Club Soccer vs High School Soccer

3,970 Views | 27 Replies | Last: 7 yr ago by An Ag in CO
Pinata Man
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http://www.soccerwire.com/blog-posts/dure-ditching-high-school-soccer-is-a-questionable-decision/

Are college coaches really not looking at high school experience at all?
redd38
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AG
quote:
http://www.soccerwire.com/blog-posts/dure-ditching-high-school-soccer-is-a-questionable-decision/

Are college coaches really not looking at high school experience at all?

Almost all of the kids worth recruiting play club soccer and the club tournaments give a better format for coaches to see more players at once. College soccer programs obviously don't have the recruiting resources that football programs have, so they have to maximize their efforts.
wangus12
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My kids are screwed. Doubtful that I'll be able to afford club by the time I have them
Mathguy64
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Having been through the process with my son, college coaches don't have the resources to watch both club and HS stuff in person. They maximize their effort in club tourneys and ID camps. Its also a lot of self recruiting in that the player has to make the contact with the coach/school and put themselves on the coach's radar with short targeted video clips and letters of introduction explaining why they want to play at that school. They don't mid HS HUDL stuff but I promise they wont wade through a whole game video to find the 30 seconds the player actually makes the one important play. So you need to pare down all the vids to a 10-15 minute selection of plays and email it to them. One coach said the first 30-45 seconds are crucial. If they see Johnny showing off his ability to bounce the ball on his foot, they just don't bother to watch the rest and throw the clip in the trash. Al lot of it is meeting the coaches in person at ID camps.

And yes, not playing club ball is normally fatal. I know one player locally who was good enough to play D1 ball. He had interest from D1 coaches, but the last year he stopped playing club because he was also playing football and it was just too much. Once he stopped club, the D1 coaches dropped their interest. Not because of football but because of the lack of club play. One assistant coach flat told him they cannot take a kid on scholarship who wasn't playing club ball.
wangus12
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quote:
One assistant coach flat told him they cannot take a kid on scholarship who wasn't playing club ball.
And that is why the American youth system fails. Unless you can afford to Pay-to-Play, you have no chance.
Mathguy64
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Yes in a broad way but its way more complicated.

No doubt its expensive. Believe me I know. We paid a ton over the years, I thought of it as a form of investment. What I was paying for the high level club play I was hoping would be returned later by college scholarships. That is absolutely a massive gamble as most kids just are not that good to get to college level play. That's no different than any other sport. You pay for club baseball, AAU basketball, tennis, swimming, whatever. In the end you are gambling the money on your kid being good enough at that sport for the investment to pay off later in reduced college costs. For us it worked, sort of. He's playing in college and he receives a financial package to play. Is it a full schollie? No, but other than football or basketball every sport is partial schoarlships, paired with you hope academic money. It was a wash for us. What I spent over the years (and I would absolutely have done it again because I was supporting my kid first and foremost and I would have done that regardless) has basically equated to the amount of money he's receiving in aid to play in college. I gambled and won, or at least didn't lose.

There are need based scholarships and fee waivers for kids who have talent for them to play club from local clubs all the way through the DAs.

In the end the American HS and college system and its goals are in conflict with USSF/US Soccer. One trains a student to be a student and become educated at a high level first, and play soccer second. The other trains a player first with no real goals to be a highly educated member of society
BigJim49 AustinNowDallas
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^Last paragraph a JOKE !
An Ag in CO
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One interesting thing to note is that the college system is looking to accelerate their changes to bring both the playing season and training more in line with what US Soccer would like to see.

quote:
"For me, it's an advantage at every conceivable level," said UNC women's soccer head coach Anson Dorrance, who has won 21 national titles in Chapel Hill and also led the US women's national team to becoming World Cup champions in 1991. "Certainly, from a player development platform it's absolutely vital. The trouble with the fall season is you spend your entire season tapering into matches; you don't have a training platform.

"One of the biggest complaints in the development of the American player about 15 to 20 years ago is what's called a tournament culture. In the course of a 90 minute soccer game, each player is touching the ball for an average of three minutes. There is no way in a tournament culture when you're not training, just playing games, where, in those three minutes, you can develop into an elite soccer player. So you need a training culture.

