Youth Soccer Participation Has Fallen Significantly in America

[Unregistered]

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/14/s...h-decline.html

The New York Times ??? I wouldn't use it to pick up Dog sh#t.

[Unregistered]

The real reason

Why don’t we say the real reason for the decline?
It’s real simple.....kids are lazy now a days. I’ve coach kids for almost 10years and the one thing I noticed is that they don’t want to work hard. The harder the competition, the more drop out. It happened with my kids as well. Video games are too easy and they feel like winners. Why sweat on the field when they can play an EA sports game?

[Unregistered]

The New York Times ??? I wouldn't use it to pick up Dog sh#t.

NYT is great. One of the last great forms of true journalism left. It’s unbiased reporting. Not sure how anyone could have an issue their reporting.

[Unregistered]

Why don’t we say the real reason for the decline?
It’s real simple.....kids are lazy now a days. I’ve coach kids for almost 10years and the one thing I noticed is that they don’t want to work hard. The harder the competition, the more drop out. It happened with my kids as well. Video games are too easy and they feel like winners. Why sweat on the field when they can play an EA sports game?

"Why", you ask? Because parents like you let their kids play video games all day! Shame on you and any other parents that let their kids become lazy!

[Unregistered]

my experience over about 10 years as a parent is that too much competition and parent craziness ruins the formative years. kids go through a couple of rocky years in middle school where early bloomers are superstars and normal or late bloomers scratch their heads. by time they get to 10th grade, they all are worried about their SATs and grades more than soccer. and my kids love the sport. it's not hard to see why we get poor results at the national level. the system is uber competitive at u9 which is just laugable. then targets big, fast kids when they start 11v11. then quite logically loses out to school instead of reaping the fruits of its soccer investment in a kid at the time when kids should be blossoming as players (15+). i dont think the level - DA, ECNL, FYSA - means anything - its a similar pattern at all levels. Kids that are at a super high level that can play overseas (very very few in my opinion) need to get to europe, escape the madness, and then come back to play for their country.

Interesting hypothesis. Kids start playing at age 8 (U9) and then some become late bloomers at age 16 (10th grade) and by then they are too busy worried about grades and SATs to dedicate themselves to soccer. And THIS is why we get poor results at the national level.

I'm sorry your kids got passed over by "bigger, faster kids" but your little Joanie and Chachi standing around in one spot doing stepovers and spins until the other players took the ball and ran by them might have more to do with why your kids felt the need to concentrate on those pesky SATs.

The fact is that 99.9% of the elite players in the world showed obvious glimpses of their talent in the ages between 9-15. Stop making excuses for why your kids were mid level players and blaming the system. Not everyone can be a famous actress, singer or sports athlete. You need talent. Stars travel around the country in limos but someone has to drive those limos you know.

The fact that you think that DA is equivalent to FYSA also identifies the mind numbing mental retardation that afflicts you in your hysterically funny soccer parent analysis. Stick to baseball pops. It should be boring enough to keep you mentally engaged.

[Unregistered]

We are a school that competes in the biggest state classification, and we compete vs. other large schools. We also discuss participation trends all the time in our quarterly meetings each year. We could easily support second JV teams in the sports of soccer, volleyball and basketball if budget and facilities would allow, but that isn’t a reality. Numbers in these sports have never been an issue for us or the competing schools within our conference. As for Development Academy, we had a graduation class with five boys playing for a DA program, which I believe was the most ever for us. DA programs tend to draw from a large geographic area so kids are generally spread out amongst the high schools. We don't have a local girl's DA program so we haven't seen negative on our numbers and not sure if there would be an impact.

Students often want to play for their schools most of all and can’t get a spot or playing time because the coach starts the same players to try to win. The problem is everything is about winning. If the kids can’t make the A team they often quit and do other interests. The true disease of Gaming Addiction is real and kids are having to go to rehab for it. Scary stuff.

[Unregistered]

I have been an Athletic Director in a large public-school district for 27 years. We are a very strong athletic program, winning numerous state titles in a wide variety of sports, and we offer pretty much everything. I have participation data going back into the 1980’s when the district started keeping records for Title IX. We also have try-out records for all of our teams. Soccer has remained very popular and our numbers are always strong. We are very competitive on both the male and female sides of soccer. Obviously, the commitment level is different for travel and school level soccer, but my point is I don’t see a school or conference wide shift in how many kids are playing soccer. It is still hugely popular in schools and the Development Academy haven’t impacted our rosters. Male and female sports like soccer, tennis, basketball, track, volleyball and swimming all have similar participation numbers going back into the 1980’s. Female lax, softball and male golf have also held steady numbers. Boy’s lax was introduced in the early 1990’s and has absolutely had an impact on our baseball numbers. Some schools within our conference have eliminated 9th grade baseball and offer just JV and Varsity baseball. Male lax numbers are steady since the mid 1990’s. Football numbers have dropped in a big way since the 1980’s, not just at our school, but it is a conference wide issue in terms of scheduling games. Many schools have eliminated freshman football and are just running varsity and JV programs, while other schools have terrible JV numbers and move players between varsity and JV, however those players cannot play in both JV and varsity games in the same week. Sports like wrestling and girls field hockey are close to being dead. In a typical wrestling match, you will end up having more forfeits than actual matches. Boys don’t want to wrestle anymore. For field hockey, we basically recruit any female student with a pulse and promise them lollipops and free tie-dye t-shirts in order to get them play on the team.

