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[quote=Anonymous]So here's the deal with PAC ...

As others have said, they're quite good at developing players. They'll take most, if not all, of the players who show up and demonstrate that they at least have a positive attitude.

I've seen them take players who were stuck on C and D teams elsewhere spend a couple of years at PAC and move on to Bethesda South, Braddock Road or a top Arlington team. I've seen players who wouldn't have made a travel team at all in Arlington, McLean or Vienna turn into half-decent mid-level NCSL players.

The downsides:

- They take "development over winning" to extremes. Depending on who shows up to tryouts and how NCSL pools its teams at U9 and U10, you can expect to be drilled for a couple of seasons. Tournaments provide little relief -- the coaches often manage to get the teams into brackets that are too challenging. It does get better -- at least if you're on a Navy team (or possibly a boys' Gold team playing in ODSL). But they don't seem to realize a lot of kids lose interest if they're blown out all the time. (Granted, a lot of that is simply the flipside of taking most kids who try out -- some of the players who don't have basic athletic coordination at U9 still haven't developed it at U12, and all the coaching in the world isn't going to make them any better than an average rec player.)

- Club founder Sully Hamid seems to be taking less of an active role these days. He used to be a big presence at training for all ages, and you could see him lurking at games, keeping an eye on the teams. He's getting older, and his son Bill (who would occasionally turn up to visit during his D.C. United days) is playing in Europe now. Then in a stroke of bad luck, the guy they were grooming to take a more active role was called to Puerto Rico with FEMA for hurricane relief. So you're relying more on individual coaches, MOST of whom are good but not all.

In general, PAC ends up with a lot of nice kids who aren't particularly athletic but love to play. Again, in the long run, a lot of them will turn out to maximize their potential -- they'll learn a lot of skills. But until then, expect some of what you might call "PAC plays":

- A kid makes a nice pullback move to beat one defender, then gets swarmed and dispossessed by bigger, faster kids before he can do anything else.

- An opponent slips, leaving a PAC player with a breakaway. Rather than taking the ball and racing toward goal, the PAC player stops to ask the opponent if he's OK.

So if your DS or DD is a hotshot U11 ready to enter his or her third year with the top team at a big club, there's no reason for you to switch to PAC. But if you think your kid isn't developing on Big Club's C, D, E or F teams, PAC is certainly an option worth exploring.

If nothing else, you'll find far fewer psycho parents at PAC than you will elsewhere. These kids are nice because their parents are nice. The rare psycho parents leave anyway -- they see their kids winning a few games in the NCSL top divisions, so they figure they HAVE to go an EDP or CCL team somewhere. (Maybe one day, PAC will get the message and take a Navy team into EDP. Or even if it stays in NCSL, perhaps that team will get college-showcase exposure by qualifying for Jefferson Cup. Weirder things have happened.)

And the training atmosphere is simply wonderful. Stop by Luther Jackson on Tuesday or Thursday nights and just listen to dozens of kids out having fun. If you're lucky, you might hear Sully's voice ringing out -- the man was born to coach. Pity all the big clubs that have coaches nowhere near his level.[/quote]

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