Cost of Mass Clubs

[Unregistered]

Real Talent is very easy to spot, even at the younger ages. Whether it develops or not, or is derailed by injuries, etc. is very hard to predict. Maybe the talent gets used in another sport or activity, but the talent is apparent from the start. If you take the top kids at the top clubs, or on NTs, I would bet that every one of them was a stud at age 8 or 9. The dream of the late developer is largely a myth, put forth to separate desperate parents from their $.

Absolutely agree. Spotting real talent and nurturing it are really two different things altogether. Spotting athletic potential is actually quite easy. You very seldom find situations where a kid was judged to not have much potential suddenly popping up to take the athletic world by storm. The kids that usually show up on the high school teams almost always come from the population of really good U-Little athletes. The thing that most of these other parents are talking about is the attrition rate within that group. It is 100% true that not every one some of those kids are not going to end up even playing any sport in high school much less making a varsity team. That doesn't mean that at one time they didn't have the potential to make one.

Some parents really buy into the late bloomer myth and it really is a myth built largely with half truths like the Michael Jordan story. The fact behind that story is MJ was always recognized as being the best athlete in his town from the earliest days of his sports participation. His late bloom was an unusual late 6" growth spurt in high school that took his athleticism and turned him into a freak. He certainly wasn't some chubby little kid who couldn't walk and chew bubble gum at the same time that nature miraculously turned into a superstar.

[Unregistered]

This logic is extremely tired. It is what the whole early bloomer and 9 yo D1 threads are about. After years and years of pounding the table with your beliefs, we all get that you are an optimist and think that everyone should wait around to see if their kid comes out the other side of puberty with the stuff to change the course of their sport endeavors. No matter how you slice it only about 3% of all of the youth soccer players are going to find success with soccer beyond their high school years and you are focusing relatively miniscule segment of that population The real problem with your logic though is you are encouraging families to commit to what is now a pretty hefty price tag on the off chance nature throws a positive surprise their way. In many ways that is pretty irresponsible.

What a massive swing and miss.

[Unregistered]

It had the blessing of much of the community. A survey of every district household was conducted as the foundation did not raise the entire amount necessary for the turf (and a new track). Responses were requested about a list of needs at the high school. And trust me as I inhabit this place...heavy duty focus on competitive youth sports. I think it comes with a cost beyond just the expensive facilities. It send a big message that athletic competitions are very important. There is great value in kids playing sports but it has gotten out of hand around here IMO.

This is what voting is essentially about. You seem to be lamenting what your neighbors all voted on and are acting as though putting in that field was somehow wrong. I would guess you are in the minority in your community and fortunate for you, you didn't have to fork any money over for something you didn't believe in. Could have been a lot worse, just listen to your favorite news channel, that's an example of voting were we all ended up footing the bill regardless of whether we agreed or not.

[Unregistered]

This logic is extremely tired. It is what the whole early bloomer and 9 yo D1 threads are about. After years and years of pounding the table with your beliefs, we all get that you are an optimist and think that everyone should wait around to see if their kid comes out the other side of puberty with the stuff to change the course of their sport endeavors. No matter how you slice it only about 3% of all of the youth soccer players are going to find success with soccer beyond their high school years and you are focusing relatively miniscule segment of that population The real problem with your logic though is you are encouraging families to commit to what is now a pretty hefty price tag on the off chance nature throws a positive surprise their way. In many ways that is pretty irresponsible.

Nothing you wrote reflects my opinion, sentiment or most relevant, anything I actually stated. That you're seemingly speaking to me as if you know me and my beliefs either reveals that what you wrote based on inference or agenda. What's odd is that you appear to believe we're in disagreement when we're actually not from what I'm reading.

Listen (read) more to understand, less
to respond. It makes for better dialogue.

Cheers.

[Unregistered]

Nothing you wrote reflects my opinion, sentiment or most relevant, anything I actually stated. That you're seemingly speaking to me as if you know me and my beliefs either reveals that what you wrote based on inference or agenda. What's odd is that you appear to believe we're in disagreement when we're actually not from what I'm reading.

Listen (read) more to understand, less
to respond. It makes for better dialogue.

Cheers.