Male and female cross country, track and male golf have shown the biggest growth. We cannot support the number of students that want to run cross country.

I have three kids that all played high-level travel soccer years ago. They played before there was a DA and ECNL, but did play in USYS regional leagues and went to regionals after winning state cup. My kids are now having kids, and so are their friends. It’s interesting to see that many of these guys aren’t putting their kids into travel leagues or even team sports. I believe it’s because they spent a significant part of their childhoods driving from place to place for tournaments, league games and lots practices. I don’t think my kids feel it was wasted time, and I do believe they are thankful that we sacrificed lots of time and money for them in order to play, but at the end of the day maybe they know first-hand that it really didn’t matter. They weren’t going to play pro soccer or in a World Cup, and their kids most likely won’t either. They might also like going to the beach and doing other things, things they didn't do as much as kids because they were playing soccer and basketball. Their kids can play recreation and school soccer and have just as positive experience playing sports, or perhaps do activities like cross country, that keep them busy without parents having to drive all over the world to do it. The participation numbers are always strong with cross country, track and male golf and the travel has far less impact on a family. Things like going to the beach, using a boat or just cutting the grass become possible.

Other than throwing around a bunch unrelated facts and some anecdotal evidence regarding your grandkids did you have a point here? No comment about future trends just that cross country is the sport of the future. Have you ever actually stepped out of your office? There are no athletes running cross country! It's a bunch of girls who normally socialize on the treadmill at the gym and want to lose some weight and boys who can't have success in any real sports. GTFO!!!!

If they cancelled cross country no one outside of some whiny, unpopular teens would know or care. No one goes to those events. Most kids can't even convince their parents to show up at a cross country meet. It's the same reason why citizens don't line up with lawn chairs to watch people run down the boardwalk at the beach. Who cares???

This thread is about kids leaving sports. Sure, cross country and cheerleading are probably not being effected but then again . . . those aren't REAL SPORTS!!!

[Unregistered]

Students often want to play for their schools most of all and can’t get a spot or playing time because the coach starts the same players to try to win. The problem is everything is about winning. If the kids can’t make the A team they often quit and do other interests. The true disease of Gaming Addiction is real and kids are having to go to rehab for it. Scary stuff.

Sooooooo . . . you're suggesting high school teams should not play the better players and try to win? They should just make sure everyone gets equal playing time?

If that happened just think what would happen to the lesser sports where you don't need to be athletic to participate? If you could see playing time in real sports think what would happen to cross country?

[Unregistered]

Don’t have time to look up recent statistics but read Soccer has moved ahead of football and basketball and baseball in sports participation in America.

[Unregistered]

Sooooooo . . . you're suggesting high school teams should not play the better players and try to win? They should just make sure everyone gets equal playing time?

If that happened just think what would happen to the lesser sports where you don't need to be athletic to participate? If you could see playing time in real sports think what would happen to cross country?

Practices are for development and games are for winning not developing every player.

[Unregistered]

Don’t have time to look up recent statistics but read Soccer has moved ahead of football and basketball and baseball in sports participation in America.

No it hasn't. It's ahead of football but that's an unfair stat since football is almost all boys. Baseball and basketball are still ahead of soccer. Lax is growing quickly in popularity for boys and girls. Participation in all sports is down, not just soccer, but the population of school aged children has remained pretty steady the last several years. Net/net soccer participation is down by over 320,000 kids in just 3 years.

[Unregistered]

No it hasn't. It's ahead of football but that's an unfair stat since football is almost all boys. Baseball and basketball are still ahead of soccer. Lax is growing quickly in popularity for boys and girls. Participation in all sports is down, not just soccer, but the population of school aged children has remained pretty steady the last several years. Net/net soccer participation is down by over 320,000 kids in just 3 years.

Post links. Boys football compared to boys soccer numbers. Apples to apples.

[Unregistered]

Students often want to play for their schools most of all and can’t get a spot or playing time because the coach starts the same players to try to win. The problem is everything is about winning. If the kids can’t make the A team they often quit and do other interests. The true disease of Gaming Addiction is real and kids are having to go to rehab for it. Scary stuff.

Yes HS can be an ugly experience when it comes to sports. Kids come in as freshmen assuming they will play, but then reality sets in - too many kids, not enough spots. Coaches want to win to keep their jobs, so of course they'll use their best players. some kids will quit out of frustration. Really by 14+ no one should expect playing time on any team. It's earned. But it's still an unpleasant experience for kids. Some find other things they love to do, some drift aimlessly trying to figure it out. School administrators want kids to keep busy and involved, but they can only focus on "Varsity" sports. There aren't many places for the less skilled kids to play at that age; most sports 14+ have the "serious" leagues with lots of travel and costs and little else. In college there are intramural teams that give young adults a chance to play new and old sports.

Anyway, if more young kids are choosing not the play that will have a long term drag on the sport. Then we have a governing body that doesn't know what it's doing.

[Unregistered]

Post links. Boys football compared to boys soccer numbers. Apples to apples.

from a link on this thread - 1st graph. soccer not broken out boys vs girls.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.9be7ca938663

https://www.washingtonpost.com/resiz...IQKKODR7OM.jpg

They also have a nice graphic of participation based on income...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/resiz...QIB47MWMUA.jpg

[Unregistered]

from a link on this thread - 1st graph. soccer not broken out boys vs girls.

They are measuring decrease but not over all numbers in the sports. Should do boys and girls sports numbers separately. More girls and boys combined play soccer more than those other sports in 2018.