Reply to Reflections from an aging soccer dad

Forum Index » Soccer

Reply to "Reflections from an aging soccer dad"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Interesting report by the Aspen Institute on participation in youth sports.

https://assets.aspeninstitute.org/content/uploads/2018/10/StateofPlay2018_v4WEB_2-FINAL.pdf?_ga=2.107651328.32617992.1553087167-828947673.1553087167

A couple of interesting observations.  The age change (i.e. kids lost friends on their teams) and the pay-to-play model is hurting youth soccer. There are also more choices now with Lacrosse, Ice Hockey, Volleyball, etc. picking up more participants on a percentage basis, albeit all still low compared to soccer. Video games / technology as an alternative pastime is also having some effect. I also found the discussion on youth coaches with training by sport interesting. Even though there is pay-to-play, not sure people are getting what they're paying for.

Here are some direct sections from the report:

"[b]Soccer paid a heavy price for underestimating kids’ desire to play with friends. In an effort to develop better prospects for its national teams, the U.S. Soccer Federation two years ago began mandating that affiliated organizations down to the community level stop forming teams based on birthdates that fell within the school year. Instead, teams at every age level were reorganized based on calendar year birthdates, in which kids are less likely to play with same-grade peers. That broke up teams who have been playing together for years.[/b] Only 14.8 percent of children ages 6 to 12 played soccer in 2017, down from 17 percent in 2015.2 For children ages 6 to 17, soccer had the highest churn rate in 2017 among sports evaluated by the Sports & Fitness Industry Association (SFIA) — meaning 19.2 percent of youth returned to soccer or started playing, but 25.2 percent of youth who used to play soccer left the game."

"New study showed how few Virginia kids are served by the pay-to-play soccer model. George Mason University researcher Tyler Richardett created a project called 'Hidden Costs: Exploring Access to Youth Soccer in Virginia.' Using data from competitive youth soccer league schedules, the U.S. Census Bureau, and the clubs themselves, the project showed that children living in the southwest and southside regions of Virginia are “completely excluded” from the competitive pipeline and would require a 'massive' time commitment in order to play. Economic security was an effective predictor of opportunities for inclusion. Opportunities disappeared entirely once an area of Virginia’s nonwhite population exceeded 90 percent. The study also showed that the amount of required travel significantly increased as the competition level rose."

"Most youth coaches are still winging it. The percentage of adults trained in key competencies to engage kids remains stubbornly low, even as the value of having a trained coach has generally grown in the broader culture. The latest SFIA survey shows that less than four in 10 youth coaches say they are trained in any of the following areas: sport skills and tactics, effective motivational technique, or safety needs (CPR/basic first aid and concussion management). Many barriers exist to training the nation’s 6.5 million youth coaches, most of whom are volunteers."[/quote]

This was a killer.  The kids from our rec team moving into travel in 2nd/3rd grade were split up into different years---U9 and U10.  It massively sucked.  My oldest was a December 2005 and the year it took effect he bumped from U10 into U12.  All but 2 kids on his travel team that had played U9&U10 together were also 2005s, the rest were 2006s.  This was a very tight knit group.   The year above was a very 'exclusionary, snotty' bunch of kids so the 2005s having to move up were miserable. We ended up switching Clubs.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics