Bethesda Soccer On Way Down

[Anonymous]

For the girls, it is a big problem because there is no other ECNL team this side of the river. And say what you want about college play, if you look at D1 and top 25 D3 women’s rosters, every single player is ECNL. Maybe a couple GA or RL. Literally one or two out of every 30. We club shopped for several years and have landed at BSC for a decently kind coach (at least for this year) and for showcase exposure. Everything else you say about BSC is true: practices are a mess, fields are a mess, they change sometimes a hour prior to practice, team placement is political and opaque, and leadership is nonresponsive. Poor coaching is not addressed and verbal abuse is rampant on many teams. This is all true.
But if the goal is a good college placement, it is hard to get there from elsewhere in mid or northern MoCo.

[Anonymous]

BDC has a few good coaches but the rest 90% are not good and have poor coaching skills. Most don't care. They ride the high horse because BSC has been able to fool parents into thinking they are the best in MOCO. That arrogance is rampant at the leadership level. Parent have no saying and are scared to speak up. The reason they have a few good teams os because they take good players from other clubs. They don't develop them. Politics is another issue. The parents with the most money get to have the players on the top teams. Even if these players are mediocre players. Pay to play. Coaches pushing their side hustle have a big conflict of interest because they get these rich parents to pay and as reward they get a spot on the top team and playing time..

Parents are getting tired of it. They are just waiting for the good coaches to leave to start a new soccer club in MOCO. All the top skilful players will leave with them

Glad this post is active.

[Anonymous]

Rough week on the interwebs. We can only hope tournmanet planning is the priority now. This means three refs at every game, a trainer visible and available for the players safety, and overpriced merch readily available are some reasonable expectations. Time to stick to to soccer, see you all at the Plex!

[Anonymous]

Bethesda Cup is a week away so not understanding why this is random? Fortunately, the Plex has clean bathrooms generally so please make sure other things are covered as requested this is a premier elite tournament afterall

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am the person who started this thread on May 30th, a little over five months ago. At the time we had just finished the season with Bethesda and were moving to a different club. It was the right decision. My kid was asked to return to the same top team in age group at Bethesda. We left based on several factors, including: An abundance of politics that dictate who makes teams and who gets minutes on teams. This exists most everywhere but not to the degree of Bethesda. A hyper intensive focus on winning over player development by most coaches. There is a gradual move to accomplish this by rostering big players. Unapproachable leadership. Addressing any concerns in even the most polite way is more likely than not to result in retribution than solution. Age group directors typically fuel flames instead of extinguishing them. Pitiful organization or basic effort to obtain field space and consistent training times. One top team practiced on average of twice per week in the spring, three if very lucky. Stale coaching staff. Many of the coaches are comfortable, arrogant, and stuck in their ways. Not all. Many.
All this said - the decision to leave was not easy. The Bethesda reputation is solid outside of the DMV. Their pipeline of talent to colleges is indisputable. The point of my original post was to say, "Is all the above worth that end goal? And is Bethesda your only way to achieve it?" The answer to this is up to each family, but my experience and thought is "No, it's not." Your kid's childhood is too short and precious for you to spend a year with a coach who neither knows nor cares at all about them as a person or even player. Maybe I'm naive, but I still think there are coaches out there who do care, including some at Bethesda. Not enough. BSC has become fat, happy, mean-spirited and complacent. A shakeup would serve them well.

Would love to talk to you on the phone but I don't know we could make this happen. In any case, I'm also a parent who decided to leave last year because of all of the reasons you mentioned above, plus many, many others. Thanks for sharing your thoughts with this forum

[Anonymous]

What are better clubs for boys in Moco and close to it?

[Anonymous]

Better...? Therein lies the problem but you at least have Achilles and Potomac in MoCo on the boys side. Is the MDU thread sill kicking? That should tell you something too, its the only other ECNL option on the MD side of the river. Hence the Stockholm Syndrome from families hoping it all works out. Maybe this isn't that bad afterall y'all...

[Anonymous]

The solution to BSC is for a new club to appear in MoCo in 2025 that caters to soccer families in Bethesda, Potomac and Rockville. The challenge here is the commute. Families who had enough have left BS to Baltimore Armour and Pipeline but the commute is brutal.

If this new club makes enough noise so that families can take their player for tryouts and move from BSC, it will definitely shake things up at BSC.

This new club has to place player skills over politics. This is the only way for a solution.

If any BSC coach is reading this post, get together and launch a new club. There are many, many parents at BSC who are fed up.

Achilles was created by former BSC coaches who had enough. Same with Lions Club.

