Travel Soccer teams around NOVA let's discuss

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:anyone tryout for Arlington's ADP? how did that go?

don't think DS-10 made it. what are our options beyond Rec in/near Arlington? he really isn't developing with his rec team. he's already given up playing soccer at recess because the kids are so much better than him.

Maybe he is not that good of an athelete. If he is not playing at recess he truly doesnt like the game. Are you doing for you or him?
There is not magic pill or coach to develop these kids. To be a good soccer player you need to play soccer, its simple. Give him a ball have him bang up against a wall or garage door every day for 30 minutes with BOTH feet, you would be surprised what this develops.

[Anonymous]

+1
my U10 boy plays house soccer and can walk on to any travel team in Loudoun. He is an athelete and can play most sports above average, makes the allstar team for all sports.
Why do we keep him house? Because he is 10! He plays Football in the fall, BBall winter and pick up soccer in the spring. Takes the whole summer off. Its all about variety, let them be kids....The cream rises to the top in HS. Just make sure you get them there and not burned out

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:+1
my U10 boy plays house soccer and can walk on to any travel team in Loudoun. He is an athelete and can play most sports above average, makes the allstar team for all sports.
Why do we keep him house? Because he is 10! He plays Football in the fall, BBall winter and pick up soccer in the spring. Takes the whole summer off. Its all about variety, let them be kids....The cream rises to the top in HS. Just make sure you get them there and not burned out

You have no idea what you're talking about. and loundons boys soccer progam isnt all that strong

[Anonymous]

Really? Do tell

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:anyone tryout for Arlington's ADP? how did that go?

don't think DS-10 made it. what are our options beyond Rec in/near Arlington? he really isn't developing with his rec team. he's already given up playing soccer at recess because the kids are so much better than him.

Maybe he is not that good of an athelete. If he is not playing at recess he truly doesnt like the game. Are you doing for you or him?
There is not magic pill or coach to develop these kids. To be a good soccer player you need to play soccer, its simple. Give him a ball have him bang up against a wall or garage door every day for 30 minutes with BOTH feet, you would be surprised what this develops.

No he isn't an athlete, he's an avg 10-yo boys who likes soccer. He can't/won't play with the 8 travel players in his grade at recess because he's not at their level. Actually they don't want him to play either. So yes I'm doing it for him, not sure what you're implying. I felt he's just unlucky that so many boys in his grade are so good at soccer he can't catch up any more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:+1
my U10 boy plays house soccer and can walk on to any travel team in Loudoun. He is an athelete and can play most sports above average, makes the allstar team for all sports.
Why do we keep him house? Because he is 10! He plays Football in the fall, BBall winter and pick up soccer in the spring. Takes the whole summer off. Its all about variety, let them be kids....The cream rises to the top in HS. Just make sure you get them there and not burned out

You are going to be in for a rude awakening if your child attends a large public high school. The kids who make it onto high school teams are on club/travel teams. If your a going to send him to a small private school were everyone makes the team then no worries.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:+1
my U10 boy plays house soccer and can walk on to any travel team in Loudoun. He is an athelete and can play most sports above average, makes the allstar team for all sports.
Why do we keep him house? Because he is 10! He plays Football in the fall, BBall winter and pick up soccer in the spring. Takes the whole summer off. Its all about variety, let them be kids....The cream rises to the top in HS. Just make sure you get them there and not burned out

You are going to be in for a rude awakening if your child attends a large public high school. The kids who make it onto high school teams are on club/travel teams. If your a going to send him to a small private school were everyone makes the team then no worries.

That's every parent's worry. You want to give kids the exposure to try different sports for fun, to find out what they are really good at and develop skills to play at the next levle. If committed too early, kids get burned out, plagued by injury from playing the same sport year round or traveling every weekend for yet another tourament and drop it before high school. And you are right - my neighbor's kid has played travel soccer for years but has no expectation of making the high school team.

[Anonymous]

An example of VYS's struggles:

-The Pickup Soccer Program is supposed to allow kids to explore the game on their own terms via small-sided scrimmages, without the influence of coaches.

-At the Pickup Soccer session last night coaches had their pre-existing teams face off against groups of kids who had wandered in, were vocal in instructing their players (being very critical in some cases) and celebrating goals scored by their teams, and organized large-field games that minimized touches for each player.

An instance of how VYS talks in ways that are encouraging while failing to follow through and provide the right experience as promised.

But enough of that. How are things going for the young travel players in McLean and Arlington so far this season? And where does the OP's kid play now?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:An example of VYS's struggles:

-The Pickup Soccer Program is supposed to allow kids to explore the game on their own terms via small-sided scrimmages, without the influence of coaches.

-At the Pickup Soccer session last night coaches had their pre-existing teams face off against groups of kids who had wandered in, were vocal in instructing their players (being very critical in some cases) and celebrating goals scored by their teams, and organized large-field games that minimized touches for each player.

An instance of how VYS talks in ways that are encouraging while failing to follow through and provide the right experience as promised.

