I am not sure what has happened to the ODP program since my last year in 1994, but here is how it used to be run....
Sometime in October or November, each region of South Carolina met on back to back weekends to pick a team. I was in the upstate and we met at Wofford for both weekends. Each day was about 3-4 hours of training, small sided and full sided games. After the first weekend, there was a cut and the remaining "pool players" returned the next weekend for the same schedule of events. From that, the Upstate Team was picked.
We met in Columbia in January and played the Mid and Lower State teams on Saturday. Sunday was also two games but the three teams consisted of approx 6 players from each team. From that the South Carolina State Pool was picked. The weekend before high school started, SC, NC and GA met for the Interstate game that was organized in the same manner as the weekend in Columbia.
I have a sincere desire to return ODP to that format, but there has to be a commitment from all coaches at all age levels to put any politics aside. There also has to be a commitment from the people running ODP to release coaches who put politics ahead of purity.
We have some awesome players in SC, and there is no reason our players cannot be better prepared for Region and National camp. That starts with eliminating the politics, and then the best of the best will again come out to ODP and then we can return to the format that saw some of players have the most success at ODP.
