Girls Academy League NW

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I have never heard of a player that had paid all their dues per the contract they signed and being denied to transfer to another club. Clubs may hold the players card for a number of reasons but as long as all dues were paid, you are free to move.

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It's all good and well to say kids should be allowed to come and go as they please, but then it should go both ways.

Doesn't sound quite the same when you flip it, club can take on new kids at any time and drop you in the middle of the season. Pretty rough to find a new place to play at mid season.

The club and the player enter in to an agreement for one year, they agree to train you for a year, you agree to show up and play. That's mutually beneficial to both.

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Sound FC does not release players, know several kids that have been hurt by this.

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Sound FC does not release players, know several kids that have been hurt by this.

Were their dues paid up for the year?

[Unregistered]

yes and ironically the club was not paying their coaches at that point.

[Unregistered]

It's all good and well to say kids should be allowed to come and go as they please, but then it should go both ways.

Doesn't sound quite the same when you flip it, club can take on new kids at any time and drop you in the middle of the season. Pretty rough to find a new place to play at mid season.

The club and the player enter in to an agreement for one year, they agree to train you for a year, you agree to show up and play. That's mutually beneficial to both.

Players do get dropped to the “b” team during a year.

[Unregistered]

It's all good and well to say kids should be allowed to come and go as they please, but then it should go both ways.

Doesn't sound quite the same when you flip it, club can take on new kids at any time and drop you in the middle of the season. Pretty rough to find a new place to play at mid season.

The club and the player enter in to an agreement for one year, they agree to train you for a year, you agree to show up and play. That's mutually beneficial to both.

Yes, the club should be able to drop kids to the b team when someone better comes along. Better for everyone, especially the kid who would then be playing with a group better suited to where they are at. People say being on an a team as some sort of a sinecure and that’s just nutty. Should be much more openness to fluidity both within and between clubs.

[Unregistered]

Let's be really clear here. We are talking about 9, 12, 7, 16 year old kids etc. Kids. At 9 my daughters were still watching My Little Pony and had no understanding of why they are stuck on a team they may or may not like for the year. Pinkie Pie would not stand for this injustice. :) We are also talking about locking up 9 year old's in year long business contracts. Once again 9 year old's.

The parents say they want flexibility and the clubs hold the power offering the service. I don't know which way is right on flexibility to change. Maybe shorter seasons or instead of focusing on building winning teams we focus on training players. Not sure what the right answer is but I do know the consumers in this model are frustrated. As parents we are stuck with this model, and I would like to see it changed, which is my bias. I am sure clubs will counter that saying they need commitment to pay coaches for a year. There are always two sides to discussions like this and instead of typing out a case study in why vendor lock is almost always better for the business, here is a link to someone else doing it.

https://saylordotorg.github.io/text_...ue-growth.html

In the opening paragraph I like this line.

"Cable providers try to increase monetary and psychological switching costs so that consumers are locked-in to their service. "

Doesn't this sound exactly like our youth soccer clubs. Messing with player cards and scaring kids with rhetoric about clubs to keep them from switching (Yes I have seen this first hand), and forcing full year dues even if they want to change in 3 months due to unforeseen circumstances. Now as parents we can also behave poorly. I have seen awful awful parents as well. However, the clubs hold the power here with a contract and the service offering, and in my view it should always be the responsibility of the people with the power to make improvements. Otherwise the customers riot and an inefficient and abusive system will take hold. Our parent power is literally limited to just walk away and pay for some thing different. Oh wait. the clubs stop us from doing that for a year. So your only real power is to quit soccer or shut up and wait it out.

So basically the clubs are synonymous with cable providers. Which I don't know about you but I hate Comcast.

[Unregistered]

Let's refocus the discussion here. I am talking about ECNL, roughly 100 girls per age group.
We talking about the possibility of playing in college, for whatever the reason. Please do not
veer off course hijacking about scholarship money or rather lack of it. The purpose of ECNL
is the platform to prepare young ladies to be able to play in college. I am pro player and I am pro club as long as the club fits the needs of my dd and our family. My money, my time.

It appears many of the responses are from younger parents who have not gone through
the recruiting process and still stuck on the propaganda from the clubs. Unlike the clubs,
we are on short timeline with a hard end date. Just this fact should motivate you to take
full ownership of the next steps with your dd, before it is way too late to do anything about it.

Parents who are talking about ego, A team vs B team, etc are drinking the kool-aide the
clubs are trying to feed you. Parroting their narrative which only benefits the club, instead of focusing your dd and your goals will not help you in the end.

You guys are probably U13-14 parents who are still in the stage of early developer
advantages versus having almost fully baked player at 16-17 years old who can possibly play in college. 3-4 years things will change so rapidly to keep this dogma from the clubs will
cause nothing but headache and heartache.

To have an ECNL level player who can play in college at 17 years old, your family and your
dd had to sacrifice so much time, money, effort, opportunities, and conflicts starting from a
very young age. By then, you should know where your dd is at with grades, SAT scores, and soccer skills. There are no more girls coming after U16, besides transfers from other clubs or out of staters or the occasional hidden gems.

There will be a point where the clubs and ECNL are a just platform for your dd to connect with a college coach where grades, SATs, majors, finances, location, etc all have to line up to make a match. The ~9% (D1 2.3%, D2 3%, D3 3%) connect rate from over 400,000 high school age players to D1-3 college should show that this is a very steep hill to climb.
What is even worse is the number of young ladies who quit soccer and/or transfer out of the
college they started with. Pick the school, not the soccer!!!!!!!!.....couple more !!!!!!!.

My dd knows most of the players in her age group and probably have roomed with many
of them over the years. These girls and families are not strangers and sadly, we are reaching
the end of the road for club soccer and high school. The whole point of this long winded post is to take full control of your dd situation, acknowledge the goals between your dd and your family, and do what it takes to get there. Have a frank discussion with your club coach privately and see where your dd can fit. Do your research on schools and programs and reach out.

