Heloise wrote:

RedCard wrote:

Heloise wrote:

RedCard wrote:

Heloise wrote:I think it’s completely unrealistic to expect ASA to stop accepting non-Arlington residents into its travel program. We get so many out of county residents because it’s a strong program, but it’s somewhat circular - ASA is a strong program in part because it draws talent from a wide geographic area, and it draws from that wide area because of the strength of its program. But ASA is a private club, not part of the county government, so it has zero obligation to prioritize county residents over the strength of its program.

That said, the lack of field space is a real problem on many levels. It would be great to expand ADP, just like it would be great if travel teams didn’t have to practice on, let alone play games on, the hellscape of Kenmore’s field. Unfortunately I don’t see field availability increasing anytime soon, and ASA certainly isn’t going to shrink the club, so we are stuck with it unless we want to go out-of-county.

If the pro coaches are indeed worth the money, surely they don't need to grab talent that has been developed outside of Arlington?

How about ASA travel figures out how to better develop the talents of its resident population, as opposed to kicking its own residents aside in favor of kids from elsewhere?

ASA is a private company, but it doesn't own Arlington's fields -- it rents them. The fields are owned by the government. Surely that gives the government some leverage?

Are there any other clubs in the region that limit themselves to only residents of a particular locality?

I doubt the county government would be interested in battling this with ASA, for a whole host of reasons. The optics of trying to force a local private business to prioritize (largely more affluent) county residents over non-residents who simply cannot afford to live in Arlington would be pretty bad on its own.

I'm not sure if there are residency requirements for other travel leagues, but keep in mind that Arlington could potentially be facing space constraints that are more severe than in neighboring counties.

While I don't have the data, it seems possible that the number of non-resident kids in Arlington's travel program might be about equal to the total number in Arlington's ADP program. This means that ADP could double in size if non-resident kids were excluded from the travel program.

At the very least, it would be useful if the ASA would share their data. Exactly how many non-resident kids are in the travel program?

I highly doubt pp’s estimate of a third of players coming from out of county holds true across all ASA travel teams. For the highest-level teams, sure, I can see it, but not for teams at the blue or black level. From what I’ve seen, those teams are almost all Arlington residents, and the ones from outside Arlington tend to come from McLean or Falls Church, not Springfield or Reston. If Arlington residents want more options, McLean and PAC are very accessible.

All that aside, if ADP expanded to later years, I think there is a risk that it would effectively kill the rec program for those age groups.

I agree that it is possible that extending ADP's upper age boundary from 11 to 13 could potentially hurt the rec league. But there is also a chance that it would breathe new life into the non-travel programs at those ages. Some good players are dropping out of soccer at age 12 because (1) rec isn't sufficiently challenging and (2) travel takes too much time. An expanded ADP program would help to draw some of those players back into the league.

RedCard wrote:

Heloise wrote:

RedCard wrote:

Heloise wrote:I think it’s completely unrealistic to expect ASA to stop accepting non-Arlington residents into its travel program. We get so many out of county residents because it’s a strong program, but it’s somewhat circular - ASA is a strong program in part because it draws talent from a wide geographic area, and it draws from that wide area because of the strength of its program. But ASA is a private club, not part of the county government, so it has zero obligation to prioritize county residents over the strength of its program.

That said, the lack of field space is a real problem on many levels. It would be great to expand ADP, just like it would be great if travel teams didn’t have to practice on, let alone play games on, the hellscape of Kenmore’s field. Unfortunately I don’t see field availability increasing anytime soon, and ASA certainly isn’t going to shrink the club, so we are stuck with it unless we want to go out-of-county.

If the pro coaches are indeed worth the money, surely they don't need to grab talent that has been developed outside of Arlington?

How about ASA travel figures out how to better develop the talents of its resident population, as opposed to kicking its own residents aside in favor of kids from elsewhere?

ASA is a private company, but it doesn't own Arlington's fields -- it rents them. The fields are owned by the government. Surely that gives the government some leverage?

Are there any other clubs in the region that limit themselves to only residents of a particular locality?

I doubt the county government would be interested in battling this with ASA, for a whole host of reasons. The optics of trying to force a local private business to prioritize (largely more affluent) county residents over non-residents who simply cannot afford to live in Arlington would be pretty bad on its own.

I'm not sure if there are residency requirements for other travel leagues, but keep in mind that Arlington could potentially be facing space constraints that are more severe than in neighboring counties.

