Arlington Travel Tryouts

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:the new age requirements really impacted the U11 Boys, Red team is mostly 2015s dropping down. Those 2016s that were Red are mostly all getting moved down.

Red is the third team at this age or the top team? Does it go preacademy 1, preacademy 2, red?

Red is the third team but the same impact on PA1 who had almost half the team be 2015s dropping down

There are 0 kids from this year’s 2015 PA1 dropping down to repeat u11 so where did these kids come from? This year’s u11 PA2 and below? That doesn’t seem right but Arlington has botched this whole thing so badly that I guess I could see it.

The entire pre-academy program is a giant steaming pile of garbage. Here are a few things to consider. 1) if you are PA2 you will never make the ECNL team. Never. Don’t believe the hope they offer you. 2) when U13 rolls around the club prefers outside players to inside players all things being equal. It’s a tacit admission of the failure of their own club but they’ll never see it this way. 3) the training is crap, the PA teams are consistently underperforming expectations. Arlington has the potential to be a great program because it is so big but the inexperience and uncritical carelessness of the people running this program in particular is a handicap. 4) the program and its director are extremely susceptible to enterprising parents and show an obvious amount of favoritism that detracts from overall team performance and cohesion. This may be true at all clubs but Arlington is no different in this regard even though the director tries to show distance from parents. There is a small group of parents allowed in the back room and it shows through the veneer. 5) PA2 exists as a funding mechanism for PA1’s dead-end dreams.

On the whole, sure the PA program is not great.
But why would you expect your PA2 kid to make the ECNL team?
They would have to be better than all the PA1 kids and all the kids trying out from the outside.
Instead of whining, have your kid get better or move clubs.

-Because I have consistently seen 2nd team kids make the 1st team only when switching clubs. When you are the 2nd team kid at a big club, the coaching has identified some kind of problem with your kid and it's hard to shake that stigma. But alas, when those 2nd team kids tryout for another club. 1st team offers can and do happen when club switching.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Girls Arlington Red team for U10, U11 and U12 routinely beat the top teams of other clubs. Then those clubs put their top teams in ECNL-RL and Girls Aspire leagues. Add to that that a lot of the girls that play Arlington travel on Red, White, Blue and Black live in Arlington and aren’t gunning for college soccer. They just want to play in high school and have fun, which they do. So, you don’t need to feel sorry for these kids playing Arlington travel. They’re doing just fine!

so i guess the takeaway here is that if you play on red or lower you should look for an alternative club if your player ever wants to play at a higher level. What I find interesting is that not one of the Arlington parents refuted anything that was said about how the PA2 teams and lower are viewed by the club and coaches

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:the new age requirements really impacted the U11 Boys, Red team is mostly 2015s dropping down. Those 2016s that were Red are mostly all getting moved down.

Red is the third team at this age or the top team? Does it go preacademy 1, preacademy 2, red?

Red is the third team but the same impact on PA1 who had almost half the team be 2015s dropping down

There are 0 kids from this year’s 2015 PA1 dropping down to repeat u11 so where did these kids come from? This year’s u11 PA2 and below? That doesn’t seem right but Arlington has botched this whole thing so badly that I guess I could see it.

The entire pre-academy program is a giant steaming pile of garbage. Here are a few things to consider. 1) if you are PA2 you will never make the ECNL team. Never. Don’t believe the hope they offer you. 2) when U13 rolls around the club prefers outside players to inside players all things being equal. It’s a tacit admission of the failure of their own club but they’ll never see it this way. 3) the training is crap, the PA teams are consistently underperforming expectations. Arlington has the potential to be a great program because it is so big but the inexperience and uncritical carelessness of the people running this program in particular is a handicap. 4) the program and its director are extremely susceptible to enterprising parents and show an obvious amount of favoritism that detracts from overall team performance and cohesion. This may be true at all clubs but Arlington is no different in this regard even though the director tries to show distance from parents. There is a small group of parents allowed in the back room and it shows through the veneer. 5) PA2 exists as a funding mechanism for PA1’s dead-end dreams.

this person is 100% right but i guarantee you'll see Arlington parents commenting stupid stuff, keep funding the directors pockets and keep drinking the cool aid until they realize they got scammed and its too late

you were right on point with this lol...they really came out in force to spew their vitriol. Reminds me a lot of the maga hats that defend their savior no matter how many times he appears in the pdf files

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:the new age requirements really impacted the U11 Boys, Red team is mostly 2015s dropping down. Those 2016s that were Red are mostly all getting moved down.

