and having them train together more. ODP personnel already get tremendous complaints concerning what training [and associated travel] that exists. Isn't the true root cause that we need more players from whom highly ambitious players can arise who are more willing to take on the hardships associated with traveling several hours multiple times per week for training?

One point I think should noted. My daughter has noted SEVERAL times that she and her teammates (a premier league team) feel that they play too few high level matches with consistency. What I heard this year made me recognize that the spring hurts SC club teams heading to regionals, who are already at some disadvantages (such as population of the state as a pool of players). High school play and the college pool were competitive, but the teams were splintered. I feel that our top teams need to play together against top competition throughout the year leading up to regionals; that may put us over the top without any other changes. Teams, at least at the club where my daughter plays, is receiving extremely high-quality TRAINING and preparation, but match play may hold the key. How much impact does a spring club season have on other states' relative success at regionals? Chico, got stats on that? Anyone?

Doesn't Georgia maintain their "classic" season through the spring even though HS ball is being played? Don't they have a "friendly" league during this time to maintain the competition?

They play their classic state championships in May and June for all ages, then they go to regionals...

Ga. has spring friendlies but only for U15 & U16-
http://www.gasoccer.org/team/divsched.asp?o=672&wzb=1&g=3066649&p=0
But Ga. does have a lot more year round tournaments available for its club teams.
http://www.gasoccer.org/org/orgtourntypes.asp?o=672&wzb=1&ccatid=77274
The Super Cup is right before Regionals-
http://www.gsasoccer.com/supercup/

And, a Georgia team, Concorde Fire Elite, just happened to win the U16 Regional.

There are exceptions and most of those are from such large populations with alot of players to choose.

As far as driving 1.5 hours, one-way three times a week? That's not alot considering what's going on around the country. It's the norm and there are alot of players doing at least that to get what they need. There is sacrifice involved.

I agree with better development at younger ages, however, there is always a time when the best can go with the other best to make things the highest level possible. Whether you have 50, 500 or 5,000 players, there is always the top 18-24 that can push each other to the next level. And that needs to start young.

In a state like SC, you have to pull from everywhere. For years, it's always "wait til this generation" or "when they get older." The numbers are always present in youth soccer registration in the U.S. But they are just numbers and not national-caliber quality. Also, there's not enough quality coaches to develop all the numbers.

ODP administrators, at least with the women, pick coaches, when a, and what, meeting is training or a match and what events to do. And, yes, quality coaches are missing. Just look at the list of coaches on the women's side. A DOC with a coaching technical board needs to all that. The administrators just collect money, email, assist tryouts, hotels/travel, etc. That's it. NOTHING soccer related.

As far as the point about enough top competition? Correct. A top pool of players can play Premier League, top tournaments, out-of-state friendlies, State Cup and most of all train with another and play 8 v 8, 11 v 11, etc if the pool is large enough.

It takes a DOC summit to do this and, again, there is too much result and financial-oriented issues for each DOC to give in, even if they know its right. And CESA thinks it has it all but it's not close in Region III and the country on a consistent basis.

I don't CESA thinks they 'have it all.' To the contrary, they are not satisfied and won't be until they first get a Regional title or more. Since SC is so small, the ideal situation would be to have one state high-tier club for each age/gender group, rather than strong regional (upstate, midstate,lowcountry) clubs which efficiently and effectively disperse the talent pool. All the 2nd and 3rd and 4th tier clubs could serve as massive feeders to the state club, with excellent, high-level competition among themselves in state, and maybe beyond. The state club would of course have to meet its requirements to play for the state title, but primarily would travel year round to top tournaments and other challenging friendlies. I know high level Concorde, Forsyth, and CASL teams travel to Surf and Dallas Cups on a regular basis. The 'large metro Atlanta population issue' would be countered with the fact that the state teams would draw from all of the state, making the population issue a moot point. But...no, it will not happen, and not so much because of financial-oriented issues for the DOC, but because of the DOC egos and territorial club issues.

2004striker, Perfectly said!

[Preface: This is getting long; I'm going to break this down into several posts.]

>>[Beezer] There are exceptions and most of those are from such large populations with alot of players to choose.<<

Actually, Raleigh and Oklahoma City are relatively small metropolitan areas; that's what makes them exceptions. What's interesting is what we can learn from the exceptions.

>>As far as driving 1.5 hours, one-way three times a week? That's not alot considering what's going on around the country. It's the norm and there are alot of players doing at least that to get what they need. There is sacrifice involved.<<

As someone who has a daughter who has for the last few years made a 3+ hour round-trip 3-4 times per week, I think that you are glossing over just how few kids in South Carolina are willing to make this type of sacrifice.

I think that your scheme will fail if for no other reason than there are not enough players in South Carolina willing to make this type of commitment. I wish I were wrong about this.

Let's take a current example. If you look at the numbers, whether it be state championships, RIIIPL-East records, region pool players, various players of the year, etc. then it's been obvious for a long time that if you're an ambitious female player you need to be playing in the upstate. Yet the actual number of women deciding to play in the upstate is relatively small. Why? Two reasons: social soccer [I want to play with my friends] and the desire not to commute to train and play.

How will a DOC summit cause more players to be willing to drive 3+ hours several times a week for the best possible training and playing opportunities?

>>I agree with better development at younger ages, however, there is always a time when the best can go with the other best to make things the highest level possible. Whether you have 50, 500 or 5,000 players, there is always the top 18-24 that can push each other to the next level. And that needs to start young.<<

I couldn't agree more with the sentiment that you are expressing. I just don't believe that there exists 18-24 players in each gender and age bracket that are willing to travel 3+ hours several times per week for training and then travel out of state to get competition by playing out of state teams from Raleigh, Atlanta, etc.