[From another thread...]
>> [kickinit70] Good to know CESA could "easily attend" tournaments "if they had the desire." Are you kidding with that statement?<<
No. I could be wrong, but I wasn't kidding. I was actually tangentially involved in the decision -- and it was made not after being rejected by WAGS and CASL Shootout but instead being accepted and being disappointed with the tournaments -- and at the same time getting pressure from parents regarding the escalating costs associated with not only RIIIPL-East travel but these multiple tournaments as well. As a parent I was involved a few years ago with the plan to attend the Las Vegas tournament to which my kid's CESA team at the time was accepted -- and while I supported it personally there was enough pushback from players who were in the middle of their high school season and from parents who were in sticker shock that we ended up turning down the invitation.
Moreover, from your post, it doesn't appear that you have a problem with what I'm actually saying (the quoted text above regarding CESA being able to easily get into CASL Shootout and WAGS) -- but instead with the policy of CESA that it would focus on Disney and not go to these other tournaments. But I'll go with what you want to discuss and focus not on my assertion but on the point you're raising...
>>If CESA is a top club, with a CAP program that is suppose to put their female players in front of college coaches, why not attend a combination of WAGS, CASL, Las Vegas, Jefferson Cup, PDA and Houston on a consistent basis? These are where a large number of coaches appear yet CESA only attended Disney and, to no surprise due to not being used to the competition, didn't fare too well. Get out in the world and develop these players!<<
A few years back someone published an analysis by a soccer person regarding recruiting and out of region tournaments. Basically, it boiled down to not much succesful recruiting going on outside of the region in which a university was located. So to require parents to pay to go to Las Vegas (for example) in addition to traveling throughout the southeast for RIIIPL-East and to pay to go to regionals and to pay to go to Disney gets rather expensive for a return that is rather meager.
If a player wants to play for the University of Las Vegas, for example, there are much better options that requiring all of his or her teammates who want to stay in the southeast to pay for the travel and lodging and tournament fees associated with the Las Vegas tournamnet. Guesting is the primary one that comes to mind. If someone approaches a CESA coach, that coach is going to try to help the player find a team with whom to guest. That makes sense to me. Requiring 16 groups of parents to pay for travel and lodging to Las Vegas for the players, the coach, and typically a lot of the parents themselves makes less sense.
And for all of the talk and focus on club fees at times in this medium, the truth is that these fees are dwarfed by the travel and lodging fees associated with RIIIPL-East travel and tournament travel.
Take a look at Disney (the #1 ranked tournament) and then take a look at the other tournaments in terms of coaches attending -- then create a set of colleges that don't attend Disney but do attend the others. Then further create a set of colleges that don't attend RIIIPL-East games. It's a pretty small set.
At some point in time you have to decide how many parents you want who reject paying for what are clearly diminishing returns.
Did CESA get it ***exactly*** right in the decision to go only to Disney as its only premier-level tournament? I doubt it -- difficult in the real world to get stuff like this exactly right. And I think it's a good debate to discuss whether another tournament should be added -- and where. But trying to argue that you should fly to Las Vegas for player development rather than simply schedule games against Division II colleges, Georgia and North Carolina club teams, and the like is a difficult one in terms of not only "bang for the buck" but in terms of the number of games you're able to schedule over a given time period.
>>I guess the aspirations are to be just a top South Carolina club in a weak R3PL division and only put players in front of South Carolina colleges because that is what the facts are stating. <<
A "weak R3PL division"? I know that you can't be referring to the girls side -- so are you talking about the boys side and specifically the impact of the new USSF Academy program on the U16 and U18 groups? Or is there another point you're attempting to make? I'm confused by this entire paragraph -- because a lot more than SC college coaches attend RIIIPL-East games and a lot more than SC college coaches attend Disney.
