Chico -- My first inclination was to reply to this post in private, but I decided against that to simply "throw it out there." Anyone that knows me, knows that I am intensely competitive and hate to lose. However, after 18 years of coaching and being on "every side of it" I think I have a pretty good handle on objectivity when it comes to youth soccer.
For one, for too long youth soccer has been an 'activity' to paricipate in for youth ages 4-12, but when kids get into middle school they give it up for other sports/pursuits. I don't have a problem with this generally until I hear the "red flag" words of "it was no longer fun"; "the coaches cared more about winning than the players"; etc.
This simply barks that the nature of youth soccer was no longer compatible with the 80% of kids that play the sport -- not to go to college on scholarship or to make ODP teams, etc. Simply to play a game that until their middle school ages that they had enjoyed.
I am all for the best teams and hope that South Carolina will be able to field the top teams in the country, but I also want the average player to be able to enjoy the game and fill some just in the sheer commitment and competition that the sport requires. This is the future of U.S. soccer -- the average player that simply enjoys their youth experience and hopefully will one day opt to take little "Johnny or Sally" to a pro soccer game or such. This is when our country will really embrace soccer as a true mainstream sport.
As evidence, I was eating breakfast at a local West Columbia establishment Saturday morning and one of my former players' (1995) grandfather was calling his eldest granddaughter on the cell phone and asked "Are the young'uns playing soccer today, with all that rain last night?" ... She obviously replied "Yes" and he stated, "OK, well I guess I'll go out there and sit and watch them." His following five minutes of conversation with his breakfast-mate was of the Midlands high school football games and "which teams will make it through the playoffs" ... In short, the converstaion returned to high school football -- not the future of HS soccer and this is a man that had been to more than 100 games of his grandsons games just a decade ago.
I could ramble on, but it did help to provide some perspective on prep soccer to the absolute general public.