BSC does not even give any update or assessment of your child's development. They don't care. And if you child is on the 2nd team or 3rd forget it. They will never move them up. They don't even have tryouts for those players. They prefer to take players from other clubs, knowing that the families on the 2nd and lower levels will never leave.

Believe me, BSC is concerned and they know it is just a matter of time before families start to leave.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:An individual or individuals has been desperate to convince me to delete this thread. The person has started other threads and then sock puppeted them. The person has submitted report after report on a daily basis, often using abusive language, trying to get me to remove this thread.

My response is that this thread will not be removed. You are wasting your time trying to intimidate me.

Why do you delete other threads critical of other clubs and coaches?

Yes! I was going to ask the same thing!

See this thread:

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1236777.page

The person who started the thread posted all but three posts in the thread. The poster did this with a number of threads, essentially faking interest in the topic.

Basically, the person who wants this thread to be deleted is convinced that one person is using this thread to make Bethesda look bad. The poster then started, and faked replies to, several threads to retaliate against that person. What the Bethesda poster doesn't seem to realize is that there are many critics of his club, not just one person. For awhile, the Bethesda poster would report posts and allege that they were all from the same poster. But when I checked, they were all from different posters.

Could this be the crazy BSC 2009 dad?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The solution to BSC is for a new club to appear in MoCo in 2025 that caters to soccer families in Bethesda, Potomac and Rockville. The challenge here is the commute. Families who had enough have left BS to Baltimore Armour and Pipeline but the commute is brutal.

If this new club makes enough noise so that families can take their player for tryouts and move from BSC, it will definitely shake things up at BSC.

This new club has to place player skills over politics. This is the only way for a solution.

If any BSC coach is reading this post, get together and launch a new club. There are many, many parents at BSC who are fed up.

Achilles was created by former BSC coaches who had enough. Same with Lions Club.

BSC does not even give any update or assessment of your child's development. They don't care. And if you child is on the 2nd team or 3rd forget it. They will never move them up. They don't even have tryouts for those players. They prefer to take players from other clubs, knowing that the families on the 2nd and lower levels will never leave.

Believe me, BSC is concerned and they know it is just a matter of time before families start to leave.

Potomac is around and they are huge. You never hear anyone really talk about them on this forum.

[Anonymous]

Potomac girls is not good. Left due to verbally nasty coach many years ago. Also no ECNL for girls.
If there were a new club, we would totally join.

[Anonymous]

The problem is that clubs have to be either invited in or voted in to ECL or MLS next or NAL and Bethesda controls who enters those as well as the other clubs. They have no interest in allowing a new startup club to arise they could challenge Bethesda and make The Montgomery County soccer scene better. There are a couple of really good coaches at Liverpool, and a few really decent players at world class premiere, but nothing will ever move up to the point of challenging Bethesda. It stinks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The solution to BSC is for a new club to appear in MoCo in 2025 that caters to soccer families in Bethesda, Potomac and Rockville. The challenge here is the commute. Families who had enough have left BS to Baltimore Armour and Pipeline but the commute is brutal.

If this new club makes enough noise so that families can take their player for tryouts and move from BSC, it will definitely shake things up at BSC.

This new club has to place player skills over politics. This is the only way for a solution.

If any BSC coach is reading this post, get together and launch a new club. There are many, many parents at BSC who are fed up.

Achilles was created by former BSC coaches who had enough. Same with Lions Club.

BSC does not even give any update or assessment of your child's development. They don't care. And if you child is on the 2nd team or 3rd forget it. They will never move them up. They don't even have tryouts for those players. They prefer to take players from other clubs, knowing that the families on the 2nd and lower levels will never leave.

Believe me, BSC is concerned and they know it is just a matter of time before families start to leave.

Potomac is around and they are huge. You never hear anyone really talk about them on this forum.

Bethesda will always have name brand and people will flow in

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Potomac girls is not good. Left due to verbally nasty coach many years ago. Also no ECNL for girls.
If there were a new club, we would totally join.

Exactly. they’re really not competitive more years than not on the girls side. And far from “huge” most of their second teams are atrocious and worse than MSI Classic teams.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For the girls, it is a big problem because there is no other ECNL team this side of the river. And say what you want about college play, if you look at D1 and top 25 D3 women’s rosters, every single player is ECNL. Maybe a couple GA or RL. Literally one or two out of every 30. We club shopped for several years and have landed at BSC for a decently kind coach (at least for this year) and for showcase exposure. Everything else you say about BSC is true: practices are a mess, fields are a mess, they change sometimes a hour prior to practice, team placement is political and opaque, and leadership is nonresponsive. Poor coaching is not addressed and verbal abuse is rampant on many teams. This is all true.
But if the goal is a good college placement, it is hard to get there from elsewhere in mid or northern MoCo.

Very accurate.