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The SC ODP team in U16 and U17 girls is 4-5 girls who could play D1 and the rest of the team is usually challenge and classic players who will play D2/D3 or not play at all. It's hard to show your skills when you have that kind of makeup on a team.



Uncle Buck, I wouldn't knock the Challenge players too much, within our own club the '91 and '92 Challenge teams each have at least one player that have either signed or committed to D1 schools.

As for the second part about exposure at Region ODP Camp, I think some of the reported changes for how this year's camp will be run will directly address your criticism. It may be late in the ODP process for the '93 group, but it will still be interesting to see the effects of the change. I'm not sure I agree that there exists a significant drop off after the first 4-5 players at the past camps that caused the diminished exposure, but I will agree that SC teams haven't always enjoyed the same exposure as TX, GA, FL or even NC. I believe getting away from the state team vs. state team format and going to a "scramble" format for all games will really improve the exposure for a lot of players from the "non-dominant" states. This year, my understanding, your daughter will not only be playing against players from FL, TX, etc., but will finally get a chance to play all games WITH the players from FL, TX, etc. Finally, a "region team tryout" environment rather than the "state teams tournament" environment of the past... I hope.

So, seeing the SC players competing as teammates alongside players from those traditionally dominant states may also help sell the "major" college coaches on the idea that more SC players than were once thought can actually play "major" D1 soccer. I've always thought they could.

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(The Chief) ...ODP is being "phased/pushed out" for ECNL on the girls side like it is for Academy on the boys side. Not sure there is much chance for it to survive if ECNL continues to grow, at some point kids will stop doing ODP to focus on their ECNL.


I don't think ECNL will be killing off USYS ODP any time soon, although I'm sure it wouldn't hurt the feelings of those trying to expand that program (actually, I think it is part of the program's agenda)... 1) you only have one team per age in SC currently playing ECNL, everyone else in the state is still USYS only including the ECNL club's Challenge team. The boys side is still going strong even with the one Academy team per age in SC. 2) None of the FL teams are involved in ECNL nor are Texans Red or most of the current top clubs from GA (lots of Region and National players). Until SC starts getting some real numbers into the girls' region pools, do you really think USYS Region 3 camp would miss us even if the whole state joined ECNL?

I asked college coaches at last year's camp what the coaches thought about ECNL. They said they would attend games etc. like any other event. I then asked what the coaches thought about the possibility that ECNL may try to restrict its members from participating in USYS ODP events. One of the coaches said (s)he hadn't heard that, and "thought it would be a mistake... that ODP on the girls' side works, we have the number 1 team in the world."