Sidwell Friends Boys Soccer

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:i think by encourage they mean....if you the school becomes aware of a good athlete, they encourage him/her to apply. the kid still has to be smart enough to handle the work at the school. If a good athlete applies, that will become a plus in his/her application. in the past athleticism was not a consideration.

What has changed? Is it the New Head of School? Because the Admissions Director is the same.

[Anonymous]

People who really know sidwell also know that it's not really a soccer school. The the success of the soccer team was only partly due to the excellent coach. Much of the credit has to go to kids who played well on outside club teams where they gained much of their experience. Also, it was lucky that so many of those kids were going through Sidwell at the same time. If Sidwell was a soccer school the last few years, those days are now over. They simply don't have as strong players coming through the pipleline. It's not like Landon which specifically grooms kids for its lacrosse program.

[Anonymous]

Sure it is luck that plenty of the kids played soccer together and on club teams for many years. But hiring a good coach isn't luck, and attracting new kids to the school isn't luck either.

Sports across any institution (except Landon, Prep and STA) are going to ebb and flow in success and popularity. What is your point?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:i think by encourage they mean....if you the school becomes aware of a good athlete, they encourage him/her to apply. the kid still has to be smart enough to handle the work at the school. If a good athlete applies, that will become a plus in his/her application. in the past athleticism was not a consideration.

Like with the girl soccer player mentioned earlier in this thread, "encouragement" doesn't mean automatic admission or financial support.

The question, however, is whether an athlete with identical credentials as another applicant with different extra curriculars (say theater or singing) would get a preference in admissions. I don't know the answer to that question.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sure it is luck that plenty of the kids played soccer together and on club teams for many years. But hiring a good coach isn't luck, and attracting new kids to the school isn't luck either.

Sports across any institution (except Landon, Prep and STA) are going to ebb and flow in success and popularity. What is your point?

Good point PP, although I would say sports ebb and flow even at STA. For example, a couple years ago the lacrosse team shared the league title, and this year they won only 1-2 league games. They've got a great lacrosse coach so they will be back, but it shows that the success of programs will go up and down even at the "sports" schools. (Although maybe Prep is immune because they are so big, but that very size may get them kicked out of the IAC . . . Or so little Landon birds say . . .)

[Anonymous]

My point is that it's probably not accurate to claim that Sidwell is a soccer school since the school doesn't recruit for soccer. The success was, in fact, the result of the ebb and flow of talented athletes to a specific program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My point is that it's probably not accurate to claim that Sidwell is a soccer school since the school doesn't recruit for soccer. The success was, in fact, the result of the ebb and flow of talented athletes to a specific program.

Fair enough--although my sense is that they do have a very strong coach too.

[Anonymous]

Walt Whitman 5 Sidwell 1.

[Anonymous]

PP, you are incorrect; it was Churchill 5, Sidwell 1.
But it was no surprise. Sidwell's dynasty was expected to come to an end this year. The 7 starting seniors from last year's team are off playing in college (most of them).

[Anonymous]

is that game a fluke or is the program overrated? what does that mean for other sports at Sidwell?

[Anonymous]

so much for the birth of a new athletic era for sidwell.

[Anonymous]

There are some pretty fundamental problems with the athletic program, now that soccer is tanking, the school is going to have to grapple with it. The soccer program has a good coach but he benefitted from a very talented kids that moved the school in the last five years. That was mostly luck of the draw.

[Anonymous]

Somehow I'm sure the school will manage to survive.

[Anonymous]

There are a couple of good coaches. Some teams are so bad though that it is discouraging for the kids - even embarrassing.

[Anonymous]

All the ISL and MAC co-ed schools are drawing from a pretty small pool of students (the single sex schools of the same size class of course have twice as many kids to draw from each year) so there is always an ebb and flow from year to year regarding teams. Sidwell really doesn't do any "recruiting" for sports that I can see, like any other extracurricular that could make a kid stand out it would help but really don't get the impression that kids are admitted to high school to specifically help one team or another. Soccer is sort of a special case because as other posters point out much of the player development and training comes long before high school on club teams, no one that does not have experience playing on a high level club soccer team is ever going to make varsity at the most of the ISL or MAC schools. Anyway, that said, both boys and girls soccer coaches at the school are very good, and high school soccer there is a good experience for the players, they actually learn something even if they are also on a high level club team, so realy don't think for soccer, wrestling, track and a few other sports that the school has good coaching and have traditionally done well in that the quality of those programs should ever disuade a student from coming to the school if academically and otherwise it is a good fit. And this year even if the boys team may be "rebuilding" the girls team has a lot of depth and talent and should contend for ISL banner.