"What I love about the idea that [Cirovski] is putting forward is one game a week. Now you have one day off a week, and five training days. Those five training days are going to take every player to his or her potential."

The current schedule structure of college soccer was instituted for men in 1959 and for women in 1981.

quote:
This movement is gaining traction, as over 70% of the men's college soccer players surveyed by the NCAA recently on how to better improve the student-athlete experience would be in favor of adopting the two semester schedule for the men's game. But building consensus among coaches and players is only one part of the equation for change, as Luck explained.

"Less than 50% of AD's at programs with men's soccer would support this," he said. "It's a change, and all of a sudden we'd have to have an additional field in the spring that we might not have because of the lacrosse team or the field hockey team, do we have an SID available to cover the second half of the season, is this going to cost us more money because one game a week might increase my budget, etc."

Many programs will have one or two high school players on the roster, but they typically have to redshirt their first year and playing time is often significantly less than what the DA players are getting. The training at the high schools and non-DA club teams is not close to what the DA players are getting.

My son just went through the recruiting process and for a DA player it's pretty straightforward. The number of college coaches that reached out to him was pretty high, they watched games both at the showcases and playoffs as well as regular season games, and they have really good relationships with the DA coaches.

quote:
"We have the potential to be a revenue producing sport," said Dorrance. "The NCAA has tried to stuff women's basketball as the revenue leader, but I don't think that's the sport to choose. The potential for us at every conceivable level is off the charts."

And Cirovski believes it wouldn't be a stretch to see schools that don't have men's soccer programs adding it in the future if the sport shows the significant revenue potential Dorrance is hinting at.

"If we put our championships at the end of May or beginning of June, and we're getting 30,000 people coming to those games and we're making money at Maryland, Texas and all these SEC schools are going to say 'we want in'. The minute we show relevancy and revenue, the schools that don't have soccer in the Big 12, SEC and Big Ten will add it," and he believes with the two semester model that's feasible.
Mathguy64
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quote:
^Last paragraph a JOKE !
Really? I will give you 2 concrete examples. Mikaela Harvey and Ally Watt. One chose to play on the U-20 team this year at the complete expense of her education. One chose not to. Mind you I have no problem with the decision either made and understand why they did it but USSF/US Soccer doesn't give a warm cup of spit for any player's education. That's not their objective. When the conflict arose, one chose their college education (and make no mistake, she's getting an education at A&M first and playing soccer second and I guarantee you G would say that too) and one chose their soccer path.
Pinata Man
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Edit: Can't believe they don't look at HS players. Save up that money youth soccer parents... rich keep getting richer I guess.
An Ag in CO
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I believe all the MLS DAs are fully funded so there is no cost to play for them. Other DAs have been able to significantly reduce the cost the last few years (certainly the two other CO senior DA clubs) and offer scholarships for those that otherwise can't afford the fee. My son has many teammates who can't pay the full cost and I don't know that a truly deserving player is turned away. It's a different issue if there isn't a local DA club, though, as not all have a residency program. My son also has a few teammates from out of state who've moved to CO just so they can play for a DA team since it's not available in their home state and I don't think those guys are paying anything. Those that are better off economically certainly have an advantage, but in following DA in CO for the last five years I haven't seen really good players not cycle through DA no matter their background. I think the the time commitment itself is the biggest hurdle.
TheMasterplan
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There are some good kids playing on those all hispanic teams down in south texas that get overlooked I'm sure.

PatAg
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The thing that kills us in Texas is that there are essentially ZERO D1 school options nearby. WHich is just ridiculous considering the level of club play in Texas.
swc93
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Don't know about schools everywhere but I can tell you in Allen & Mckinney; that if you don't play Club soccer you are going to have a very difficult time playing for your High School. Kids fill out a form and coaches are very specific about wanting to know your Club info and Division in Classic League. You want to play varsity? Better be on a D1 Classic League team or good luck.
Pinata Man
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Something seems wrong about that.
aTmAg
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Talking to my daughter's college coach, there are many reasons they don't recruit HS:

1) NCAA rules limit the number of times a college coach can watch a player play. Each HS game is considered a visit. Yet a select showcase tournament of 3 games is considered a single visit. So not only can they see more of each player in a showcase tournaments, it is vastly more cost effective as well. They can go to a single showcase tournament and watch many recruits in that single weekend. A HS game will have one, maybe two? That's not worth the cost of a flight and a hotel. Furthermore, showcase tournaments ensure that teams are scheduled to play opponents of similar quality too. Blowouts of 10-0 don't tell anybody anything.

