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Travel Soccer teams around NOVA let's discuss
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Anonymous
Lol in all fairness my kids club has never been mentioned. But I certainly know the clubs to avoid now I guess. But you're all the ones at clubs that you think suck but I'm the knucklehead. |
Anonymous
Most of us aren't paying $3,000 a year. Many of the complaints we make here are about clubs we have LEFT. Other complaints are just constructive criticism. I know some club directors who would like to cut down the distances in lower-level travel. But if everyone quit and formed his or her own league over every disagreement with a league, then every club would form its own league. (In other words, we'd all be playing rec soccer.) I'm astounded you would read this thread if you don't want to talk about clubs, compare them and ask how things could get better. What do you think we should be doing? Bragging anonymously about our kids? Why on earth do you read this thread? |
Anonymous
That guy is obviously a club TD or the like trying to protect his cash cow. Legitimate complaints are very helpful. Example, lack of field space, poor training--with specifics like kids aren't taught to play possession at this club they solely sort by size and raw speed without the ball --two things that at 8 are irrelevant. Or--every high up in the Club had a major issue at another Club that ran them out of town. Or--they only focus on 10-15 players in the early years and do not truly develop as one unified Group. Or--kids on lower teams never have an opportunity (even at the earliest ages) to scrimmage others in their age group/highly segregated. There is huge coach/trainer attrition and it's the most knowledgeable/loved that end up leaving. Or-staff is old and uninspired. Or-really bad job at making training age appropriate at U9. I think all of the above are very relevant and I would want to know all of that prior to joining. There aren't Yelp reviews for travel Clubs?. Maybe there should be. |
Anonymous
| ^^add in nepotism amongst families and club donors/kiss club taking precedence and I think I know the Club! |
Anonymous
Yes, FPYC boys U9-U12 have a training shirt |
Anonymous
Like I tell my boys: Pele didn't have shoes. Deal. Quit worrying about stupid shit and focus in training. Our old club had fancy shit and all players looked like little clones. At first glance, it looked very professional...until you stayed and actually watched the practice. |
Anonymous
We understand you have strong and rather profane views on the relative unimportance of training gear and colors. But the discussion here has to do with whether FPYC is or is not the club that charges a relatively affordable $1600 per year. Keep up. |
Anonymous
You're that guy that made thread about the "parent that didn't want to travel but their son played travel soccer" right? Holy shit, are there like a total of 5 people talking here? |
Anonymous
The $3000 per year amount was being thrown around alot. Someone wrote something like Holy Crap, my club only charges $1600 but they change training kits every year. Someone guessed that it was FPYC. I wrote "Nope. FPYC doesn't haven't training kits." Someone added that the U9-U12 teams have training shirts. This may be true; however, not every travel team at FPYC has training kits and certainly not ones that are replaced every year. As a matter of fact, these teams using training shirts just started this season. That's why I don't think it was FPYC that the poster was talking about. With that said...FPYC 2006 team does charge $1,600 to the best of my knowledge and that does include tournaments, etc etc. And you can probably pay less on some FPYC teams depending on who the trainer/coach is, etc. |
Anonymous
I'm the guy you're all bitching about. I'm not a TD at any club. What people expect from their $3k is unobtainable. 1. As a parent you cannot be objective about your own child. 2. The reality is most clubs and coaches, I believe, do try to have a good product. That doesn't mean it actually happens. 3. It's just an activity and your child's mileage will vary as well as your experience but it truly is, for most kids, it is a zero sum game. 4. There is no magic club. 5. Just enjoy it. The above is pretty much my personal opinion. I don't like club bashing because I believe in most instances it really lacks proper perspective. Mostly, I really don't know what the parent expected from the program is to gauge whether their complaint is justified or not. Blame is often wrongfully cast. Quite often it is as much the parents delusional expectations as it is bad coaching or poor club management. So while I respect that we all want the most of our $3k "investment" I'm gonna tell you that you are going to be disappointed if that is how you view it. If you want a almost guaranteed fun time spend that $3k on a family trip not soccer. Travel sports are competitive, unpredictable and on top of it they are kids trained by people of varying degrees of skill. Accept that and you'll be fine and you'll understand what I'm about and getting at. Don't accept that and you'll think I'm a TD who just wants your money. If your the later I don't really give a fuck, you are and will have a miserable experience with your kids endeavors no matter what they are because you expect a return on your "investment" that is not in line with reality. |
