Reply to Boys development academies - I'm clueless and need help

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]What is missing from all of this is 'where will your kid develop the best'?  Just because it is "DA" does not mean it is great at player development and all of them vary a great degree on how well they do this.
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This is a reasonable argument (though the name of the thread was "Boys Development Academies..." so I think we were trying to answer their question, not beg their question).

Just like you shouldn't send your kid to an Ivy just because of the name, you shouldn't try to get your kid on a DA just because of the name. However, for the right kid who is prepared and motivated, Ivy League schools have excellent professors and a cohort of students who are also prepared and motivated--and that combination makes for a great learning environment. To some extent, this is analogous to DAs. By and large, they have better coaches. If you've never looked at what it takes to become a USSF A Licensed coach, here is the course structure (only after you already got your "D", then "C" then "B"): https://learning.ussoccer.com/coach/courses/available/6/course-info

Every DA coach is A or B licensed. Many non-DA clubs don't have an A or B on their entire staff. This is underrated by most non-coaches who don't think of "soccer coach" as a legitimate profession (I'm a parent, not a coach, to be clear). These coaches have more drills and tactics and ideas in their bag of tricks than less educated coaches.

And the DA "name" and those coaches attract better players. And a group of top players will all get better faster together. So it creates a virtuous cycle where top players at a DA get better faster than they would outside.

Now, there are great coaches not at a DA, bad coaches at DAs, good players outside DA, mediocre players in DA. But they are exceptions. DA coaching and the DA system is more predictably, consistently good, year after year, than outside it.[/quote]

While the A and B license may take time to get, there is no evidence anywhere that they make a coach a better coach. US Soccer doesn't offer enough courses and gives preference to coaches from DA clubs making the licensing system more useful for protecting the status quo than for improving coaching. Acceptance into A/B license courses is not based on the merit of the individual coach. Saying DA coaching and the DA system is better is one person's opinion and can't be backed up by any evidence.[b] Since the DA was created to support the USMNT, the quality of the USMNT should be a pretty good indicator of the quality of the DA--a country of over 300 million that can't qualify for the world cup. If anything the evidence suggests DA coaching is subpar, not "consistently good." [/b]

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There also has been a lot of buzz about doing away with boys' DA completely.[/quote]

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