As far as "agenda" goes, what you are espousing has been espoused before. It is sort of a recurring theme here so you are linked to it. That is how things work when everyone is posting anonymously. Based upon what I read in your post, you appear to think it is impossible to predict who will end up on a high school varsity team. I disagree. Now I don't think that you can do it with 100% accuracy, but I do believe that you can get in the ball park. I believe that is very easy to tell who will NOT be on that team at early ages and that through that discovery process you will start with a group of likely suspects that will net down over the course years to the 5-10 kids from an age group who will end on the varsity team. Even in a big town, at 10 years old you are not talking about a real big grouping of kids. Maybe 4-5 teams worth and most of them are already starting to select themselves out by 10. Realistically you can look at just the "A" and "B" teams and get pretty darn close. My kid was on an "A" team at 10 and I am seeing just about every single one of the kids from that team either on one of our town's varsity teams or some other team at one of the private high schools. Thinking back there was no real surprises.

[Unregistered]

As far as "agenda" goes, what you are espousing has been espoused before. It is sort of a recurring theme here so you are linked to it. That is how things work when everyone is posting anonymously. Based upon what I read in your post, you appear to think it is impossible to predict who will end up on a high school varsity team. I disagree. Now I don't think that you can do it with 100% accuracy, but I do believe that you can get in the ball park. I believe that is very easy to tell who will NOT be on that team at early ages and that through that discovery process you will start with a group of likely suspects that will net down over the course years to the 5-10 kids from an age group who will end on the varsity team. Even in a big town, at 10 years old you are not talking about a real big grouping of kids. Maybe 4-5 teams worth and most of them are already starting to select themselves out by 10. Realistically you can look at just the "A" and "B" teams and get pretty darn close. My kid was on an "A" team at 10 and I am seeing just about every single one of the kids from that team either on one of our town's varsity teams or some other team at one of the private high schools. Thinking back there was no real surprises.

Wrong. By a mile. I never said impossible to predict. That's your inference. You seem to LOVE engaging in it...speaking of tired. I spoke in more precise terms, nothing different than you've said above, offering a necessary dinstinction between know and think. But you misread what I wrote, trotted out your flapdoodle response full of things I didn't address (I couldn't care less as to why), and if the form stays true, you'll just dig in (it's what people do on TS by force or by choice when they're mistaken), no matter what the words that were actually written in my two posts.

Thanks for sharing your personal story though, now that we have that proof, and now we know, we can move on from the discussion. Absolutely brilliant.

[Unregistered]

As far as "agenda" goes, what you are espousing has been espoused before. It is sort of a recurring theme here so you are linked to it.

Espoused nothing. Except something resembling this:

Now I don't think that you can do it with 100% accuracy, but I do believe that you can get in the ball park.

But if you want to build your straw man as to whatever it was you thought I was espousing, maybe someone else would be interested to know...besides you.

[Unregistered]

Wrong. By a mile. I never said impossible to predict. That's your inference. You seem to LOVE engaging in it...speaking of tired. I spoke in more precise terms, nothing different than you've said above, offering a necessary dinstinction between know and think. But you misread what I wrote, trotted out your flapdoodle response full of things I didn't address (I couldn't care less as to why), and if the form stays true, you'll just dig in (it's what people do on TS by force or by choice when they're mistaken), no matter what the words that were actually written in my two posts.

Thanks for sharing your personal story though, now that we have that proof, and now we know, we can move on from the discussion. Absolutely brilliant.

Anyone else confused what this person is actually objecting to? If both of them think it is possible to predict who will likely end up being on the high school team, what is the issue?

[Unregistered]

My kid is 10. Get a grip.

Noone knows at 10 if their kid will play HS or college. And if you say or think you know, you're an idiot living vicariously through your kid.

Not true. When my kids were 10, they were playing up an age group and among the best players in their club. It was clear then that the only way they wouldn't be playing in HS would be if they either lost interest (possible) or encountered some kind of major injury (also possible). Now they're off to play in college, just like we figured they would. We weren't living vicariously through our kids - we just have enough experience in the game and youth sports to know what we were looking at.

Not not true. Congrats on your kids, but you didn't "know" anything. Know means something, and it isn't synonymous with "think" or "hope". Aside from the meaning of the word, a sample size of one, two or even three doesn't offer proof of anything. For all the examples like yours, there is no shortage that tell a very different story. And as you concede in your own case, losing interest and injuries are just two on a list of more possible reasons why you don't, in fact, know at the age of 10 what's going to happen years later.