While I don't have the data, it seems possible that the number of non-resident kids in Arlington's travel program might be about equal to the total number in Arlington's ADP program. This means that ADP could double in size if non-resident kids were excluded from the travel program.

At the very least, it would be useful if the ASA would share their data. Exactly how many non-resident kids are in the travel program?

I highly doubt pp’s estimate of a third of players coming from out of county holds true across all ASA travel teams. For the highest-level teams, sure, I can see it, but not for teams at the blue or black level. From what I’ve seen, those teams are almost all Arlington residents, and the ones from outside Arlington tend to come from McLean or Falls Church, not Springfield or Reston. If Arlington residents want more options, McLean and PAC are very accessible.

All that aside, if ADP expanded to later years, I think there is a risk that it would effectively kill the rec program for those age groups.

soccerVA1 wrote:

RedCard wrote:

Heloise wrote:

RedCard wrote:

Heloise wrote:I think it’s completely unrealistic to expect ASA to stop accepting non-Arlington residents into its travel program. We get so many out of county residents because it’s a strong program, but it’s somewhat circular - ASA is a strong program in part because it draws talent from a wide geographic area, and it draws from that wide area because of the strength of its program. But ASA is a private club, not part of the county government, so it has zero obligation to prioritize county residents over the strength of its program.

That said, the lack of field space is a real problem on many levels. It would be great to expand ADP, just like it would be great if travel teams didn’t have to practice on, let alone play games on, the hellscape of Kenmore’s field. Unfortunately I don’t see field availability increasing anytime soon, and ASA certainly isn’t going to shrink the club, so we are stuck with it unless we want to go out-of-county.

If the pro coaches are indeed worth the money, surely they don't need to grab talent that has been developed outside of Arlington?

How about ASA travel figures out how to better develop the talents of its resident population, as opposed to kicking its own residents aside in favor of kids from elsewhere?

ASA is a private company, but it doesn't own Arlington's fields -- it rents them. The fields are owned by the government. Surely that gives the government some leverage?

Are there any other clubs in the region that limit themselves to only residents of a particular locality?

I doubt the county government would be interested in battling this with ASA, for a whole host of reasons. The optics of trying to force a local private business to prioritize (largely more affluent) county residents over non-residents who simply cannot afford to live in Arlington would be pretty bad on its own.

I'm not sure if there are residency requirements for other travel leagues, but keep in mind that Arlington could potentially be facing space constraints that are more severe than in neighboring counties.

While I don't have the data, it seems possible that the number of non-resident kids in Arlington's travel program might be about equal to the total number in Arlington's ADP program. This means that ADP could double in size if non-resident kids were excluded from the travel program.

At the very least, it would be useful if the ASA would share their data. Exactly how many non-resident kids are in the travel program?

Assuming this is a zero sum game in terms of number of kids that can participate, ASA makes more money from travel players than it does from ADP players, so financially, it makes sense to allow the non-resident travel players. ASA also charges a small surcharge to non-resident players (I think it is around $30 per season). Also, if enough ADP players decide to play rec, the competitive level of rec would improve.

Clearly ASA has a financial incentive to grow the travel program at the expense of ADP and rec.

In regard to ADP players deciding to play rec, how would shuffling players between programs alter the aggregate demand for Arlington's fields -- in particular, field space required for weekend games? Wouldn't the aggregate demand remain about the same? This is why it is important to determine what % of total field capacity is being consumed by non-residents.

Suppose, for the sake of argument, that 7% of total capacity is used by non-resident players. Suppose that in neighboring areas -- say, in Fairfax -- only 2% of field capacity is used by non-resident players. This imbalance would definitely have a negative impact on Arlington's resident soccer players.

I'm not opposed to non-residents playing on Arlington's teams. But I think we have to keep our eyes on this tendency to make sure it doesn't get completely out of control. It would be helpful if ASA would share their data with the public, with respect to the total number of non-resident players.

RedCard wrote:

Heloise wrote:

RedCard wrote:

Heloise wrote:I think it’s completely unrealistic to expect ASA to stop accepting non-Arlington residents into its travel program. We get so many out of county residents because it’s a strong program, but it’s somewhat circular - ASA is a strong program in part because it draws talent from a wide geographic area, and it draws from that wide area because of the strength of its program. But ASA is a private club, not part of the county government, so it has zero obligation to prioritize county residents over the strength of its program.

That said, the lack of field space is a real problem on many levels. It would be great to expand ADP, just like it would be great if travel teams didn’t have to practice on, let alone play games on, the hellscape of Kenmore’s field. Unfortunately I don’t see field availability increasing anytime soon, and ASA certainly isn’t going to shrink the club, so we are stuck with it unless we want to go out-of-county.

