Originally posted by Unregistered
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All the other ECNL have a central location for practices and most games. Seattle United is at the mercy to filed available around the city. Not much they can do. If somehow someone just north of them can get ECNL, it may be a nail in the coffin. -
I was kind of surprised that Rush didn’t get the ECNL spot that Snohomish got.Originally posted by Unregistered View PostComment
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Snohomish and Xfire have been in bed together for years.....Originally posted by Unregistered View PostComment
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We always suspected the last minute field changes happened when a field SU considered "better" opened up...and the "better" fields always seem to be north of the Montlake cut. If you live Madison Park or south, do not get excited when training is scheduled on your side of the bridge because location will be switched to Shoreline 3 hours before practice starts. I don't know if most coaches live north and they try to make it easier for them or what. I'm all for supporting the coaches, but there's not a lot of consideration of family schedules in this approach.Originally posted by Unregistered View PostComment
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Some of the old timers probably could fill things in better than me, so please do.Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
Reaching back in history, SU used to be Emerald City FC when there was a coup for who
will be RCL rep for the area. Emerald City FC lost but they "own" the fields at Magnuson park.
I am not sure if EC also controls the futsal and indoor.
SU will never get permanent fields in Seattle. Too many sports and folks ahead of them.
Seattle Celtics control fields at Greenlake, I believe. Interbay is SPU?
If they merged and shared power, then maybe. But the old guard/coup leaders at SU needs to go before than ever happens. Perhaps making EC or SC the ECNL-R group would be good.
But mostly likely the baby bust in 2008+ and high costs of pay to play soccer will
cause consolidation of the clubs. But doesn't matter to me, we are almost done
with the last one and will enjoy watching my last kid play in college. Good luck.Comment
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Scott Newman. That dude gets around with the clubs and you should avoid gettingOriginally posted by Unregistered View Post
him as a coach. He sucks. Period. He is one of these survivor coaches that somehow
always get a job, but doesn't stay long. Yeah, he is the fat, bald, and out of shape white dude. Avoid. The rest, no idea.Comment
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I had three kids play for SU for a combined 15 years or so (although don’t have any there now) and don’t think this ever happened. Not saying it hasn’t ever happened, but most teams have consistent practice locations for each month. The schedule does change from month to month due to whatever allocation the club gets from the city and whatever other sports are in season. The fields are spread around the area. And kids within the A-C teams in a particular age group pool may not see one another or the other coaches for that age group for months at a time.Originally posted by Unregistered View PostComment
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I don't know if it depends on the team level, but we were at SU for about five years, and it was an ongoing issue. I also have multiple kids, and it never failed that when two were actually scheduled same place/time on adjoining fields, one session would end up switching last minute. I may remember it as worse than it was -- I was extemely stressed in those years. You reminded me that often a team was in one spot for a month at a time. This is still more challenging than always knowing your kid will be at Starfire, Preston or Marymore, but depends on the family. If I had a do over, I would have chosen a club with a consistent training site for my own sanityOriginally posted by Unregistered View PostComment
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Just over ten years ago, RCL, ECNL and boys DA (initially only a couple two year age groups) all came together at around the same time, in parallel with a national level turf war between US Club (which has ECNL and locally PSPL) and US Youth (which has WYS and RCL).Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
Emerald City was at the time the long time premier club in Seattle and the strongest club in the area. Celtic didn’t exist and Reign didn’t come along for a few years. I think Emerald City was independent from Seattle Youth Soccer (the USYS org that served as the umbrella for the bizarre hodgepodge of neighborhood-based rec programs in the city).
The concept with RCL was to give a local monopoly to one premier club for the geographic area covered by each association like Seattle Youth Soccer. Supposedly to create and enforce “standards,” but mostly just to limit competition. The folks running Emerald City at the time didn’t get on with the folks at SYSA or the others in RCL, and ended up badly overplaying their bad hand in negotiations over the formation of SU as the RCL club for Seattle (with a parallel consolidation of select clubs and relationships with the local rec clubs under this new SU umbrella). Emerald City got frozen out and became a PSPL club.