Had to chuckle at that post as well. All three of mine were very good players at U10. One doesn't play any longer but does great in other sports. One went back down to travel because he hated all the travel, etc. with high level club and also plays other sports. Only one left who still plays but he's a sophomore in HS and has no idea if he wants college ball or not, even though he absolutely could. Add to that the hard work and dedication that needs to come from the kid, not the parent, to make it to that next level. How many 9-10 year olds are still playing 4-5 years out in HS let alone college?

And as a parent I don't pretend to know everything about athletics or what coaches want. It's their job as professionals to figure out if my kids has what it takes. I fully admit to being an amateur.

Agree with this response. I'd even go a step further to say that for every 100 parents that say they "know" at age 10 whether their kid will play HS or college, a small percent actually do for a # of reasons.

My son is 10. He plays town/travel and club. He attends extra keeper training. He goes out in the yard and plays every day after school. He does camps, clinics and occassional private keeper training. When he's not playing (and his school work is completed) he's watching DVRed games or YouTube how to videos. He asks to rent soccer themed movies for family movie night (Bend it Like Beckham and The Big Green), and he gets soccer books at the library. He recently dropped baseball and LAX to play more soccer. To be quite frank, I think it's borderline obsessive. However, all the above is his doing without prompting from us.

All that said and I still can't say that I "know" he will play HS or college. Perhaps he really truly loves the sport and will continue on this path. Or perhaps he'll burn out. Perhaps he'll become obsessed with basketball. He's 10, things change.

I'm just along for the ride. Sure, I love watching him play. What I love even more is seeing how much joy he gets from the sport.

At the end of the day, if your kids really want to make it (whatever make it means); they just need to play. Stop blaming the club system or the parents/kids that you think shouldn't be there. They are not what's holding your kid back.

This forum is full of people who think their kid is going places. To what end, I don't know. However I doubt many of them put in any extra work beyond team practices.

Just enjoy watching your kids play. Yoy can't get these years back.

Real Talent is very easy to spot, even at the younger ages. Whether it develops or not, or is derailed by injuries, etc. is very hard to predict. Maybe the talent gets used in another sport or activity, but the talent is apparent from the start. If you take the top kids at the top clubs, or on NTs, I would bet that every one of them was a stud at age 8 or 9. The dream of the late developer is largely a myth, put forth to separate desperate parents from their $.

8 or 9 ?
late developer a myth ?
Hardly.
I have seen it time and time again. Children develop at different rates, at different times.

Talent is an opinion , not a fact.

Fast & agile. Creative & competitive. Has coordination and dexterity. For the majority of the top players, these signs show up pretty early. They may end up playing lacrosse, hockey, basketball, or something else, but it's usually clear that there's something "there." We can all cite a bunch of late bloomers who made it big, but they are outliers, and even they were not usually run-of-the-mill athletes when they were young.

This logic is extremely tired. It is what the whole early bloomer and 9 yo D1 threads are about. After years and years of pounding the table with your beliefs, we all get that you are an optimist and think that everyone should wait around to see if their kid comes out the other side of puberty with the stuff to change the course of their sport endeavors. No matter how you slice it only about 3% of all of the youth soccer players are going to find success with soccer beyond their high school years and you are focusing relatively miniscule segment of that population The real problem with your logic though is you are encouraging families to commit to what is now a pretty hefty price tag on the off chance nature throws a positive surprise their way. In many ways that is pretty irresponsible.

Absolutely agree. Spotting real talent and nurturing it are really two different things altogether. Spotting athletic potential is actually quite easy. You very seldom find situations where a kid was judged to not have much potential suddenly popping up to take the athletic world by storm. The kids that usually show up on the high school teams almost always come from the population of really good U-Little athletes. The thing that most of these other parents are talking about is the attrition rate within that group. It is 100% true that not every one some of those kids are not going to end up even playing any sport in high school much less making a varsity team. That doesn't mean that at one time they didn't have the potential to make one.

Some parents really buy into the late bloomer myth and it really is a myth built largely with half truths like the Michael Jordan story. The fact behind that story is MJ was always recognized as being the best athlete in his town from the earliest days of his sports participation. His late bloom was an unusual late 6" growth spurt in high school that took his athleticism and turned him into a freak. He certainly wasn't some chubby little kid who couldn't walk and chew bubble gum at the same time that nature miraculously turned into a superstar.