If the pro coaches are indeed worth the money, surely they don't need to grab talent that has been developed outside of Arlington?

How about ASA travel figures out how to better develop the talents of its resident population, as opposed to kicking its own residents aside in favor of kids from elsewhere?

ASA is a private company, but it doesn't own Arlington's fields -- it rents them. The fields are owned by the government. Surely that gives the government some leverage?

Are there any other clubs in the region that limit themselves to only residents of a particular locality?

I doubt the county government would be interested in battling this with ASA, for a whole host of reasons. The optics of trying to force a local private business to prioritize (largely more affluent) county residents over non-residents who simply cannot afford to live in Arlington would be pretty bad on its own.

I'm not sure if there are residency requirements for other travel leagues, but keep in mind that Arlington could potentially be facing space constraints that are more severe than in neighboring counties.

While I don't have the data, it seems possible that the number of non-resident kids in Arlington's travel program might be about equal to the total number in Arlington's ADP program. This means that ADP could double in size if non-resident kids were excluded from the travel program.

At the very least, it would be useful if the ASA would share their data. Exactly how many non-resident kids are in the travel program?

Assuming this is a zero sum game in terms of number of kids that can participate, ASA makes more money from travel players than it does from ADP players, so financially, it makes sense to allow the non-resident travel players. ASA also charges a small surcharge to non-resident players (I think it is around $30 per season). Also, if enough ADP players decide to play rec, the competitive level of rec would improve.

retiredref wrote:I ran for Arlington board a while back and even though I didn't win I did a lot of research while running and can assure the field space issue in Arlington is very real. Since the current AD took over the travel program and they stopped shooting themselves in the foot year after year they have been attracting more and more players from outside Arlington to their travel programs and Arlington is a very small and pretty urbanized county with very limited field space. Field space is a limiter for every travel age group, the last time my son tried out there were ~120 boys trying out and they could only allocate space for 2 teams. If you have ideas for how to fix this or connections in the county to help sufficiently prioritize soccer I suggest you run for board there.

Could you share more on this? This is not an aspect of ASA I have as much knowledge about and would be very interested in your thoughts on the difference.

Heloise wrote:

RedCard wrote:

Heloise wrote:I think it’s completely unrealistic to expect ASA to stop accepting non-Arlington residents into its travel program. We get so many out of county residents because it’s a strong program, but it’s somewhat circular - ASA is a strong program in part because it draws talent from a wide geographic area, and it draws from that wide area because of the strength of its program. But ASA is a private club, not part of the county government, so it has zero obligation to prioritize county residents over the strength of its program.

That said, the lack of field space is a real problem on many levels. It would be great to expand ADP, just like it would be great if travel teams didn’t have to practice on, let alone play games on, the hellscape of Kenmore’s field. Unfortunately I don’t see field availability increasing anytime soon, and ASA certainly isn’t going to shrink the club, so we are stuck with it unless we want to go out-of-county.

If the pro coaches are indeed worth the money, surely they don't need to grab talent that has been developed outside of Arlington?

How about ASA travel figures out how to better develop the talents of its resident population, as opposed to kicking its own residents aside in favor of kids from elsewhere?

ASA is a private company, but it doesn't own Arlington's fields -- it rents them. The fields are owned by the government. Surely that gives the government some leverage?

Are there any other clubs in the region that limit themselves to only residents of a particular locality?

I doubt the county government would be interested in battling this with ASA, for a whole host of reasons. The optics of trying to force a local private business to prioritize (largely more affluent) county residents over non-residents who simply cannot afford to live in Arlington would be pretty bad on its own.

I'm not sure if there are residency requirements for other travel leagues, but keep in mind that Arlington could potentially be facing space constraints that are more severe than in neighboring counties.

While I don't have the data, it seems possible that the number of non-resident kids in Arlington's travel program might be about equal to the total number in Arlington's ADP program. This means that ADP could double in size if non-resident kids were excluded from the travel program.

At the very least, it would be useful if the ASA would share their data. Exactly how many non-resident kids are in the travel program?

RedCard wrote:

Heloise wrote:I think it’s completely unrealistic to expect ASA to stop accepting non-Arlington residents into its travel program. We get so many out of county residents because it’s a strong program, but it’s somewhat circular - ASA is a strong program in part because it draws talent from a wide geographic area, and it draws from that wide area because of the strength of its program. But ASA is a private club, not part of the county government, so it has zero obligation to prioritize county residents over the strength of its program.

