Great post!!!! Love the last line!!
I grew up in western PA and was a diehard Pirates fan until they blew up the team after the loss to the Braves (darn Sid Bream) and then the strike and all of that. Can't stand baseball now. Prince Fielder? Yikes....
A funny story when the Pirates were getting good again in the mid 80's and starting to challenge the Mets in the NL East. Someone in the media asked Ed Koch (one of my favorite politicians of all time.....along with Ronald Reagan) about Pittsburgh and he infamously replied "Pittsburgh? I don't even know where it is."
I honestly don't think USSF is sitting around cogitating on the best balance between high school and club and Academy. Honestly, I think they have already decided right or wrong on the Academy model. They are ONLY interested in and focussed on how to best improve that model.
And I think that they think.....that if kids that are interested in playing professionally and being a part of the national team pool are going to play organized soccer another 3.5 months, it might just as well be in the structure of the Academy environment.
I don't think they even think.....about high school soccer in terms of whats in the best interests of that game.
I don't think they care about growing the game or anything along those lines. All they care about.....is growing the pool of players capable of playing professionally and internationally. They also care about growing the quality of that larger pool of players.
Thats it. Of course Claudio Reyna I'm sure would love to see more kids playing soccer, longer and at higher quality...at all levels of play. But his task....is on identifying and growing the elite player. Period.
Everyone has self interest. HS coaches do.....clubs do....USSF does. HS coaches want the best players and they want to win. Clubs want the best players and they want to win and they want to make money. USSF and Claudio Reyna...want to start producing players the can play professionally in the top leagues and lift the US in international play.
Should HS coaches take an Academy player or potential Academy players? Heck yeah!! But you understand, just like a Coach K with a Kyrie Irving....that you may only have them for a year. And hopefully in that year or 2....the kid has fun and the coach is able to utilize his talent to the best advantage of the team.
People cloud this issue. Of course HS soccer is great and of course it has value!! I coached HS for a couple of years and had a blast with the kids. And we did pretty well. But the issue isn't HS or kids who are very good players who want to be balanced kids. This issue....is only about kids who would run thru a wall in order to play professionally or internationally. And....the best way to ID and grow those kids.