Nothing you wrote reflects my opinion, sentiment or most relevant, anything I actually stated. That you're seemingly speaking to me as if you know me and my beliefs either reveals that what you wrote based on inference or agenda. What's odd is that you appear to believe we're in disagreement when we're actually not from what I'm reading.

Listen (read) more to understand, less
to respond. It makes for better dialogue.

Cheers.

As far as "agenda" goes, what you are espousing has been espoused before. It is sort of a recurring theme here so you are linked to it. That is how things work when everyone is posting anonymously. Based upon what I read in your post, you appear to think it is impossible to predict who will end up on a high school varsity team. I disagree. Now I don't think that you can do it with 100% accuracy, but I do believe that you can get in the ball park. I believe that is very easy to tell who will NOT be on that team at early ages and that through that discovery process you will start with a group of likely suspects that will net down over the course years to the 5-10 kids from an age group who will end on the varsity team. Even in a big town, at 10 years old you are not talking about a real big grouping of kids. Maybe 4-5 teams worth and most of them are already starting to select themselves out by 10. Realistically you can look at just the "A" and "B" teams and get pretty darn close. My kid was on an "A" team at 10 and I am seeing just about every single one of the kids from that team either on one of our town's varsity teams or some other team at one of the private high schools. Thinking back there was no real surprises.

When threads turn in this direction I always find it helpful to go back and revisit the discussion so I can look at the context. What we appear to have here is someone anonymously barging into a discussion and then objecting to being misidentified.

[Unregistered]

When threads turn in this direction I always find it helpful to go back and revisit the discussion so I can look at the context. What we appear to have here is someone anonymously barging into a discussion and then objecting to being misidentified.

Maybe. You might also have someone who made a couple of points, didn't see any value in continuing the back & forth with folks who were locked into their position, and left the forum for a bunch of hours. I know that for a fact...

[Unregistered]

Not not true. Congrats on your kids, but you didn't "know" anything. Know means something, and it isn't synonymous with "think" or "hope". Aside from the meaning of the word, a sample size of one, two or even three doesn't offer proof of anything. For all the examples like yours, there is no shortage that tell a very different story. And as you concede in your own case, losing interest and injuries are just two on a list of more possible reasons why you don't, in fact, know at the age of 10 what's going to happen years later.

This logic is extremely tired. It is what the whole early bloomer and 9 yo D1 threads are about. After years and years of pounding the table with your beliefs, we all get that you are an optimist and think that everyone should wait around to see if their kid comes out the other side of puberty with the stuff to change the course of their sport endeavors. No matter how you slice it only about 3% of all of the youth soccer players are going to find success with soccer beyond their high school years and you are focusing relatively miniscule segment of that population The real problem with your logic though is you are encouraging families to commit to what is now a pretty hefty price tag on the off chance nature throws a positive surprise their way. In many ways that is pretty irresponsible.

The author of post #75 should be banned from the quote button.

[Unregistered]

When threads turn in this direction I always find it helpful to go back and revisit the discussion so I can look at the context. What we appear to have here is someone anonymously barging into a discussion and then objecting to being misidentified.

Not quite #75. You're forgiven though.

[Unregistered]

The author of post #75 should be banned from the quote button.

Oh come on, as though the guy who wrote that the late bloomer is hardly a myth hasn't been spewing that crap for years here. In a discussion about the costs of club soccer all falling on that sword does is reinforce how crazy the whole club scene is.

[Unregistered]

Oh come on, as though the guy who wrote that the late bloomer is hardly a myth hasn't been spewing that crap for years here. In a discussion about the costs of club soccer all falling on that sword does is reinforce how crazy the whole club scene is.

I think you missed the point that if you're going to take exception with a post, quote the post you're disputing, not a different post (and then when you quote an endless string of posts, omit the one you mistakenly quoted). I know, it's complicated.

Otherwise, there was nothing in the exchange about late bloomers, myth or not, just calling bull**** on a guy using the word "know" talking about his ulittle's future on the varsity squad. That's it.

[Unregistered]

This is the whole problem with an anonymous forum. Posts pop up and there really is no way to know who wrote what but the fact is the message itself IS there amongst all of the others and IT does actually link to a very common theme. Even though it may have just been a random shot from the dark, unfortunately what it also does is link all of the surrounding messages to a theme and that often inappropriately groups the other participants in ways they find objectionable. This is exactly what drives people to try to identify posters and put labels on them. To sort out the context of comments. It is nuts.