Anonymous
PWSI has the kids buy new training shirts every year, probably to have all of the new kids wear the same kind of shirt as kids the kids coming back. It's the cheapest shirt though, so it's ok. $3,000 was being thrown around because that is how much the club was collecting from the parents; once you start to do the math on mileage for practices, games, drinks/outside-food you otherwise wouldn't have eaten if you weren't in a hurry or coming back from a game, additional clothing and backpack so your kid isn't the only one that will be seen with a spare school backpacks and 1 of the 10 sweatshirts he already has, hotels, what else am I missing, then you can easily reach $5k-$6k. I know it's for our kids, but I do think we spoil them when we buy these things w/o thinking of needs/wants. |
Anonymous
Yeah, complaining about having to travel in a "travel" sport was a epic and stupid complaint. |
Anonymous
Leagues have been discussed and I have disagreed with your viewpoints. I've not said don't discuss CCL or other low level leagues. I just don't happen to agree with your perspective on it. I get some of your points but I don't believe that having One single league to rule them all is the answer. I don't believe in monopolies. But complaining that this club charges $3k is pointless and doesn't paint the whole picture. Considering that nobody needs to even play soccer of course anything spent is a waste of money. But everyone has varying degrees of expectation and acceptable loss. But there are cheaper alternatives but general ego won't allow most parents in this region to accept that. Heaven forbid your kid just plays rec, for most kids the end game is the same. So fine bitch because your ego made you spend $3k but blame the clubs instead. |
Anonymous
Ok, so that's a perfectly intelligent and reasonable comment, vastly more so than your earlier proclaiming that there is no general interest in unnecessary club bashing. If you stick to making counterarguments instead of trying to censor the topics others find worthwhile, you'll be a lot happier with the tone of the discussion here. |
Anonymous
Didn't even read the first sentence of my post and responded as if it didn't exist. Wow. Assuming you're the same person who made the "I'm the guy you're all bitching about" post -- thanks for that, but you didn't answer the primary question: Why are you reading this? OK, you're not a TD protecting the cash cow of travel soccer. Do you just come in here to act superior because you think all these "complaints" (which are often either info-sharing or constructive criticism) are beneath you? That would be ... sad. I've dealt with some Internet trolls in my day, but they at least seem to be enjoying it. Let's try again: 1. We aren't all paying $3,000 a year. Those that do have every right to come here and discuss whether they're getting their money's worth, then decide to either stick with it or go with something cheaper. That means we'd be discussing the merits of elite soccer, including (gasp) CCL. 2. Most travel parents have realistic expectations. I know a lot of B-, C-, D-, E- and F-team parents, and they're not under the illusion that their kids are going to break through and play for D.C. United at age 16. Some realize their kids don't even have much of a shot of playing high school soccer. (Do the math: Let's say a medium-sized club has four travel teams in the early age groups and feeds into three main high schools. That's 44 kids per year. Rounding up, that's 15 kids per high school per year. Already far more than the high school can take, and that's not even taking into account the kids who play for other clubs and the occasional rec-league phenom who doesn't play travel for cost reasons.) They play travel because rec leagues have been so thoroughly undermined (in some areas, not all) that they're not close to real soccer, and their kids want to play real soccer. They'd rather be paying $1,000 instead of $2,000, but the market is what it is. 3. A lot of parents DON'T know the difference between all these leagues and clubs. They come in here because they don't know CCL like you do, and they want to know if it's worthwhile. That doesn't make them stupid. They may have just moved to the area, or they may have other things in their life besides being up to speed on the U12 coaches at Arlington and Alexandria. Do some parents protest too much? Absolutely. You could probably have a better experience in this thread if you just called them out individually instead of declaring the whole conversation a waste of time. (I'd probably agree with you in many cases.) Enjoy. |