McLeaving

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why would they have less draw than before for B/C teams? Nothing has changed there, except perhaps a handful of ECNL players now coming down. I think the farther down the rung you go, the more local the players are and the less willing they are to travel. I don't see how this makes them magically decide to drive in traffic. McLean is not geographically isolated, but any alternative adds significant travel time that these families won't take on.

VYS is right next door.

Yep, and there is a hundred plus page thread on here about how good VYS is.

Say what you will about VYS, they aren’t importing the “samba boyz” of SYC to prop themselves up. And last time I checked, the younger teams at VYS had a pretty good track record of beating Mclean.

And that is the difference my friend. One can be competitive at the local level by developing your own talent. To excel or even survive at the level of a national league, you need to expand your talent pool. You imply that sourcing talent is a bad thing. It is not, it comes with the territory starting at the ECNL level. They are doing what they need to do to survive at this level.

My comment about VYS being a viable option for Mclean families unhappy with the "samba boyz" merger was in response to a comment about B/C team kids leaving Mclean. Someone said that wouldn't happen because people would have to drive too far to play with another club. My point is that VYS is a nearby and viable option for those kids.

[Anonymous]

Curious:
The interest to compete at a national level ...
is this community driven, parent driven, or club driven?
Seems club driven, and if so why?
Presumably money based, is it just trying to create an allure
Of apparent success to attract high/er paying participants?

Just seems unrealistic to be basing a community club model on striven for success at top of pyramid, meaning 5% of club is the focal point for decisions that affect the other 95%

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Curious:
The interest to compete at a national level ...
is this community driven, parent driven, or club driven?
Seems club driven, and if so why?
Presumably money based, is it just trying to create an allure
Of apparent success to attract high/er paying participants?

Just seems unrealistic to be basing a community club model on striven for success at top of pyramid, meaning 5% of club is the focal point for decisions that affect the other 95%

Parent/player-driven and the club is meeting that demand. National level = college exposure = professional opportunities. There is next to zero reason to compete at the national level unless you want to play at the next level (college).

[Anonymous]

And I would add that there is nothing wrong with the community club model having a team that competes at the national level. Look at McLean. They have ECNL and then various levels below that. The ECNL teams play "national level" , while the Green, White, Gold teams play at a variety of state and local levels. The deal with SYC only impacts the ECNL levels. It will have no impact on the kids playing below that (other than making competition for ECNL tougher).

[Anonymous]

If Mclean keeps the practices in McLean, the alliance could work. If they move some of the practices to Springfield, I think some ECNL players will say no thank you, we are not driving on the beltway to Springfield and move to Arlington or Loudoun.

[Anonymous]

SO really WTF?

Are Arlington and McLean planning to announce any plans before everyone is required to commit????!!

It's pretty hard to figure out where to go when the majority of Clubs have no idea what the f*ck they are doing and we don't know how much travel to expect.

[Anonymous]

Let's not get off topic. McLean did this after a different merger attempt failed due to McLean insisting on keeping NM and his pipeline of players. It is a shady dishonest club. They have no problem screwing kids over.

[Anonymous]

You sound like someone with an axe to grind. Our family’s experience with McLean has been great

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Let's not get off topic. McLean did this after a different merger attempt failed due to McLean insisting on keeping NM and his pipeline of players. It is a shady dishonest club. They have no problem screwing kids over.

do tell. It would not be in TF's best interests to be exclusive to one club so your story is hard to imagine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If Mclean keeps the practices in McLean, the alliance could work. If they move some of the practices to Springfield, I think some ECNL players will say no thank you, we are not driving on the beltway to Springfield and move to Arlington or Loudoun.

Yes some—there will always be “some” but it hardly matters in long run. Once everyone sees that the SYC players are better and end up comprising most of the ECNL level caliber it won’t matter because there won’t be enough McCleavin players in five years on the next wave of ECNL teams that begin when SYC pool players are also in the mix for those newly forming ECNL birth years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If Mclean keeps the practices in McLean, the alliance could work. If they move some of the practices to Springfield, I think some ECNL players will say no thank you, we are not driving on the beltway to Springfield and move to Arlington or Loudoun.

Yes some—there will always be “some” but it hardly matters in long run. Once everyone sees that the SYC players are better and end up comprising most of the ECNL level caliber it won’t matter because there won’t be enough McCleavin players in five years on the next wave of ECNL teams that begin when SYC pool players are also in the mix for those newly forming ECNL birth years.

Especially since the training on the little girls' side is for the birds thanked to a clueless and widely unliked age group coordinator

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And I would add that there is nothing wrong with the community club model having a team that competes at the national level. Look at McLean. They have ECNL and then various levels below that. The ECNL teams play "national level" , while the Green, White, Gold teams play at a variety of state and local levels. The deal with SYC only impacts the ECNL levels. It will have no impact on the kids playing below that (other than making competition for ECNL tougher).

Of course it will affect the Green and White team's. You cut 11 McLean Boys on the current ECNL Team and they fill out 11 spots on the Green team and those Green Team players fill out 11 spots on the White team. So basically you're screwing 11 boys from continuing to play at a level higher than rec. Or they hang it up. Lots of McLean kids are getting screwed by this. Looks like VYS, ASA and BSC will be seeing a lot of McLean players trying out this year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And I would add that there is nothing wrong with the community club model having a team that competes at the national level. Look at McLean. They have ECNL and then various levels below that. The ECNL teams play "national level" , while the Green, White, Gold teams play at a variety of state and local levels. The deal with SYC only impacts the ECNL levels. It will have no impact on the kids playing below that (other than making competition for ECNL tougher).

Of course it will affect the Green and White team's. You cut 11 McLean Boys on the current ECNL Team and they fill out 11 spots on the Green team

Not sure this is true. If they moved from another club (more local to them) to play ECNL at McLean, they may not stay at McLean to play on the green team.

[Anonymous]

11 was just an example and true all may not want to go to Green, but most will from what I can see.
Across the board, McLean is gonna cut the players that aren't at the ECNL level and for one of the teams that's probably half the team. Yes, there are some that shouldn't be there, but with the pandemic there were no tryouts and coaches assembled the teams based on what they knew about the players for the 20-21 season.

My DD plays ECNL and that's the level my DD wants to continue playing, but if my DD doesn't make ECNL her decision is to stop playing. I think McLean didn't think this through and is basically shooting themselves in the foot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:11 was just an example and true all may not want to go to Green, but most will from what I can see.
Across the board, McLean is gonna cut the players that aren't at the ECNL level and for one of the teams that's probably half the team. Yes, there are some that shouldn't be there, but with the pandemic there were no tryouts and coaches assembled the teams based on what they knew about the players for the 20-21 season.

My DD plays ECNL and that's the level my DD wants to continue playing, but if my DD doesn't make ECNL her decision is to stop playing. I think McLean didn't think this through and is basically shooting themselves in the foot.

So your daughter will either play Mclean ECNL or quit? What would she have done if those same SYC (and other club players) just showed up at the tryout and beat her out? There were always going to be lots of kids at tryouts this year given lack of full tryouts last year and concerns around changing clubs in the environment.