would love for NCSL to merge "travel" and "rec" divisions

[Anonymous]

would love to see this for many reasons!!!

Give the top rec players better competition to play against and see how far they can go

Give the bottom travel players a reality check

[Anonymous]

Why don’t the REC players just try out for NCSL in order to play?

Some players have the support of their parents to play in community local REC games but wouldn’t otherwise have their support to travel to NCSL tournaments etc. There are real cost issues involved between different levels of soccer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:would love to see this for many reasons!!!

Give the top rec players better competition to play against and see how far they can go

Give the bottom travel players a reality check

Why is this something that needs to happen, in your mind? It seems like such a negative way of looking at the world. There are always going to be kids who only do a sport casually/for part of the year who are better at it than kids who work hard at it all year round. That is true in many sports. Just go to a summer swim league and you will see athletic, talented kids who swim only in the summer beating kids who swim year round for a club team.

Travel/club sports are for kids who like the sport enough to want to go to more practices and games, and their parents don't mind the cost. If the kids happen to be able to compete at a high level, great. Plenty do not but still enjoy that environment.

[Anonymous]

Lol no

[Anonymous]

Sounds like you are in rec

[Anonymous]

I have a club player and a kid who plays on a division 1 team on the boys side in NCSL rec. All the games have been competitive and even. No drama with crazy coaches, crazy parents. Games are reasonably close by with the exception of a Fredericksburg game which our coach had rescheduled b/c we didn't want to drive that far. No interest in playing vs travel teams.

[Anonymous]

Just try out for travel then. We specifically held off longer in rec because we were not ready as a family for the commitment of travel. When we were ready, we moved our player to travel. Simple.

[Anonymous]

It wouldn't make financial sense to NCSL to combine leagues. They are in the business of making money.

[Anonymous]

I think the OP is probably some rec coach who has a winning record and thinks highly of his team and himself. Relax big guy.

[Anonymous]

I have an ECNL player, a lower level NCSL U-Little, and I coach a rec team.

If I have a really strong rec team, I could enter it in tournaments to play NCSL teams. But even a low level NCSL team would destroy most rec teams. As a rec coach and parent, that’s not fun. They’re different leagues on purpose.

[Anonymous]

No this sounds like a terrible idea lol

[Anonymous]

sounds like a selfish idea.

[Anonymous]

Sounds like a dumb idea

[Anonymous]

Make Rec the Bottom Division and the winners can get promoted into the travel divisions if they want. Travel division teams can then get further demoted into the 6th tier of NCSL, the rec divisions!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Make Rec the Bottom Division and the winners can get promoted into the travel divisions if they want. Travel division teams can then get further demoted into the 6th tier of NCSL, the rec divisions!

I really don’t mean this in a condescending or negative way, so don’t take it as that at all since it has nothing to do with anyone other than my mom.

But just to add insight on a possible blind spot, I was a top 2 player on my rec team, top 5-10ish in the league. We won the league 4 seasons in a row, So this would be my team.

My mom bounced checks for the $55 participation fee ($110 for me and my brother), and my coach just started paying it. My grandparents bought our jerseys. I look back on it all as fun, a good time, but I specifically remember things getting weird for those instances.

Anyways, with that said, some people play rec for reasons other than their talent. This idea would potentially cause way more problems than it would solve.

You’d be either taking my rec team minus me and my brother. Which it’s still a good team but basically a different team at that point, I’m not sure the team would have even preferred that over staying together in rec.

And to top off a less fun travel than rec experience for the team, Now my brother and I wouldn’t have any team to play on. So this is kind of just disrupting the one good thing the peasant kids had figured out. (Being half sarcastic for effect but you get it)

And I know some of you will think of offering paying our way? I appreciate it but I don’t want your money, not because I’m better than that but because you had to exchange your time, you had to exchange your life to get the money. That’s your money. Also I don’t know you and you don’t know me, that would be weird. I got unideal gifts as a kid, I’d probably have been mad if I found out someone paid $2000 for us to play tbh. Back then I’d have much rather had something else.

Again, definitely dont feel sorry or guilt or any type of blame. This isn’t a hate post. It was simply a situation I thought I could offer perspective on that wasn’t being considered. Hope that helps.