Red is the third team at this age or the top team? Does it go preacademy 1, preacademy 2, red?

Red is the third team but the same impact on PA1 who had almost half the team be 2015s dropping down

There are 0 kids from this year’s 2015 PA1 dropping down to repeat u11 so where did these kids come from? This year’s u11 PA2 and below? That doesn’t seem right but Arlington has botched this whole thing so badly that I guess I could see it.

The entire pre-academy program is a giant steaming pile of garbage. Here are a few things to consider. 1) if you are PA2 you will never make the ECNL team. Never. Don’t believe the hope they offer you. 2) when U13 rolls around the club prefers outside players to inside players all things being equal. It’s a tacit admission of the failure of their own club but they’ll never see it this way. 3) the training is crap, the PA teams are consistently underperforming expectations. Arlington has the potential to be a great program because it is so big but the inexperience and uncritical carelessness of the people running this program in particular is a handicap. 4) the program and its director are extremely susceptible to enterprising parents and show an obvious amount of favoritism that detracts from overall team performance and cohesion. This may be true at all clubs but Arlington is no different in this regard even though the director tries to show distance from parents. There is a small group of parents allowed in the back room and it shows through the veneer. 5) PA2 exists as a funding mechanism for PA1’s dead-end dreams.

+1

[Anonymous]

This is all so crazy, as are the parents. I’m curious how many kids they had for steady state in every team with no movement just based on the age changes. There may have been some easy gaps to promote into and some log jams. You may have two kids of equal age group quality and in one group go up and one group they go down for no other reason than age group shuffle.

It appears they are recruiting to try and have a nationally competitive team. It also appears they tell young athletes to learn the skills (take the clinics!) and be the best player they can be and they will try to put them on the highest team. Eventually these two concepts collide. I don’t understand how these things affect college decisions well enough. Can coaches not independently assess kids who are on a very good team (but not the top team) in other ways? If you’re on the 2 or 3 team and deserve to be on the 1 team do you stick out like a sore thumb on the lower team (in a good way) or does it not make much difference?

IRS 990 data shows this is a 7.5-9m/yr org, and I believe the stated issue is that they default promotions to kids (parents) that pay for clinics, then crush their dreams when they recruit for larger players to compete 11v11?
Can’t they just say this out loud cause it all seems super reasonable.

The three top people there make less than 200k/year. Assuming this is a mostly full time job, this doesn’t really seem to be the money grab that folks make it out to be. A few thousand a year for all the practices and games seems inexpensive. Especially given other sports in the area. Try hockey. If these program directors are trying to fleece parents for their own benefit, they’re doing a terrible job of it. I’d bet all of us are close friends with or directly working for c3/c4/527 and are killing it from their orgs donations.

These kids will stop playing competitive soccer before you know it and the only thing that will remain is whether or not they picked up some grit, grace and determination that they can carry with them to their next season in life. There will be well deserved promotions that are missed, and unearned fame given to others a. Stressing out in front of your kids about being rightfully recognized as a top 99% vs top 98.7% soccer player can undo all the positives they get from playing by making them and anxious Ahole as an adult.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
IRS 990 data shows this is a 7.5-9m/yr org, and I believe the stated issue is that they default promotions to kids (parents) that pay for clinics, then crush their dreams when they recruit for larger players to compete 11v11?
Can’t they just say this out loud cause it all seems super reasonable.

The three top people there make less than 200k/year. Assuming this is a mostly full time job, this doesn’t really seem to be the money grab that folks make it out to be. A few thousand a year for all the practices and games seems inexpensive. Especially given other sports in the area. Try hockey. If these program directors are trying to fleece parents for their own benefit, they’re doing a terrible job of it. I’d bet all of us are close friends with or directly working for c3/c4/527 and are killing it from their orgs donations.

