SC Soccer Forums SCSoccer.com Forums Club Soccer & ODP There should be more LowCountry Consolidation

Low Country maybe you should be happy you don't have consolidation. If you consolidate you'll see the cost of your child playing youth soccer sky rocket. I talked to a friend who's child is playing for a big club in the upstate. She said the parents up there are praying for another club in that part of the state. She also said the parents have no say in travel costs,uniforms, how many leagues they play in. It sounds like their getting things rammed down their throat. 2 or 3 clubs in an area will keep the price down. Colleges will find your child if their good enough. Hope what's happening in the upstate doesn't happen here in the midlands.

I agree with dawgs. Some of the clubs are charging an arm and a leg and for what? At the end of the day the paid coach concept at the club level is a bit overrated. I played D1 baseball in college and I did not know of one person in the program that had come from a club or anything like that. When I got my son involved in soccer I was surprised to hear when I contacted a couple of the clubs about 1. the price 2. that because I had not played college soccer that I was not the type of coach that they wanted 3. that they discouraged kids from playing other sports. Personally I feel this is where soccer is losing some of its best talent. Was is the purpose of pricing kids out and not allowing their parents to stay involved. At the end of the day I think the clubs would be best served to only keep one paid coach on staff to train other coaches to train the players. At the end of the day every other sport is governed by volunteers and coached by parents and these kids go on to become good high school players and the kids with the best talent go on to college.

good points & throw in the pricing out of most minorities & this sport has become very exclusionary in these parts. i think the current model tends to burn out some kids/parents also.

Great Post! I am not sure that just because you played college soccer you are the best coach! Our child has played travel soccer since 10 years old and will be a Senior this year. If I had to go back and do it again, I would not taken the "advice" of the Club and had her only participate in that one sport. She decided not to play Club soccer this last year and is playing another sport in the Fall and High School soccer in the spring. She has a renewed excitement that i have not seen in a while! It never made sense to me that soccer seemed to be one of the few sports that you had to belong to a "club" in order to be considered a serious player. So what happens to the kids that may have more talent and maybe not necessarily the money or means to go to all of the events?

So if you had a team of 18 players and 9 of them were scholarship you would eat training fees, uniform fees, travel fees. Sorry there's not a club in SC that would entertain that.

Actually we would certainly consider it.
Travel fees do not apply to our club at the level of competition we participate in, but happy to car pool anyone to Walterboro or Summerville.

Other than that - training fees, registration, and uniform we would consider underwriting for players that cannot afford it.

We operate an honor system and expect parents do the right thing with scholarship applications but your scenario is not out of the question. So there is at least one club in SC that would do that.

It's nice to know that there is a club like yours still around. A friend of mine in Greenville, SC who has a daughter that plays on a girls premier club team up there said this past year they've had to travel by air to NJ, Texas, Seattle also have had to car travel to La. once, Fla twice. She said since last August there into club soccer for over $3500 in fees, travel, meals, etc. Their just sick about it and don't know what to do because their daughter loves to play. We never had this in our area in Georgia. So when you said you would eat those fees I'm thinking how could a club afford it.

Wow...that sounds familiar! But I think it was a lot more than $3500.00 overall and I still havent figured out what that traveling did for them? The Premier league was great and those costs are pretty normal and the competition was some of the best. After going to Regionals and seeing the amount of kids that are hoping to get some sort of scholarship to play ... it certainly gives you a dose of reality! A club couldn't absorb those costs and I dont think they would from what we experienced.

The fact of the matter is that college soccer coaches recruit from club soccer, not from high school. The best coaching and competition is in club, not high school. With regard to other sports, I imagine it's a bit of a mix. There is no club system for football, so I suppose it's all about high school. Basketball players are recruited from both high school and AAU. Baseball players are recruited from high school and the travel league/club system.

The current paradigm in youth soccer is far from perfect, but it isn't all bad. Essentially every club offers scholarships to talented players who could not otherwise afford to play. But, that isn't going to capture every "deserving" kid. As long as it is necessary to play against teams from around the region and country in order to consistently challenge yourself, it will be an expensive proposition. My guess is that, over time, we (on the boys' side) will move toward a more European model where professional clubs "adopt" and underwrite the elite youth soccer clubs. We are seeing some of that in the Development Academy now. US Soccer recognizes the hinderance that cost represents in the development of our unrealized potential. The answers are not, unfortunately, easy to come by.