But enough of that. How are things going for the young travel players in McLean and Arlington so far this season? And where does the OP's kid play now?

I was there last night and this was not my son's experience (he is a House player and was placed on a team with a bunch of kids he knew, but not a pre-existing team). With that said, you should definitely send an email to Eddie (not Jane). I sincerely think he would try to do something about it next week.

[Anonymous]

Not the OP, but my son is having a great time with the FPYC U9s. Kids are good and hardworking, and coaching is solid. It's definitely forcing my son to up his game. A love for the game is evident among all.

[Anonymous]

Don't you just love the fall soccer season, though?

I'm serious. No snark. It's beautiful to see the kids run.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:+1
my U10 boy plays house soccer and can walk on to any travel team in Loudoun. He is an athelete and can play most sports above average, makes the allstar team for all sports.
Why do we keep him house? Because he is 10! He plays Football in the fall, BBall winter and pick up soccer in the spring. Takes the whole summer off. Its all about variety, let them be kids....The cream rises to the top in HS. Just make sure you get them there and not burned out

+1. Some much of the travel teams are parents reliving their past glories through their kids. Good for you! We also encourage our elementary age kids to play a different sport each season. We have no expectation that they will play in college (neither will the vast majority of kids on travel teams), but they do have fun, learn the virtues of practice and teamwork.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I was there last night and this was not my son's experience (he is a House player and was placed on a team with a bunch of kids he knew, but not a pre-existing team). With that said, you should definitely send an email to Eddie (not Jane). I sincerely think he would try to do something about it next week.

To the original poster, if you send that email to Eddie, your kid will be blackballed. He punishes anybody who complains, especially about his signature program. Hopefully VYS will do the right thing and things will be better (for the whole program) after December.

To the poster above, so on the one field your son was on this, things went ok. Can you tell us how many different fields there were and whether the coaches behaved appropriately on all of them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I was there last night and this was not my son's experience (he is a House player and was placed on a team with a bunch of kids he knew, but not a pre-existing team). With that said, you should definitely send an email to Eddie (not Jane). I sincerely think he would try to do something about it next week.

To the original poster, if you send that email to Eddie, your kid will be blackballed. He punishes anybody who complains, especially about his signature program. Hopefully VYS will do the right thing and things will be better (for the whole program) after December.

To the poster above, so on the one field your son was on this, things went ok. Can you tell us how many different fields there were and whether the coaches behaved appropriately on all of them?

Let the kids PLAY. As PPs have said, anyone who is good will rise to the top. If a kid doesn't have the gumption to make it past VYS travel antics now, he may later. If not he doesn't love soccer enough.

So many people on here sound like a bunch of whiners. Is this what you're teaching your kids?

FWIW I have two kids in VYS travel and am familiar with all the programs in the area. None of them are perfect. One of my kids has had a good experience (because he's pretty good) and another is having a not so good experience (he works hard but isn't as good). Yes, it kind of a bummer for my second kid, but it sort of strikes me that this is life.

I also know Eddie, and he does not blackball kids. People who worry about their kids being blackballed are actually worrying that their kids are not talented enough to be playing travel.

And yes, it used to be possible for a great athlete to make the HS soccer team if he didn't play travel. That doesn't happen any more. Even at my kid's fairly mediocre HS soccer team, everyone came from travel. With so many kids now playing travel from U9, there's typically too much of a skills gap for the kid who hasn't played regularly to be ready for game play a month after tryouts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I was there last night and this was not my son's experience (he is a House player and was placed on a team with a bunch of kids he knew, but not a pre-existing team). With that said, you should definitely send an email to Eddie (not Jane). I sincerely think he would try to do something about it next week.

To the original poster, if you send that email to Eddie, your kid will be blackballed. He punishes anybody who complains, especially about his signature program. Hopefully VYS will do the right thing and things will be better (for the whole program) after December.

To the poster above, so on the one field your son was on this, things went ok. Can you tell us how many different fields there were and whether the coaches behaved appropriately on all of them?

What a bunch of baloney.

Look, let's explain the background here: VYS had, by its standards, a relatively contentious board election this time around. The two presidential candidates weren't the issue -- they were pretty much alike. But for lower positions on the board, a couple of people who had basically fossilized in place were nudged out. They really didn't care for the new-school thinking Eddie was bringing to the table. It wasn't even that they could argue against it -- it was that they literally didn't know what was going on.

The new board members are wonderful. They're committed, enthusiastic and welcoming. They include people with some impressive soccer resumes (probably a lot better than that mega-coach for whom you're paying through the nose to teach your precious future stars at a big-name club to run up the score against fellow U9s, development be damned).

I can only guess that the people who come on DCUM to complain about VYS are either those former board members or people close to them. Because they make complaints about VYS that I hear from no one else.

The pickup program is one example of how VYS is following some good model club behaviors that U.S. Soccer wants to see in other clubs and isn't. If you have a bad experience, that's unlucky. Try again. Talk to other people. If you're paranoid about talking to Eddie, talk to other coaches. Move your kid to another field.

And quit lying about the club on DCUM.

Thanks.