SC Soccer Forums SCSoccer.com Forums Boys Varsity Soccer Northwestern beats "Death Penalty" on appeal by 8-7 vote

Big,

You are exactly right. You can have year-round soccer 2 ways - 1)Academy soccer or 2)stay together as a club team and play regional/national tournaments during Spring (high school season.) Nothing wrong with that except that tough to get guys/gals to not want to play for their respective schools. It takes away from the high school experience, but thats the sacrifice the kids would have to make. If they want to play bigtime Div. I soccer, that sacrifice is oftentimes essential.
This is bigtime; and even though Tomek did play for CC High, he devoted most of his time to the high level club experience-
http://www.goduke.com/ViewArticle.dbml?S...p;Q_SEASON=2007
SC is not Cal., but here is the way it is handled in Cal.
"The good side of the increasing club/high school separation is that it increases the number of kids who get to participate on high school teams," he wrote.

"Sure, the coaches are bummed to lose their best players. But for every kid that turns to club, there's another kid that gets a lot more playing time."

Said Mike Shimizu, boys' soccer coach at West Torrance: "If [U.S. Soccer] truly wanted to encourage these gifted players to experience all the aspects of playing a high school sport, they would just make it a rule that the clubs had to release them for their high school seasons no matter if they were in the fall or winter.

"I lost three players from my high school program, and I do not begrudge them for their decision. While we are a different team, we continue to do well and play what I hope people consider a good and entertaining style of soccer.

"In the end, I will coach those kids who want to represent their school and cheer for those players from my community who have chosen to do the academies instead of high school soccer. Both sets of kids are working toward positive experiences."

There is nothing wrong with playing any sport year round, my point is that if HS soccer went out of its way to try and secure a year round season, other sports would want it too, and although football is a greuling sport they could easily adapt the rules to make it year round, like have 7v7 turnaments in the spring, have no one in the spring wear full pads- just shoulder pads helmets so the linemen can work on one-on-one blocks and blocking assignments (think spring practice expanded over 3 months rather than 2 weeks).
That would remove those facilities that alot of soccer teams use at the school from being available to the soccer teams, wipping out HS soccer in this statebecause most schhols especially older ones don't have the facilities for multiple large field sports being played at once. I know new schools like Blythewood and RV would have no problem accomdating it but no school in Richland one can that means no more soccer at Dreher or Flora.
Which goes back futbol's question I saw about why HS soccer is in the spring down here not the fall like everywhere else. My understanding is after the Cosmos got America into soccer again in the mid to late 70s schools everywhere started adding it (hence USC celebrated its 30 anniversary this season). Schools down here because of a lack of soccer specific athletes couldn't compete for athletes with football and needed to play in a different season 1st attempt was winter which didn't work well so they moved it to the spring. Up north where I'm from they have whole seperate infrastructure for soccer than football, to allow both to coexist at the same time.

My direct point is.....what is wrong with the heart and soul of a high school team also playing club together? With the same coach?

Are there advantages of this? Sure!!! Are there disadvantages? You betcha!!!

But why is it against the rules?

Always an interesting debate on when to play the high school soccer season. In South Florida, high school soccer is played in the winter season, up against basketball and wrestling.

Addressing Big Daddy question, of what is wrong with a coach having the kids at club and the high school.

There are obvious conflict of interest issues that could arise, by the coach forcing players to the club, where he makes money on the side. The rule being only a percentage, and not an absoulte rule, makes it vague. Clubs can easily work around this rule if they want to, as far as the number of kids on a team goes. The field issue is just dumb.

Here in Illinois the boys play soccer in the fall and the girls play soccer in the spring. There isn't a huge problem in the area that I am in with fields getting overused because we have multiple facilities that have over 30 fields within 25 minutes of each other. But we are lucky enough to hold the regional ODP camp here too. In fact the park district has a soccer stadium with lights that many of the teams use during the regular season in the fall. Some high schools use their own soccer/football field, but the majority use park district fields.

The academy here in Illinois has taken one of the local players to Chicago, so he will not be participating in the soccer season next fall. The team was a runner up this year, but without this specific player, I don't see them having a chance of making it to the state finals again. It is unfortunate, but some of the decision was made because the only reason his team lost in the finals last year for high school was due to the coach being out-coached in the final. He decided not to take the chance of an injury during the high school season. Here in Illinois though, most players that play in the academy come from Chicago. The huge clubs in there produce enough quality players to fill those teams easily. But Illinois is a different beast. The Chicago metropolitan area has almost double the population base of the entire state of South Carolina. When you have a population base that large, and strong club teams, you get the dominating clubs such as Sockers, Magic and Eclipse. You look at their outcomes at Disney/nationals, and you can see that have some of the best club players in the country.....

How would South Carolina do if the soccer programs had to compete with the football programs for players and fields?