Should clubs that don't allow kids to play for their school team be given access to school fields?
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Anonymous
Name calling, what club do you coach for? |
Anonymous
You are uninformed. 1) They are not private corporations seeking profits. They are non-profit youth sports clubs. 2) The school fields are owned by the county. The county allocates field use among different groups according it's policies. In the case of fields on school grounds, first priority goes to school sports teams. Only when the fields are not being used by the school are they allocated to outside groups - at which point the county gives preference to non-profit youth sports clubs. These policies are deemed to be consistent with the values and priorities of our communities. Those who disagree have the same remedy available as with any other government policy they disagree with - the ballot box. 3) Non-profit youth sports clubs do pay a reduced fee for the use of county fields. However, in many cases the youth clubs themselves have helped to provide funding for the field in the first place. So some of those schools wouldn't even have turf fields in the first place if it were not for the money provided by the youth sports clubs, who only get to use the field (for a fee they still have to pay) when the school isn't using it. 4) While some team's coaches may discourage their players from participating in high school soccer, the decision is almost always up to the player in the end. The only exception to this are the DA teams. Most of the DAs in the area do not practice on HS fields. DCU - private, RFK parking lot field. Arlington - Long Bridge Park. FCV - private, Evergreen. VDA - James Long Park and Howison Park. Only Bethesda regularly uses high school fields (Wooten and Richard Montgomery), and they paid for both of them. (https://bethesdamagazine.com/bethesda-beat/schools/work-begins-on-turf-field-funded-by-bethesda-soccer-club/) Hope that helps answer some of your questions. |
Anonymous
| And in many instances, the clubs put up money for those high school fields. |
Anonymous
RHS or Woodson? Both fields are worse ever. |
Anonymous
Certainly the upper turf at RHS and I think the auxiliary turf at WHS. |
Anonymous
If they are ECNL why would the club discourage players to play HS. Isn’t that the point of ECNL? |
Anonymous
ECNL only started branding themselves as the pro-HS league when girls' DA came on the scene. Before that, many ECNL coaches were opposed to their players playing HS and the ECNL leadership was fine with that. There's a kind of funny revisionist history about the whole thing. |
Anonymous
I thought BRYC went from CCL to ECNL for the purpose of allowing players to play HS. |
Anonymous
| My son’s school got exemptions from da for three players this year. Must be fairly common. But they do not rent their fields to any soccer clubs. |
Anonymous
Must be a private school then. I don't think DA can grant exemptions unless a kid is getting a tuition or admissions break in exchange for playing, and even then they have to sit out that part of the DA season. Unless they are just flying under the radar. |
Anonymous
Pretty sure that had NOTHING to do with it............. |
Anonymous
BRYC was the first DA club to be announced in VA. They pulled themselves out to go ECNL. One of the reasons was to allow the players to play HS. |
Anonymous
BRYC was never going to be a DA club. They were going to be one of several partners with Spirit to feed players to Spirit DA. They pulled out for control reasons. They don’t have the resources/structure to meet the DA reqyuirements alone. |
Anonymous
Most of the DA teams in the north allow their kids to play HS. Not sure how. The Cincinnati teams had mixed teams/lots of playups recently because 70% were playing HS. Per the parents and the coaches. |
Anonymous
Yes, private school. |