Lastly, start early about college recruitment. Be realistic, especially with academic ability.
Grades, grades, grades! There are parents in our team that haven't even started with the recruitment process. If it is worth anything, my dd is on the list for many colleges, but there
is a good chance that she will not match. So enjoy this time with your child. Good luck and good bye.

[Unregistered]

Let's refocus the discussion here. I am talking about ECNL, roughly 100 girls per age group.
We talking about the possibility of playing in college, for whatever the reason. Please do not
veer off course hijacking about scholarship money or rather lack of it. The purpose of ECNL
is the platform to prepare young ladies to be able to play in college. I am pro player and I am pro club as long as the club fits the needs of my dd and our family. My money, my time.

It appears many of the responses are from younger parents who have not gone through
the recruiting process and still stuck on the propaganda from the clubs. Unlike the clubs,
we are on short timeline with a hard end date. Just this fact should motivate you to take
full ownership of the next steps with your dd, before it is way too late to do anything about it.

Parents who are talking about ego, A team vs B team, etc are drinking the kool-aide the
clubs are trying to feed you. Parroting their narrative which only benefits the club, instead of focusing your dd and your goals will not help you in the end.

You guys are probably U13-14 parents who are still in the stage of early developer
advantages versus having almost fully baked player at 16-17 years old who can possibly play in college. 3-4 years things will change so rapidly to keep this dogma from the clubs will
cause nothing but headache and heartache.

To have an ECNL level player who can play in college at 17 years old, your family and your
dd had to sacrifice so much time, money, effort, opportunities, and conflicts starting from a
very young age. By then, you should know where your dd is at with grades, SAT scores, and soccer skills. There are no more girls coming after U16, besides transfers from other clubs or out of staters or the occasional hidden gems.

There will be a point where the clubs and ECNL are a just platform for your dd to connect with a college coach where grades, SATs, majors, finances, location, etc all have to line up to make a match. The ~9% (D1 2.3%, D2 3%, D3 3%) connect rate from over 400,000 high school age players to D1-3 college should show that this is a very steep hill to climb.
What is even worse is the number of young ladies who quit soccer and/or transfer out of the
college they started with. Pick the school, not the soccer!!!!!!!!.....couple more !!!!!!!.

My dd knows most of the players in her age group and probably have roomed with many
of them over the years. These girls and families are not strangers and sadly, we are reaching
the end of the road for club soccer and high school. The whole point of this long winded post is to take full control of your dd situation, acknowledge the goals between your dd and your family, and do what it takes to get there. Have a frank discussion with your club coach privately and see where your dd can fit. Do your research on schools and programs and reach out.

Lastly, start early about college recruitment. Be realistic, especially with academic ability.
Grades, grades, grades! There are parents in our team that haven't even started with the recruitment process. If it is worth anything, my dd is on the list for many colleges, but there
is a good chance that she will not match. So enjoy this time with your child. Good luck and good bye.

This is all good advice. I've been through the recruiting process more than once in more than one sport with my kids. If your kid is a solid player and strong student, they can find a college roster if they put in the time to reach out to coaches. Don't rely on the club or your coach to do it, don't hire a consultant, and don't worry about what team they're on so long as they're playing club with some travel and can get lucks from schools outside the PNW to improve their odds. Start in 9th/10th grade with a list of 40-50 schools and start emailing coaches academic info with videos and inviting them to see your kid play at out of state tournaments, and narrow/adjust list as you go. Go to college ID camps when they start happening again. Look for academic and athletic fit. If your child is playing RCL and is a solid B+ student, they're not going to play at Notre Dame, but there are a lot of great D3 schools where they might contribute and get a nice merit or need package that's bigger than what an underfunded D1 program can offer. Beyond the few schools looking for Sounders Academy level players, coaches don't care what team a kid is on -- they want to know what an athlete can bring to their team? A kid doesn't have to be the superstar on the field to use soccer to help get into a school they love. The experience of being part of a team enhances college life for many kids. During covid, it's been a godsend for mine because they have a "pod" of support with their teammates.

[Unregistered]

Ummm... what are you talking about? The girls Gunners teams consistently win PSPL, and easily at that. Most win the State cup, too.

And as for comparisons to ECNL competition, G06, G07, and G08 have squarely beaten many of those teams in the past year, or at least held their own, when they have played at XF Challenge, PAC NW Winter Classic, and Surf.

As for girls leaving... over the last three years, there have been only about 8 girls from these THREE teams (06,07,08) that left for ECNL... and a few that have come back. Maybe the gatekeepers at ECNL can stop talking smack and set up some friendlies to settle this once and for all.

ISC sent 3 teams to the Florida Showcase and went 0-9. The sad part is they were outscored 2-46. Can anyone put a positive spin on this? This has to be embarrassing to the kids, parents and the club. Do the right thing and stay local. Let the good ones go to the local ECNL.....this is just selfish.

[Unregistered]

Those are brutal results. I've seen the same Gunner parents post about their team being as good as the local ECNLs, and yet they attend the same XF Challenge and will enter their teams in the lowest level and still lose. At least there are no planes, hotels and missing school if they are crushed on a local level.

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Let's face it, none of the WA teams have done very well in FL. One of the EWA Surf teams (04) has a winning record, but everyone else looks go have lost everything so far.

[Unregistered]

Same person posting multiple times. Thanks Tom/Chance for the update.

[Unregistered]

Same person posting multiple times. Thanks Tom/Chance for the update.

If you think Tom or Chance spend even 1 minute on a board like this you are an idiot. Now, it could be one of the parents...

But don’t be an ignorant jerk.