Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Whaaa!!!! I pay $3000 and my kid practices on a patch and is in a low division of ODSL!!! Clubs are evil!!
Our brilliant coach ran to another club and now we don't have academy night anymore!!! And did I mention I pay $3000 a year!?!? Clubs are evil!!!!!
Our club makes us pay for tournaments on top of our club fees and we spend $3000 a year!!!! Clubs are evil!!
Our club only recruits kids and charges them $3000 a year!!!! Clubs are evil!!'n
We have to drive a hour away for a game and we pay $3000 a year for that inconvenience!!!! Clubs are evil!!!!!
That is what you morons all sound like.
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?
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.
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.