2) Most HS teams and players are not that good. College coaches want to know how a player interacts with teammates who know what they are doing, since his college team is full of higher quality players who do know what they are doing. Often, HS studs are asked to do everything, dribble too much, etc. It doesn't show how well they possess and stuff like that.

3) College coaches will sometimes call club coaches that they trust (well known coaches of reputable clubs) to get an honest opinion of players before bothering to spend money watching them. Club coaches have their reputations on the line so they won't ruin it by suggesting a player who would struggle at the given college level. College coaches won't bother to contact parent coaches or unknown coaches of smaller clubs. because they are more likely to say all their players are great. HS coaches are considered in similar fashion. And, frankly many HS coaches don't know what they are talking about.
02skiag
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That's because Allen has way too many students and can be selective like that. The percentage of sports participation is likely really low compared to normal size schools. That's my assumption at least.
swc93
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Be easier to understand if that was the case. They do that because the high school soccer coaches know **** about soccer and are just relying on club coaches to basically pick their team.
jeffk
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PatAg said:

The thing that kills us in Texas is that there are essentially ZERO D1 school options nearby. WHich is just ridiculous considering the level of club play in Texas.


It's getting better. SMU used to be the only show in town, but Houston Baptist, Incarnate Word and UTRGV have all added (or re-added) men's programs recently. There are some good-quality DII programs in the state too.

FWIW, most of my best players on the HS teams I've coached either did play for a DA at one point or had the talent to play for a DA but couldn't make it work for some reason of another. It's a huge commitment to play DA - both from a time and financial standpoint.

A college soccer staff is usually just 2-3 guys. On average they make less than I do teaching public school. They work camps most of the summer to supplement their income. They have a tough time traveling and recruiting and end up depending on the huge showcase club tourneys or ID campus to see the kids they're targeting play. In the past five years or so, I've had a couple of players each year get picked up at the DII level without the college coaches having seen them play live. I send out a mass emailing to all the college coaches I have contacts with each spring with my college-level juniors and seniors. Make sure they get video of players via our HUDL account. If their grades are good enough, they might get invited to a camp or workout session.

I don't disagree with an earlier posted who said that our HS/College programs are working at odds with our NT/DA programs - they just have different priorities and I don't actually mind that.

Where our NT/DA needs to make vast improvements is in the IDing of youth players from under-served communities. If they could partner with urban schools or clubs more closely to work with youth teams and also somehow keep the cost of the pre-DA teams down for those kids, they'd have a much larger talent pool to draw from.
jeffk
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Quote:

And, frankly many HS coaches don't know what they are talking about.


This is true too. Unfortunately, most campus coordinators are old school football coaches who fear the increasing popularity of soccer. They fill the head soccer job with an assistant football coach who never even played the sport. It's getting better though. I'm lucky in that my AD is a former soccer coach and realizes that my program serves to get a whole different student population involved with extracurriculars that would be causing problems otherwise.

jeffk
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TheMasterplan said:

There are some good kids playing on those all hispanic teams down in south texas that get overlooked I'm sure.




The Dynamo and UTRGV are hoping to take advantage of this with the new D1 program there and the pro club.
captainsubtext
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A lot of the HS coaches in my area (Plano) are also club coaches. I know a rec kid of mine who made ODP was told by the HS counselor he could not sign up for soccer as a freshman at Plano West without approval from PW coach. If the kid had club experience then counselor approved those kids with no contact from coach.

At the smaller schools (5A level), I had a rec kid make the jv second team, but he may only be on varsity as a senior if his parents are involved in booster club.

