ODP Weekend
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Anonymous
| A fool and his money is soon parted. |
Anonymous
| Or her. My DH thought I was crazy. He was right. |
Anonymous
yea….. dont remember it co$ting this much last year lol |
Anonymous
| MD ODP: There are no fees for event participation for selected players from the 2013-2007 Boys, 2013-2007 Girls age groups. |
Anonymous
Except nights in a hotel and transport to CT |
Anonymous
Maybe not everyone, but the top players don't even tryout. Have your MLSNext player ask his coach about ODP, he might get benched for even considering it. Reality is, the program is no different than Super Y, extra touches for the kids. Olympic Dev Program with zero pathway to Olympic team, start by changing the name of the program. |
Anonymous
| I agree. I am pretty disenchanted. The coaches are limited by who tries out, but they really should have more than 2 or 3 events, and they should really know the kids after 6 months of coaching, and be able to give some kind of feedback. |
Anonymous
| Or ensure that the right kids get ID camp invites rather than having to claw them all back and start over?? 🤣 Those poor kids. . . |
Anonymous
| Indeed. That was nuts. In the end, I think mostly good kids were selected. But it is also clear that there is little to no appetite for smaller kids. For our year, every selection was in the biggest 25 percent. |
Anonymous
My player's age group had no rhyme or reason. They said about 1/3 were standouts and they weren't even sure which kids another 1/3 were. |
Anonymous
My DS (VA ODP) - not a GK - went to the Regional Camp in CT last and had a good experience. We have no illusions about ODP being an elite program, but we observed the boys playing in his age group in CT to be impressive. It was a big step up from the PA tournament. As some other posters have noted, there were lots of goalkeepers in CT, and the field players did skew tall and physical. But those tall and physical players were also skilled. The coaching seemed to be good. The invited players were all assigned to one of (I think) four teams of 18, who then played each other over the course of the camp. The outcome of the games didn't matter at all, of course, because the purpose was pure player-by-player evaluation. The facilities in CT were good, but we had bad luck with the weather last year and that led to lots of schedule changing and the last half-day of the camp was rained out altogether (even on the turf fields). If you plan to go to the CT camp, make a hotel reservation now. The hotels in that vicinity are puzzlingly expensive, and the later you leave it, the more you are likely to pay. The coaches at the CT camp will select 18 players (two of which will be GKs) to represent the East team at the inter-regional event in FL. So, the CT camp is definitely tryout for the FL event. We also went to the inter-regional event in FL last year and had a great experience there. The standard of the soccer was high, but not (to my untrained eye) significantly better than the standard at the CT camp. It will obviously vary from year to year, but last year, two of the four regional teams were far better than the other two regional teams, so the competition was a bit lopsided. The East team won in my son's age group last year, so that made the experience particularly good for the boys on that team. The facilities - fields and hotel - in FL were fantastic. Definitely stay at the hotel hosting the event if you can - it makes for a really convenient and fun experience for the players and parents alike. And it's not that expensive (cheaper than the far less nice CT hotel!). |
Anonymous
|
I have a different perspective that I will share. I was an ODP player back in the day when it was a top program where you wanted to be seen by colleges and national team looks. So when my own kids were old enough, we went and tried out. I was shocked to see that the talent overall was lower than an average Loudoun/Arlington tryout. Yes, there were a few kids that looked strong, but overall it was bad.
If I were involved at the state level, I would collaborate with US Club Soccer to jointly identify kids across the state to determine the top candidates currently competing. Let those kids compete for roster spots. This becomes the state's exhibition team that you send to big tournaments nationally or internationally. Stop branding this as a elite program if you don't have a process to even attract the elite. Having ODP as just another soccer program that will get players more touches falls flat given the cost, location, and subpar training. |
Anonymous
This was a helpful post. Thank you! |
Anonymous
| Half the kids picked in my kid's group weren't at friendlies and half the trainings. Something's rotten |
Anonymous
we hire people from VA and DC to do it for us. |