Explaining why this is an incorrect premise is its own thread

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Explaining why this is an incorrect premise is its own thread

I could absolutely be wrong. Very open to it. Maybe naive thinking the kids are not being used. I’m also sure the coaches have aspirations and you’d want that. Arlington, of all towns, is a tough place to fault people for making money from a nonprofit.

Talk to the baseball parents and other sports. Is this a unique dynamic?

[Anonymous]

2016 pa1 get two from pa2, don’t they?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:2016 pa1 get two from pa2, don’t they?

I’m talking about girl side. How is girl’s 2016 pa1? Does it struggle or thrive this year so far?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Explaining why this is an incorrect premise is its own thread

I could absolutely be wrong. Very open to it. Maybe naive thinking the kids are not being used. I’m also sure the coaches have aspirations and you’d want that. Arlington, of all towns, is a tough place to fault people for making money from a nonprofit.

Talk to the baseball parents and other sports. Is this a unique dynamic?

Moneywise, I’m just saying you’re not accounting for the motivation from all the fingers in all the pies. There are good coaches and good folks scattered throughout sure, but dynamics wise I think most agree this is closer to Ivy League schools taking money from Epstein than dealing with your altruistic third grade public school teacher.

[Anonymous]

I don’t think Arlington’s problems derive from coaches and directors who want to make money. Sure, many of them are meatheads who couldn’t do much outside of teaching kids how to kick a ball, but I don’t think they’re motivated by money. The problem is simpler: that they’re not motivated at all.

There is zero accountability built into the club structure, and so naturally there is zero expectation for success. Thus there is no picture of what success looks like. Because defining success means you might not achieve it, at which point the mirror becomes uncomfortable.

The DC/NOVA area is filled to the brim with people who live in the world of accountability, metrics, success, and advancement. Arlington Soccer sticks out like a sore thumb because of how casually it accepts incompetence and failure. The soccer leadership is one giant circle-jerk where the ethos is “it may be someone’s fault that we swim in the shallow end but it isn’t mine, and if I tell you who’s fault it is, next year you’ll come for me.” It’s the stark contrast between a consumer population that knows what it could be and a soccer program that is held captive by a middle management that is extremely confident in its mediocrity.

[Anonymous]

Curious what you would propose to hold coaches and age group directors accountable?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Curious what you would propose to hold coaches and age group directors accountable?

Other than the 2011 girls, the teams have generally done worse than even their local peers (VDA/FVU). The results have been consistent enough to cause a reasonable person to ask whether the ID/team formation/recruitment mechanism is working. Do we just give EG a pass for another decade? Sometimes a baseball team will change managers not because the current manager is a bad person but because the organization is adrift and needs sharpening, new energy. GP is a great guy and the mayor of kids soccer but is he setting the right tone?

I don’t know the complete answer to your question but if you look at other clubs with better performance outcomes you can imagine they have some goal-setting and accountability. For now I would settle for any modicum of self-reflection and accountability. Imagine if you get a side order of transparency along with it, where it feels like the club is working with the parents and players in the daylight and not always against them in secret.

[Anonymous]

I think Arlington’s problem may be that it is simply too big to manage. The same club that you want to succeed in ECNL is weighed down by its desire to field six teams at every age group. FVU and VDA specialize in just the top layer. Arlington ECNL can never be great because it always wants to be everything to everyone. It’s more a community association not a soccer academy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Curious what you would propose to hold coaches and age group directors accountable?

Other than the 2011 girls, the teams have generally done worse than even their local peers (VDA/FVU). The results have been consistent enough to cause a reasonable person to ask whether the ID/team formation/recruitment mechanism is working. Do we just give EG a pass for another decade? Sometimes a baseball team will change managers not because the current manager is a bad person but because the organization is adrift and needs sharpening, new energy. GP is a great guy and the mayor of kids soccer but is he setting the right tone?

I don’t know the complete answer to your question but if you look at other clubs with better performance outcomes you can imagine they have some goal-setting and accountability. For now I would settle for any modicum of self-reflection and accountability. Imagine if you get a side order of transparency along with it, where it feels like the club is working with the parents and players in the daylight and not always against them in secret.

Lets not forget that even with the 2011s a decent amount of girls came over from McLean years back and are some of the best players on the team or this age group wouldn't be nearly as good either