The US U19 team was just named and 22 of 24 players had ties to DA clubs. There is a division between some MLS DA clubs and non-MLS DA, most obviously illustrated by FCD. I think that trend will continue as the other MLS clubs will learn from FCD's successful pathway. Although the attractiveness of MLS clubs may be limited as only FCD has track record of playing homegrown players. That's why a national team forward will leave Sacramento to play at FCD. And with Pareja's connections, Colombian players can come join the DA team. An U18 Colombian player just arrived and only played 18 minutes but scored in first five minutes against a very good Sporting KC team.

My son never played HS due to the DA system. I wish he had the chance, but he's fine with where he's at. The recruiting process is just starting in earnest for him as a junior. And there will be many choices that he has to make between hot academic schools like Ivies and other programs.

Last year, he was seen at the U16 DA showcases and his HS buddies have been seen at the select showcases in Las Vegas and San Diego. His HS buddies attended multi-college camps over the summer looking to get identified while my son went to individual college camps to see if the college is a fit.





tommyjohn
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I thought most higher level club teams do not allow or highly discourage their players from playing on the HS teams.
TheMasterplan
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Pinata Man said:

Something seems wrong about that.
Not really.

The HS I went to gave everyone a chance. If you were a newcomer, they cut you that week if you were bad but if you were good, they'd keep you. It didn't matter if you played club or not.

The HS varsity coach was quite bad at my school. Didn't know tactics at all and would just give generic instructions, "crisp passes, good crosses etc."
agracer
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tommyjohn said:

I thought most higher level club teams do not allow or highly discourage their players from playing on the HS teams.
Depends. I know when we lived in Houston it was basically forbidden b/c too many neanderthals played on HS teams and the top talent players risked injury.

In Kansas, the U15+ club teams don't play in the fall b/c everyone plays in HS.

And I'd be curious to hear Mathguys86's numbers.

Just using some quick math, you're likely spending at least $4,000/year on club soccer from U10 to U18.

If you just invest $4k/yr consertatively (lets say 6% a year) from the age of 10 until entering College you'd have $41,000 saved for college.

If you son has more than $41,000 (with no risk of losing it for 4-years of college), you are correct, it paid off in the literal sense.

That being said, my son plays club soccer and I have absolutely no expectations that he will get a scholarship somewhere. He's a solid player, been mostly on the top teams on his club teams (and is one of two fish to make his HS JV team - which is a 7x state title winner) but we're doing this b/c he loves the game and I think it's a great experience for him.

Edit: not doubting you math guy or calling you out or anything, but there are so few college scholarships for men's soccer that doing club soccer for college is usually a loser " investment ". For girls however, if your daughter has any talent, there is a lot more available.
Mathguy64
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We weren't spending $4k/year on club ball. He played rec up until age 12, the converted to club playing D2 and Super 2 for 3 years. That probably averaged $700-$800 a year, mostly as a field player. At age 15 be swapped onto a D1 team, playing with a bigger club (Texans) and began to really play GK a lot. The Texans run roughly $1k/year plus kits and stuff but it was nowhere near $4k a year. Howver there were other costs involved. Once he showed promise as a GK he was doing outside training with a GK trainer that we were paying for and he was attending summer camps at a pretty high level. Some of those can get pricey, no doubt. The last 3 years he's been attending Tony DiCicco's Soccer Plus Advanced National Training program. That's invite only and limited to about 35 HS and college GKs men and women combined (I might as well brag on him a bit ). We probably averaged a bit over $2k his last two years with all the outside and summer stuff.

Everyone thinks D1 for college but in Texas and surrounding states there are tons of other opportunities. D2, D3, NAIA, even JUSO. Yes there is a dearth of D1 programs in Texas, but there are tons of D2 and D3 and in OK, LA, AK, MS there are tons of NAIA schools and they all pay for college one way or the other and the level of play is pretty good because kids who are good players but who stay in state are playing D2/D3. D1 is 9.9 scholarships/team and they are the bigger more costly institutions. D2 its only 9 so all you can get is a partial and maybe academic money but they are smaller schools and the base tuition and fees are cheaper. D3 is no athletic money but they give tons of academic money. The NAIA limit is 12 but they also carry larger squads and are cheaper. JUCO's have 18 scholarships available. Point being, there are lots of places to play and there is money available. My son is playing at a D3 school and they are covering way more than 1/2 the costs through academic money. Whats left is well less than if he had gone to TAMU (and he was accepted if he had chosen that path). I figure we about broke even in terms of what I spent versus what I'm saving now.

