While I would also say that some of the points are very valid, I would also urge looking at it another way.
These girls played and beat many JV teams as a middle schoolers only team and then as the core of the JV team as Freshmen they came home from IRMO with a 1st and second place finishes against some much larger schools with very solid programs (not gonna name drop but the tourny site show the records, and yeah they won it as 8th graders too).
Yes many of them would have been on JV as 7th graders but would they have been moved to varsity as freshmen? Not likely, let's see last year FM went to the finals with 1 Freshman (and 4 add ons for playoff, two of who could likely played varsity all year bit got way more playing time on JV (like almost every min of every game).
Look at this year we lose 14 players from the team and will still have what should be a good team (not sure how good till much later this year) becasue we have a large core of player who have been a team for 3 or more years. If the 5 or 6 girls returned who were on the team last year maybe only 3 or 4 make the team then you push down a few freshmen to JV making the JV stronger. Instead this year we had to "rob" from JV to make up for the lost players.
My point FM is better for having this middle school program (look at NF across town they have been building up with these middle school kids too). They have players learning skills and team work for two years from a good coach who had them ready to step up in HS if needed. Oh and lets not forget the positive role this kind of program play for the development of the kids as people not just soccer players.
IMHO we would be better off if all middle schools offered the kids this chance, then maybe JV play would get better everwhere and thus better development of player into varsity. Oh no I am not going to even touch the CLUB vs HS things just saying more play=better play most of the time.
Last edited by The Chief; 03/01/12 10:21 PM.
