Big Daddy,
There is a shift in the works. While football will most likely always be king I think over the next few years we may see some kids gravitate towards soccer. With all of the concussions more and more parents are thinking twice about letting the 7/8 old put a helmet on. They are either making them go the flag route or putting them in soccer for what they expect will only be a couple of years. I know in our club of at 20 kids who were just supposed to be there until mom and dad felt comfortable about them putting on a helmet and them and the child fell in love with soccer and have stayed. Although we will never get to the pick up mentality of Europe or South America at our organization we have found a way to encourage that type of behavior. During summer and winter breaks we'll host open soccer nights, we set up some 3v3 fields as the kids show up we let them pick their, fields, teams etc. Its pretty interesting to see how regardless of age the kids almost always set themselves up by skill. The rule out there is that coaches keep away. We usually just set up our own 3v3 field and break a little bit of a sweat. We had kids asking for us to have it a second night, kids from different teams within the club becoming friends and the end of season BBQ ended up being a huge event.