As I said before, I paid for his soccer because that's what parents do. Soccer, baseball, basketball, swimming all would have been the same. He wanted to play and we took care of it so he could play. He was going to go to college and I would have paid for that too. The fact that he is good enough to play at the next level is free money. You cant go into it saying I'm spending money now to save it in college. There are no guarantees as its a massive sieve and most kids don't get to play at that level. It it works out great. If it doesn't you still are being a good parent and supporting your kid.
agracer
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mathguy86 said:

We weren't spending $4k/year on club ball. He played rec up until age 12, the converted to club playing D2 and Super 2 for 3 years. That probably averaged $700-$800 a year, mostly as a field player. At age 15 be swapped onto a D1 team, playing with a bigger club (Texans) and began to really play GK a lot. The Texans run roughly $1k/year plus kits and stuff but it was nowhere near $4k a year. Howver there were other costs involved. Once he showed promise as a GK he was doing outside training with a GK trainer that we were paying for and he was attending summer camps at a pretty high level. Some of those can get pricey, no doubt. The last 3 years he's been attending Tony DiCicco's Soccer Plus Advanced National Training program. That's invite only and limited to about 35 HS and college GKs men and women combined (I might as well brag on him a bit ). We probably averaged a bit over $2k his last two years with all the outside and summer stuff.

Everyone thinks D1 for college but in Texas and surrounding states there are tons of other opportunities. D2, D3, NAIA, even JUSO. Yes there is a dearth of D1 programs in Texas, but there are tons of D2 and D3 and in OK, LA, AK, MS there are tons of NAIA schools and they all pay for college one way or the other and the level of play is pretty good because kids who are good players but who stay in state are playing D2/D3. D1 is 9.9 scholarships/team and they are the bigger more costly institutions. D2 its only 9 so all you can get is a partial and maybe academic money but they are smaller schools and the base tuition and fees are cheaper. D3 is no athletic money but they give tons of academic money. The NAIA limit is 12 but they also carry larger squads and are cheaper. JUCO's have 18 scholarships available. Point being, there are lots of places to play and there is money available. My son is playing at a D3 school and they are covering way more than 1/2 the costs through academic money. Whats left is well less than if he had gone to TAMU (and he was accepted if he had chosen that path). I figure we about broke even in terms of what I spent versus what I'm saving now.

As I said before, I paid for his soccer because that's what parents do. Soccer, baseball, basketball, swimming all would have been the same. He wanted to play and we took care of it so he could play. He was going to go to college and I would have paid for that too. The fact that he is good enough to play at the next level is free money. You cant go into it saying I'm spending money now to save it in college. There are no guarantees as its a massive sieve and most kids don't get to play at that level. It it works out great. If it doesn't you still are being a good parent and supporting your kid.
Which Texans team? IIRC it was a lot more than $1,000/yr.

Now that I think about it the costs were a lot less when my son was younger. But as he's gotten older and into more competitive teams and leagues, the fees have gone up and so has the travel.

Kuddos to your son for making it work. 99% of the kids who play club soccer thinking they will get a scholarship are sorely disappointed.
Mathguy64
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Aggieland and then the last year as the player group thinned out North Houston.
An Ag in CO
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Our oldest will play soccer on athletic and academic scholarships at a D1 school starting next year and the value of the athletic scholarship itself exceeds the cost of soccer fees paid since he first started kicking the ball on a YMCA team. He got a really good deal and his university plays some very good non-conference games across the country so he has the potential for four fun years. I think the amount of athletic scholarship per year is equal to four years of soccer fees so he would have had to play 16 years at the most expensive level (DA) for it to have been a wash. One of his teammates has been on youth national teams and has a full ride while the other players all have a mixture of athletic and academic scholarships and some amount left to pay. With one exception, his teammates are committed to well-funded D1 soccer programs and that makes a big difference. Recruiting was pretty stressful for players and parents, though, since the available options (schools that want you as a player) can be quite different than schools you can otherwise qualify for.
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