That said, the lack of field space is a real problem on many levels. It would be great to expand ADP, just like it would be great if travel teams didn’t have to practice on, let alone play games on, the hellscape of Kenmore’s field. Unfortunately I don’t see field availability increasing anytime soon, and ASA certainly isn’t going to shrink the club, so we are stuck with it unless we want to go out-of-county.

If the pro coaches are indeed worth the money, surely they don't need to grab talent that has been developed outside of Arlington?

How about ASA travel figures out how to better develop the talents of its resident population, as opposed to kicking its own residents aside in favor of kids from elsewhere?

ASA is a private company, but it doesn't own Arlington's fields -- it rents them. The fields are owned by the government. Surely that gives the government some leverage?

Are there any other clubs in the region that limit themselves to only residents of a particular locality?

I doubt the county government would be interested in battling this with ASA, for a whole host of reasons. The optics of trying to force a local private business to prioritize (largely more affluent) county residents over non-residents who simply cannot afford to live in Arlington would be pretty bad on its own.

RedCard wrote:

If the pro coaches are indeed worth the money, surely they don't need to grab talent that has been developed outside of Arlington?

How about ASA travel figures out how to better develop the talents of its resident population, as opposed to kicking its own residents aside in favor of kids from elsewhere?

ASA is a private company, but it doesn't own Arlington's fields -- it rents them. The fields are owned by the government. Surely that gives the government some leverage?

TLDR: Money talks. You could stop propping up the system where you become a victim of your own success.

Arlington parents will spend lots to put their kid on a travel team so they can keep up with the Jones's as they crawl and backstab their way higher.

Good coaches who want to earn a better living come to Arlington for more money.

Better coaches attract better players. Primary residence does not play a role in judging player talent.

Coaches who want to keep their jobs in Arlington have to juggle with pleasing parents who want to win at all costs and developing young players.

Heloise wrote:I think it’s completely unrealistic to expect ASA to stop accepting non-Arlington residents into its travel program. We get so many out of county residents because it’s a strong program, but it’s somewhat circular - ASA is a strong program in part because it draws talent from a wide geographic area, and it draws from that wide area because of the strength of its program. But ASA is a private club, not part of the county government, so it has zero obligation to prioritize county residents over the strength of its program.

That said, the lack of field space is a real problem on many levels. It would be great to expand ADP, just like it would be great if travel teams didn’t have to practice on, let alone play games on, the hellscape of Kenmore’s field. Unfortunately I don’t see field availability increasing anytime soon, and ASA certainly isn’t going to shrink the club, so we are stuck with it unless we want to go out-of-county.

If the pro coaches are indeed worth the money, surely they don't need to grab talent that has been developed outside of Arlington?

How about ASA travel figures out how to better develop the talents of its resident population, as opposed to kicking its own residents aside in favor of kids from elsewhere?

ASA is a private company, but it doesn't own Arlington's fields -- it rents them. The fields are owned by the government. Surely that gives the government some leverage?

I think it’s completely unrealistic to expect ASA to stop accepting non-Arlington residents into its travel program. We get so many out of county residents because it’s a strong program, but it’s somewhat circular - ASA is a strong program in part because it draws talent from a wide geographic area, and it draws from that wide area because of the strength of its program. But ASA is a private club, not part of the county government, so it has zero obligation to prioritize county residents over the strength of its program.

That said, the lack of field space is a real problem on many levels. It would be great to expand ADP, just like it would be great if travel teams didn’t have to practice on, let alone play games on, the hellscape of Kenmore’s field. Unfortunately I don’t see field availability increasing anytime soon, and ASA certainly isn’t going to shrink the club, so we are stuck with it unless we want to go out-of-county.

NoVaRTP wrote:Yes, the total amount of teams in Arlington and the limited space/fields impact all levels of soccer in Arlington.

As a long-time parent of Travel Soccer in Arlington, it is frustrating. Whereas Fairfax may have 10 different travel programs - pulling from ~1.1 million people. Arlington has 1 travel program, pulling from ~250K people. And due to traffic patterns, it is much easier for Fairfax people to drive into Arlington, than it is for Arlington to drive out to other Fairfax clubs.

So Arlington's top travel teams can be more selective, and they generally turn out to be pretty decent. This brings in top talent from outside Arlington year after year. MY DC is on a team that is in Division 1 NCSL, and about 1/3 of the team is from outside Arlington, and one or two new outside players are brought in every year.

