Quote:

Double D you are showing your age......

I will bet Festus' last tooth that someone can confirm a 3rd place team applying for a premier league spot. Just look at the 4th place team that got in over a 3rd.


(If Festus is around that would explain why I can't find Chester to clean up the mess. )

I'm sure you can find a 3rd place team that applied. In u-18 the CESA Premier team (1st place cup) is in the State Challenge League, and Discoveries (3rd place cup) is in R3PLE. Probably no complaints in that age group, so which age group are we really looking at? Must be either u-17 or u-15 (only others with CESA teams in R3PLE to complain about).

Maybe SCUFC '95 Palmetto (3rd place cup u-16) in u-17 didn't want to join SCUFC '95 Elite in R3PLE, don't know maybe someone can confirm or deny. Only other age group would be u-15, and that happens to be the age group where some are pointing to the CESA '97 Premier record thus far. That's probably the age group, and 3rd place cup team would be SCUMP '97 Elite. Top team in that age group from SCUMP playing in State Challenge League with its parents looking at what seems to be a CESA shell game with rosters playing in R3PLE? Yeah, I bet they're grinding some enamel about now, and I can't say I blame them or wouldn't be grinding some of my own about now. But, before we go hanging CESA and SCYSA out to dry let's review a little.

Back in May there was a lot of speculation about if/how CESA would end its dual rostering of players for ECNL/Premier without losing its R3PLE spots given the 50% rule. Apparently CESA figured it out, and on June 2 (2 weeks before the R3PLE application deadline) the SCYSA Coaching Committee voted to abolish the 50% rule. Members of the "Coaching Committee" (according to SCYSA website) include Greg Vallee (Chairman), Kian Brownlee (SCUMP), Tripp Miller (SCUFC), Andrew Hyslop (CESA), Bill Martin (Furman Utd).

Now, I'm not saying I agree with the change abolishing the 50% rule, but as for a "roster shell game"... there is none. As I said in other threads, "each year teams reinvent themselves through tryouts". However, until June 2 that reinvention had a restriction of maintaining 50% of the roster if a team wanted to retain what it had earned. Without the 50% minimum, probably on June 3 CESA essentially cut it's entire '97 Premier roster replacing it with new players through tryouts. Given the current "no minimum" rule the current CESA '97 Premier team IS last year's Premier team, they just replaced all of the players at tryouts rather than half or a few. (Aren't you glad the rule wasn't changed in April? CESA might have filled all those openings at tryouts with players from the coast. Hmmm, when's roster freeze date?) I think the rule change is shortsited, undermines USYS approach to teams "earning" advancement and opens a whole can of worms come State Cup, Regionals and Nationals. But I wasn't on that committee to have a vote. Who was?

As for the "cover up" accusation in a previous post, that rule change seems fairly significant to only require a vote of the "Coaches Committee" without consideration of the other member clubs. However, from the perspective of the SCUMP '97 Elite team (and even the SCUFC '95 Palmetto team) no one should be crying "cover up" as two of the 4 DOC's voting (2 weeks before the R3PLE application deadline) supposedly included the DOC's at SCUMP and SCUFC.

Now, let's drop the "more" or "less" from "deserving" and focus on "deserving". I watched the SCUMP '97 Elite team win that 3rd place cup position, and probably like its parents I would agree they are as capable of competing, "deserving", as the 2 teams currently in R3PLE. However, as with the vote changing that 50% rule, I don't get one and neither do those parents. The real question I see is... regardless of what was going to happen with the 50% rule, regardless of whether CESA gave up a spot to go ECNL only or use its automatic bid for R3PLE, did the SCUMP DOC see the team as capable or "deserving" of an R3PLE spot and act on that team's behalf by submitting an application for that team? If not and I were a parent from that team, I'd start there before going after CESA and SCYSA. I do see in the minutes from the August 6 meeting that Kian brought up the application process. Hopefully he was asking about the 2013 application process or a process not related to R3PLE... in August.

And, if the complaints here are not related to SCUMP '97 Elite not being in R3PLE, then I'll risk showing my age again by quoting Miss Emily Litella... "Oh. Never mind."

Last edited by DeltaDog; 09/05/12 05:04 PM.