Like Marcus, I have been involved for many years, and I can agree with many points made.

This year the 91 Boys had 7 players make the pool. They played 4 matches, OK, FL, TN and MS, went 3-0-1. They had numerous players in each of the 3 evening pool games, and others in morning pool play. Note: They did not play any TX teams this year. I reason that to be that they were put in an elevated category at camp, more as peers to the TX teams, rather than the fodder for them.

Last year at region camp, they beat the NTX team to qualify for ODP Nationals. They had several players in pool play, had 5 holdovers and 6 on the region pool.

The year before, they lost in pk's to the STX team and missed qualifying for the ODP Nationals. They had a couple of players in pool play, and I think 1 holdover. At the closing cermonies they watched the STX team place 7 or 8 players in the pool.

The year before they again had 1 or 2 players in pool play, won games against what Hurst has eluded to being lower level teams at the camp.

The year before that, they were one of the teams other associations looked forward to playing, may have had 1 or 2 players in pool play.

For what it's worth, I write this to illustrate more of what Manchester said, as the team started gathering more wins against the better teams, more players were noticed.

As I said before, and what others have said, they have had a different coach each of the first few years. However, they have had consistency the last couple of years.

Further, there have been different players each year. However, there has been a core of players that have stayed with the program. Some years it was harder than others to stay involved with the program. But the ride home from the bus last night there was a great sense of satisfaction of sticking with it, working hard at club training, club matches, club tournaments, additional camps, ODP camps, and "individually", and receiving the commensurate amount of recognition. It's so much more than just the amount of ODP training sessions each year that got him ready for ODP Region camp.

As for the amount of training sessions, the 91 Boys had 1 weekend this year where the group trained prior to going to camp. It's not from lack of trying by the coach, but with club committments, vacations, cost, etc., the team struggled to get players together. I commend the 92 Boys for being able to get the training they did.

So now, comparing the 93 Girls to the 91 Boys, it could be argued that they are on the verge of their breakout year. They performed well against what some may say are lower level teams, next year, they could be pushed into the harder of the games, and see increased recognition.

This topic gets discussed every year, and every year there are feelings that enough is not being done on behalf of our kids. In fact, you can probably go back a couple of years and see where I questioned the amount of work that was done on behalf of the 91 Boys. Now at the end, I believe the SCYSA represents our kids, and puts them in the environment for them to be successful.