| Skills and conditioning sessions, yes. Regular team practices, no. |
They don't do conditioning u9-u11. |
Skills is individual. They are not scrimmaging or competing with one another. |
+1 |
22:27 - I meant that the teams all practice at the same facility, not necessarily that they would practice together. should have been more clear. So it's good for carpools if kids from your kid's school are on different same-age teams.
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Is this a typo or did you say some club now has SIX teams per age group? What on earth is that all about? Not everyone makes travel, so this is surprising. Hope they tiered the pay structure as well for the lower teams.
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Team jersey numbers will soon be triple digits .
It's criminal. Yes--U9-U12 they all pay same fee. They are not treated the same or get the same level of service, etc. |
Different poster, but lots of big clubs have 4-6 teams per age group at the younger ages. If they have enough staff and field space to cover the groups, I don't see why it's a problem when the kids are young. At that point the kids are learning skills and basics, and playing for fun, so it doesn't matter so much what leagues they are in. Most clubs go down to 2 or 3 max by middle school age, when the level of competition becomes more important for development. |
It matters because it's doing away with the Rec system ($75 per season). All the kids are now absorbed into this monster system with false hope. They just cut these kids in 2-3 years anyways when they go down to 3 teams. They'd be better off with personal training/dedicated coax than lost in the factory system. At our club the kids on the E/F are never looked at again. They dint even put them on a tryout field with upper team players ever again. The wool is thick. |
| Arlington still lets travel players play Rec as well, right? |
Only 2 travel or adp players per team next year. With the 6 teams next year and ADP--out of our team of 12 rec players--we have 10 that are now rec or adp for next season. So our coach and team is gone for next year. Of course, there are always some that cheat (so much for the spirit of Rec). An elementary indoor team had 4-5 travel players on their team of 8 last winter while the rest of us kept to the two. |
The Rec system where I live (MoCo) is alive and well and cheap, despite having two big clubs in the county that have multiple teams at the younger age groups, and many more clubs in the county that have at least one or two. I think it's unfortunate that in NoVa and elsewhere you have Rec programs run by clubs instead--seems like a bit of a conflict of interest for clubs, since they all focus on the bottom line to some extent or another even if they are not-for-profits. Sounds like for your club being on the bottom teams even at the youngest ages means you can't ever advance. That's not true at many clubs, so you can't really make a blanket statement about clubs preying on false hopes. |
One had 5th graders playing in the 4th grade division. Indoor was by grade, not birth year. We didn't let an older brother on our team because of this and then we're playing a 4th grade team with 3 5th graders. Seriously? People are douches. |
They did the same thing in basketball... |