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[Preface: From another thread...

>>[coldhardtruth] To be competitive at Premier....meaning winning at least half your games would take a statewide team at most age groups and genders..Not to say that CESA has not had some success in the past but when you step to Premier it's a whole different animal<<

I realize that I have a bias toward CESA because of all that it's done for my kid -- and I work hard to try to see all sides of the issues raised here -- but I couldn't let this one go unchallenged.

The RIIIPL-East average winning percentage last fall was approximately 44%. CESA had an average winning percentage across all of its teams last fall of 41%. SC had an average winning percentage of 29%. Bridge had the best of the non-CESA SC clubs with a winning percentage of 29%. DSC had a winning percentage of 25%; after that you had CUFC at 15% and MPSC at 2%.

Perhaps more telling, look at average goal differential. CESA if course led the way with a -0.1; Bridge had a somewhat respectable -0.5. CUFC and MPSC had GD's of over -2.0 per game!

Sometimes we're guilty of generalizing too much and losing the truth. The truth is that the folks at CESA, while far from their own internal goals, have achieved competitiveness in RIIIPL-East. The other clubs haven't. The other clubs need to fix this.

Those bemoaning the state of South Carolina soccer (and I'm one of them), need to be more careful and start bemoaning the state of "non-CESA South Carolina soccer."

And why has CESA been so successful? Largely in part to St. Giles and GFC putting their differences behind them to form a club that could compete.

Why was GFC so successful? Largely in part to Golden Strip and DSA putting their differences behind them.

Why have low country clubs struggled? Because unlike the upstate, clubs here (usually run by Parks and Rec Departments who are more concerned with numbers and not fiedling elite teams) seem to refuse to put their differences behind them. Instead, club officials put "keeping their own name" ahead of forming competitive clubs with a systematic way to develop elite teams while still maintaing a strong recreation program. The days of the Hungryneck Soccer Club and Trident Soccer Club have given way largely to clubs focused on fielding more in-house and local travel recreation teams.

Chico,
I was not trying to step on your toes..The fact that I brought up CESA in the statement was that I was separating them from the rest of the state and stating that they had success in the past because that's all we have to go on..so not stab was intended..I do believe that as a state and sorry you cannot separate your club from the rest of South Carolina..that statewide teams would be more competitive than any one club going at it alone and when you think about it..as more and more players join the CESA program..They are becoming a statewide club...The C is for Carolina..right?

Chico,

If the stats you've posted are accurate then Columbia United FC has a lot of work to do. Please watch the U14's and under this spring and let us know how we're doing since you seem to be the statistics guru of the forum.

We have to give CESA credit where credit is due but i think if you "tease" out the boys from the girls side, there is a "leveling" of the teams/clubs in the state in regards to the boys. You would think that the "best/biggest" club in the state would dominate in the older age groups as they "recruit/attract" new players added to the players they have had in their program in their younger years, but CESA has failed to win a championship on the boys side in U16-U18 in the last two years. This is a "fascinating" statistic given their overall success in the last three years.

>>[TVOR] And why has CESA been so successful? Largely in part to St. Giles and GFC putting their differences behind them to form a club that could compete.

Why was GFC so successful? Largely in part to Golden Strip and DSA putting their differences behind them.<<

You're engaging in a tautology here. Both SGU and GFC were by far the most successful clubs in the state before they merged; while the merger no doubt made them stronger, the basis of their strength predated the merger. And the basis of that strength isn't the elimination of parental choice; it's the attraction of kids with similar highly ambitious value systesm.

>>Why have low country clubs struggled? Because unlike the upstate, clubs here (usually run by Parks and Rec Departments who are more concerned with numbers and not fiedling elite teams) seem to refuse to put their differences behind them. Instead, club officials put "keeping their own name" ahead of forming competitive clubs with a systematic way to develop elite teams while still maintaing a strong recreation program. The days of the Hungryneck Soccer Club and Trident Soccer Club have given way largely to clubs focused on fielding more in-house and local travel recreation teams. <<

The number of YMCA, church, and parks and recreation oriented clubs in the upstate appears to be at least as much as those found in the rest of the state. The difference, I would posit, is that in the upper part of the state there's a club that is offering superior services (and before CESA, there were two clubs offering superior services.

>>[CHT] I was not trying to step on your toes. [...] The C is for Carolina..right?<<

I promise you weren't stepping on my toes and I apologize if that's the perception I gave to you. I thought you raised some great points.

CESA has always been, since its inception, more of a USCS oriented club philosophically with respect to geography than a USYSA oriented club. By that I mean that CESA, because of its history, its geography, its ambitions -- attempts to and does attract kids from the Carolinas as well as Georgia and in a few cases TN and beyond. USCS believes that state-oriented affiliating organizations get in the way of providing superior youth soccer; that's why it doesn't have a state-level structure.

Manchester: I like the skepticism inherent in your statement "If the stats you've posted are accurate..." -- I believe that a lot of what is said on this message board or any other should be verified. Below, you'll find a compilation of the statistics I cited; and HotStat is the source for that compilation.

Manchester: One other note on this -- while I know it appears CUFC did horribly, it should be noted that historically the second seeded team from South Carolina does even more horribly (note: that's an opinion, it would be interesting to see if CUFC has raised the bar for second-seeded teams over past years.)

So while I don't think that CUFC achieved its goals in its first year of RIIIPL-East play, I don't think it made things worse, either.

>>[socdad] We have to give CESA credit where credit is due but i think if you "tease" out the boys from the girls side, there is a "leveling" of the teams/clubs in the state in regards to the boys. You would think that the "best/biggest" club in the state would dominate in the older age groups as they "recruit/attract" new players added to the players they have had in their program in their younger years, but CESA has failed to win a championship on the boys side in U16-U18 in the last two years. This is a "fascinating" statistic given their overall success in the last three years.<<

South Carolina boys soccer is certainly more competitive than South Carolina girls soccer -- no doubt about it. However, if you want to take a deeper look at competitiveness on the boys side, rather than micro-segment out your data to exclude age groups (e.g., U16 - U18 versus U15 - U18, or whatever), you'd probably be best served to look at not only all of the age groups and not only championships but also finalists and perhaps even semi-finalists. I once did this a few years ago assigning 1 point for finalists and 2 points for champions and the like.

The bottom line is that CESA, while clearly not as dominant on the boys side as on the girls side, still tends to be almost always there as a finalist or a champion. Which means that the club earns RIIIPL-East slots at a much higher rate than other clubs.