That facility in Hattiesburg is an off-shoot of a larger local club with a high level of coaching acumen. The new facility has good coaches, and rotates practices between Hattiesburg, Birmingham and possibly Slidell. They choose to participate in tournaments in Atlanta, Nashville and other cities in order to play against higher level talent. Traveling to tournaments or developmental programs 4 - 6 hours away brings us back to the issue of pay to play... some families will choose to do it, many will drop out.

The kids might get touches on the ball when they meet for practices locally, but they need exposure to the highest level of competition to develop. Again, geography is a huge issue, and will continue to be an issue, outside of the metropolitan areas.

Trust me on this - I'm currently dealing with it with my kids, and I dread the thought of entering regional PDP in addition to local club team play and school team games. That means that I'm looking at travel for all three teams for one kid, with a second kid who is not old enough for PDP or school team play yet, but often guest plays for other teams in addition to her club team.

It is what it is, because it is the only model available at the time. And to be honest, it might be the only model, at the time, that can address the geographical issue that I'm referring to.

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Posted by dsides

Member since Jan 2013

5403 posts

Posted on 10/20/17 at 1:27 pm to Bill Parker?

quote:
The kids might get touches on the ball when they meet for practices locally, but they need exposure to the highest level of competition to develop. Again, geography is a huge issue, and will continue to be an issue, outside of the metropolitan areas.

Bill Parker. You get it. I just went through the same process with my son. Mid sized market, top level team, ranked top 5 in their region. Club decides to go to new ECNL league with would require year round travel and be VERY expensive. That doesn’t take into account the toll it takes on your family and being away from home. You are also basically asking your 12-13 year old son to make a decision to go all-in. No other sports, limited time with school friends, and let’s face it, the social fabric of this country and their schools are wrapped around other sports like football/b-ball. So when your son’s buddies start getting more social and chasing girls at weekend school football games, they are hopping in a bus to travel 10 hours to play 2 games. All for what? A potential 1/4 scholarship to college, most likely one with inferior academic standards.

As such, the pool of players that can make it to a high level (mls or other) are limited to kids in major markets with DA’s that CHOOSE to participate. I know many that have chosen as a family not to participate for same reasons above.

The thing is in America you have more options. In other countries, not so much. They see soccer as their only ticket to a better life.

As you can imagine we decided as a family not to participate and if he loves the game enough he can play on his school team or another club team that doesn’t require that commitment.

I know for certain this decision is happening all across the country, obviously to the detriment of the development of US soccer.

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