Reply to Is Division 1 really a worthwhile goal?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I mean speaking worldwide, NCAA Division 1 soccer is kind of the 'community college' of world football. Yet this forum and websites are filled with brags about how many D1 athletes such and such club has produced. Parents are bending all out of shape chasing that D1 dream when it seems, looking globally, that's really kind of aiming only halfway. American D1 teams struggle against similarly aged (and younger) reserve sides of most professional clubs in Europe. Shouldn't kids be aiming higher than just Division 1?

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Let's level set.  According to the NCAA (http://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/research/estimated-probability-competing-college-athletics), only 5.5% of boys and 7.1% of girls will [u]ever[/u] play [b]ANY[/b] level of college soccer.  Those percentages drop to 1.3% and 2.4%, respectively, for D1 soccer.  I am sure someone else can find a site that has the exact percentage for professionals, but it is simply stating the obvious that less than 1% of all boys and girls will [u]ever[/u] play professionally (after all, the vast majority of D1 soccer players never play professionally).

Given that reality, kids (and parents) need to be realistic in setting goals that are achievable for their soccer future.  For roughly 95% or so of those kids, their goals should be to have fun playing soccer, make some friends, learn some good life lessons as a participant in a team sport, etc., etc., and maybe, if they are extremely good, get a chance to play for their high school team.

For the few kids who find themselves in the top 5% or so of [u]all[/u] kids playing soccer in the US, then those kids should set some higher goals, but they still need to recognize how difficult and unlikely it is for them to play D1, let alone play professionally.

So in response to your question, the vast majority of kids should not even be aiming for D1, as it is completely unrealistic for them.  For the elite kids, D1 is a pretty damn good goal.  Yes, the super elite should maybe strive for a professional career, but "settling" for a D1 college playing career would be quite an accomplishment.  Using the NCAA percentages of D1 players (1.3% for boys and 2.4% of girls), how many of us parents can say that we are in the top 1.3% or 2.4% of our respective fields?  To state the obvious, the answer to that question is "not many," even in a region as affluent as the DMV. 
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This botches the statistics references.  Those NCAA stats are percentages of kids playing high school soccer that go on to play in college.  Given that the vast majority of youth soccer players don't ever play high school soccer, the real percentages are much, much lower if you look at all kids playing soccer vs. those that go on to play in college.  It is probably less than 1% of all kids playing soccer now will ever play in college, and a fraction of that play D1, and a fraction of that play pro . . .[/quote]

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