We would try out elsewhere since our DC could make a top team elsewhere, but my spouse and I are both working professionals, and don't have time for far-away practices. And let's face it, my DC is not getting a college scholarship for soccer and will not make a career out of soccer. I might have reconsidered staying, but when ASA pulled out of CCL, the competition got much better and their games are fun to watch again.

If 1/3 of each travel team is coming from outside of Arlington, and if there are about 100 teams, each with an average of 16 players, then over 500 non-resident kids are participating in Arlington soccer. This is nearly equal in size to the entire ADP program. If this is the case, then ASA needs to reconsider its approach to non-residents.

I've run into quite a few kids who have dropped out of soccer after "graduating" from ADP. They don't have the time for travel, but rec is not challenging. These kids probably would have continued to play soccer if ADP were available at older ages. Yet ASA says ADP can't be extended due to space constraints. Keep in mind that ADP is composed almost entirely of Arlington residents.

This isn't fair. In effect, some of Arlington's kids are getting squeezed out of soccer to make room for non-residents.

Yes, the total amount of teams in Arlington and the limited space/fields impact all levels of soccer in Arlington.

As a long-time parent of Travel Soccer in Arlington, it is frustrating. Whereas Fairfax may have 10 different travel programs - pulling from ~1.1 million people. Arlington has 1 travel program, pulling from ~250K people. And due to traffic patterns, it is much easier for Fairfax people to drive into Arlington, than it is for Arlington to drive out to other Fairfax clubs.

So Arlington's top travel teams can be more selective, and they generally turn out to be pretty decent. This brings in top talent from outside Arlington year after year. MY DC is on a team that is in Division 1 NCSL, and about 1/3 of the team is from outside Arlington, and one or two new outside players are brought in every year.

We would try out elsewhere since our DC could make a top team elsewhere, but my spouse and I are both working professionals, and don't have time for far-away practices. And let's face it, my DC is not getting a college scholarship for soccer and will not make a career out of soccer. I might have reconsidered staying, but when ASA pulled out of CCL, the competition got much better and their games are fun to watch again.

retiredref wrote:I ran for Arlington board a while back and even though I didn't win I did a lot of research while running and can assure the field space issue in Arlington is very real. Since the current AD took over the travel program and they stopped shooting themselves in the foot year after year they have been attracting more and more players from outside Arlington to their travel programs and Arlington is a very small and pretty urbanized county with very limited field space. Field space is a limiter for every travel age group, the last time my son tried out there were ~120 boys trying out and they could only allocate space for 2 teams. If you have ideas for how to fix this or connections in the county to help sufficiently prioritize soccer I suggest you run for board there.

You mention that more and more kids are attracted to Arlington's travel programs. But ADP is not the travel program. Travel and ADP are separate programs.

So I want to make sure I understand what you are saying -- are you saying that the travel program -- not the ADP program -- is swelling in size, thereby creating space constraints for the rec and ADP programs?

I ran for Arlington board a while back and even though I didn't win I did a lot of research while running and can assure the field space issue in Arlington is very real. Since the current AD took over the travel program and they stopped shooting themselves in the foot year after year they have been attracting more and more players from outside Arlington to their travel programs and Arlington is a very small and pretty urbanized county with very limited field space. Field space is a limiter for every travel age group, the last time my son tried out there were ~120 boys trying out and they could only allocate space for 2 teams. If you have ideas for how to fix this or connections in the county to help sufficiently prioritize soccer I suggest you run for board there.

Arlington ADP's program runs through age 11. After this age, a child must either switch to the travel program or head back to the rec league.

My kids are in the ADP program and we love it. One gets a lot of bang for the buck, the games are competitive, and all games are played locally. Also, with only 2 practices a week as opposed to 3 (travel program), there is enough time available for other activities or sports.

I believe DC and Alexandra have ADP-style programs that run through age 13. This gives kids two additional years in which they have time for multiple sports. This makes a lot of sense, IMO.

I was told that Arlington cannot offer ADP through age 13 due to space constraints -- that is, there simply aren't enough fields for weekend games. Yet DC and Alexandria are somehow able to offer ADP-style programs through age 13.

I'm curious for this group's thoughts on the following:

1. What is the optimal cut-off age for an ADP-style program? (11, 12, 13?)

2. Are space constraints the sole reason that Arlington stops its ADP program at age 11? Or could there be other reasons?

3. Are there any solutions to Arlington's space constraints? Maybe kids are switched to large fields at too young an age? Using smaller fields (and small-sided games) might help resolve space issues.