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[quote=Anonymous]No updates post 2019 tryouts and offers?

I am the parent whose DD played on U9 Gold last season.  I was pretty cautious going into the whole thing, but I posted in the fall that I was pleased, and have only gotten more so in the spring.  VYS' 5th U9 team was effectively a second silver team, had a fantastic coach, won plenty of games (75%?), and sent several girls up to black and white.  Most importantly, the parents were great, travel/drive time was low, and the players improved dramatically.  We had minimal yelling at the refs, no yelling anything negative at the kids, etc.  From talking with other parents, I understand pretty much everyone felt the same way, and we had a 100% retention rate going into next season for girls not leaving the area.

I just can't see that same improvement happening (at least with my DD) in house, with less rigor around the coaching, worse practice fields, worse game fields (way more house games were cancelled than travel, due to travel playing almost exclusively on turf fields), and fewer practices per week.  And I say that as a long time (and continuing) VYS house coach.

There were a few things that VYS leadership could have handled a little better (tournaments, silver and gold got low on players at the end as kids were moved up but no one was moved down), but it's now my firm belief that you want a wide funnel at the U9 travel entry point to build as large a base of players as possible and maximize the likelihood of some children making large improvements in skill.  I also suspect that some of the kids on higher teams are there at U9 only because they were lucky enough to get placed onto house teams with players and coaches that created a travel-type environment at a young age (and thus benefitted).

I've also seen the teams that the other clubs (Arlington, Loudoun, Alexandria, BRYC, VSA, Gunston, etc) fielded, and 80% of the players were interchangeable.  I spoke to some of the parents from those teams, and many seemed to feel stress over the idea that their kids had to perform just to stay in the system, as many of the clubs would shrink at U10.  That's a little sad at such a young age.  I'm not sure what's wrong with more kids playing more soccer in more organized environments?  Lack of professional coaches?  Lack of fields?  Impact on house?  I'm not convinced that drawing another 10 kids away from VYS house had much more of an incremental impact than already drawing the 45 or so the top 4 times would have.

Unfortunately, it looks like Vienna won't be able to repeat this experiment with the 2011 girls, as I have heard the tryout pool was very small this year, and they will only be able to field 3 teams.  That's sad for VYS for numerous obvious reasons, and I can't speak to the causality at play (demographics?  Other clubs?).  I think from a budget stand point a lot of costs are probably fixed or semi-variable, so you're better off having more players / teams to spread those costs across.

On the house side, I continue to be happy coaching my younger children and am always impressed with the other coaches, volunteers, parents, and the VYS staff.  Stephen Bird seems like a great guy, and my children adore him.  It is a very different animal than travel, but I have no complaints there, either.  [/quote]

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