In the years since, Celtic was formed and have grown massively. They somehow got fields at Magnuson and had a good relationship with some of the schools in the Laurelhurst area, and the short commutes were apparently a draw, particularly for younger players. Celtic’s growth puts pressure on the already scarce field situation. Emerald City is relatively tiny nowadays, but they still take up space at Ingraham and sometimes Hale and Magnuson. Celtic and Emerald City are both US Club/PSPL, are perceived by SU leadership as annoying rivals for fields and for players on their lower level teams (even though Celtic has players who could make SU a teams and teams that would be competitive with some of SU’s premier teams). SU’s field predicament will likely continue for the foreseeable future, as space is very tight to develop and the few options there are for a complex are very expensive, would take years to develop, and at best would only end up with a couple more fields.
By design, SU historically sent its top players— boys and girls — elsewhere. On the boys side SU has worked closely with Sounders Academy. On the girls side, about 6-7 years ago SU made a deal with XF to identify players for XF’s ECNL teams and send them over, and maybe get some SU coaches involved in the XF ECNL program. Apart from decimating the girls side of SU that deal didn’t do anything for SU. Five years ago SU then partnered with Reign for ECNL and told all its top players to go there, and a year later added Eastside to the partnership when DA was started. Together, the three could have (and did for the year or so they all tried to make it work) have teams that could attract top players from throughout the area and be competitive nationally. But SU didn’t have as much control or credit as it wanted, and ECNL saw an opportunity to undermine DA, so SU pulled out and got its own ECNL franchise, as did Eastside a year later. So now SU, Eastside and Reign each have their own elite girls programs.
SU’s business model is also fairly heavy with full time directors who coach a couple teams in addition to various operational responsibilities. The directors take most of the top teams and don’t turn over much. That makes it hard, but not impossible, for younger coaches to work their way up. I’d agree with those who have said SU’s track record of developing female coaches is disappointing. None of their directors are women; they haven’t retained female coaches who were in the club at various times over the past several years; and apart from BR, who is married to the girls DOC (no knock on either of them as coaches), they haven’t developed or brought in any female coaches for their top-level teams in the past few years.Comment
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Lets say this poster only experienced this horrific situation once or twice a year, it was so bad that it stuck in his mind. It probably far over shadows the good experiences he had. Now he will mention this to others and it will turn folks away from SU.Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
Does SU really not know this or don't care? I am kind of confused and mad for some reason. I think this is an obvious problem that never gets addressed. Driving is a pain and it literally can be hard at times, especially if you have multiple kids.Comment
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Rush has some weird boundaries because of North County Youth Soccer, which leaves out Snohomish, who has their own Youth Soccer Association, but includes Lake Stevens and seems to draw kids from Marysville and Lakewood, but goes all the way south into Mill Creek. So 90% of practices are at Kasch Park in Everett, but the north end parents really hate when there are practices at Archbishop Murphy or Tambark in Mill Creek, which has happened a lot this year because of field availability thanks to COVID. Personally I think they're a little nutty for driving so far anyway, but north of Everett the competitive soccer options are pretty thin until you hit Mount Vernon.Comment
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This is accurate. However, would add that having been at both Celtic and SU as a parent--Celtic does not always pay for the fields they use--they tend to use the grass fields at Magnuson often without permits--when things get tight.Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
The South end issue about coaches at SU- is incorrect--most coaches live south of I-90--but SU's demographics by zip code have most players living north of I-90. Parents complain constantly of practices in the south end and just do not come. That's the reality.
SU is more than aware of the problem, has tried for years to find a solution, but very little real estate in Seattle to build a field complex within their boundary. People who are new to the Seattle area just simply do not understand the cartel running Seattle Parks and Rec and the lack of real business or common sense.
The female coaches is an issue at all clubs--it was the number one request at Celtic as well based on parent survey--and there still are not hardly any. There are not very many female coaches in the PNW -- SU is trying - and could do more to place female coaches on higher teams, but often they do not want that responsibility as that means more travel and often a longer schedule - neither of which seems appealing to female coaches who are often moms or other careers outside of soccer. And the pay is not all that great at any of the clubs to give up that balance in your own life.
Some of the turnover was due, from what I hear, to actually doing what some of the people are complaining about--giving more successful less tenured coaches more development and promotion to higher teams--displacing some older old school coaches.Comment
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