>>[TVOR] If soccer (in particular US soccer) wants to avoid this label, then college and National Team coaches need to put less emphasis on club and more on high school.<<

I know that you know this...but coaches at the next level are going to put emphasis on the best possible mechanism to identify and select players that might play at that next level. If high schools want to be taken more seriously as a potential selection mechanism, then they need to significantly improve the quality of the product.

How? Well, one way would be to go into the school system and get first-graders playing. One way to do that is in conjunction with youth soccer clubs. But there might be a million other ways. In the end, however, it's pretty much like the USSF "pyramid" describes -- if you get enough kids playing recreation and then offer the right training, the higher levels of competition will take care of itself.

I'd personally love to see more high school coaches get involved with trying to increase the penetration of soccer to all of the youth in their area. I know that a lot of high school coaches put a lot of time into working with clubs; I'd just like to see the high school coaches and clubs work together to figure out how to get ever more kids playing the sport.