Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Yes. You are correct. I have a U14 with many late b-days on the team and they are playing Men in the first division of their league. Men that only need to take 1 step to their 10 steps. Not skilled men or necessarily possessing soccer iq, but at this point in time size wins.

The problem is this is 'end of the road'. Most kids give up travel soccer by HS/entering HS, many before they even come into their growth spurt. Feed those kids non-organic foods loaded with hormones . I saw a D team player have a major growth spurt at 12/13 and went straight up to the DA team. He is over 6ft at 14.

So true. I have a small, young U-14 also, and he wants to quit now because he's had it. He hates not playing much and when he plays, playing against fully grown men is hard for him. By pushing him to continue in this unhealthy system under the guise of teaching him "life lessons," we find now that he doesn't even want to play in high school because he has lost his love for soccer. And it's not like his interests changed. He's just fed up.

He is likely to be done before he grows or has the chance to play for his school, and that is sad. And I feel like it is a parental failure, more than anything.

Calling this little kiddie expensive travel soccer a 'contract' is ridiculous.

They should make it a free market like it was back in the day.

F*ck you to the Club and move to another one when they treat you like crap. Instead, you have parents afraid to do anything and the kids suffer. The Clubs/leagues hold all of the cards and the threats and the kids are prisoners.

Any time a parent raises a legitimate issue, someone here responds to their point to argue why any plea for a more reasonable system is wrong or otherwise misguided. Are there club people posting here? Do the majority of us really think that the status quo is ideal?

But you hit the nail on the head, and I'm as guilty as the next parent. We, as parents, allow it.We accept that we are wasting money and allowing kids to be mistreated or misguided because we think it will hurt our kids' opportunities if we open our mouths. I've watched clubs roster kids, having them travel to out of town tournaments and pay for hotel rooms, and then not give the kids one minute of playing time and any of the three games. I stood by, because my kid was playing. And I feel like crap about it.

It seems like each year I see more things, some involving my kids, some involving other kids, that make me feel more and more disgusted with myself for participating in this madness. At younger ages, we turned down offers from a team likely to stay together because we wanted our child to be on a "top team" only to have him get demoted after a season when the coach changed and he didn't favor DS's style of play. We could have had a better situation, but we felt like we were trying to do the best for our son. The balance of power favors the clubs and the system is opaque, time consuming, and keeps families running in different direction every weekend. These sacrifices might be necessary for the very top level players who must travel distances to find adequate competition. But everyone is doing this, including players who won't even make their high school's varsity team. Clubs exploit this and somehow educated, assertive parents with the best of intentions enable the continued existence of this system.

Everyone attacks US Soccer and the DA in particular and the DA is the only soccer entity in the country that is using Bio Banding as a way of properly placing a player like your under sized U14 in order to provide them with a proper competitive environment while kids are still growing.

https://www.ussoccer.com/stories/2018/04/05/15/45/20180405-news-us-soccer-introduces-bio-banding-initiative

Anonymous wrote:

Yes. You are correct. I have a U14 with many late b-days on the team and they are playing Men in the first division of their league. Men that only need to take 1 step to their 10 steps. Not skilled men or necessarily possessing soccer iq, but at this point in time size wins.

The problem is this is 'end of the road'. Most kids give up travel soccer by HS/entering HS, many before they even come into their growth spurt. Feed those kids non-organic foods loaded with hormones . I saw a D team player have a major growth spurt at 12/13 and went straight up to the DA team. He is over 6ft at 14.

So true. I have a small, young U-14 also, and he wants to quit now because he's had it. He hates not playing much and when he plays, playing against fully grown men is hard for him. By pushing him to continue in this unhealthy system under the guise of teaching him "life lessons," we find now that he doesn't even want to play in high school because he has lost his love for soccer. And it's not like his interests changed. He's just fed up.

He is likely to be done before he grows or has the chance to play for his school, and that is sad. And I feel like it is a parental failure, more than anything.

Calling this little kiddie expensive travel soccer a 'contract' is ridiculous.

They should make it a free market like it was back in the day.

F*ck you to the Club and move to another one when they treat you like crap. Instead, you have parents afraid to do anything and the kids suffer. The Clubs/leagues hold all of the cards and the threats and the kids are prisoners.

Any time a parent raises a legitimate issue, someone here responds to their point to argue why any plea for a more reasonable system is wrong or otherwise misguided. Are there club people posting here? Do the majority of us really think that the status quo is ideal?

But you hit the nail on the head, and I'm as guilty as the next parent. We, as parents, allow it.We accept that we are wasting money and allowing kids to be mistreated or misguided because we think it will hurt our kids' opportunities if we open our mouths. I've watched clubs roster kids, having them travel to out of town tournaments and pay for hotel rooms, and then not give the kids one minute of playing time and any of the three games. I stood by, because my kid was playing. And I feel like crap about it.

It seems like each year I see more things, some involving my kids, some involving other kids, that make me feel more and more disgusted with myself for participating in this madness. At younger ages, we turned down offers from a team likely to stay together because we wanted our child to be on a "top team" only to have him get demoted after a season when the coach changed and he didn't favor DS's style of play. We could have had a better situation, but we felt like we were trying to do the best for our son. The balance of power favors the clubs and the system is opaque, time consuming, and keeps families running in different direction every weekend. These sacrifices might be necessary for the very top level players who must travel distances to find adequate competition. But everyone is doing this, including players who won't even make their high school's varsity team. Clubs exploit this and somehow educated, assertive parents with the best of intentions enable the continued existence of this system.

Anonymous wrote:

Yes. You are correct. I have a U14 with many late b-days on the team and they are playing Men in the first division of their league. Men that only need to take 1 step to their 10 steps. Not skilled men or necessarily possessing soccer iq, but at this point in time size wins.

The problem is this is 'end of the road'. Most kids give up travel soccer by HS/entering HS, many before they even come into their growth spurt. Feed those kids non-organic foods loaded with hormones . I saw a D team player have a major growth spurt at 12/13 and went straight up to the DA team. He is over 6ft at 14.

So true. I have a small, young U-14 also, and he wants to quit now because he's had it. He hates not playing much and when he plays, playing against fully grown men is hard for him. By pushing him to continue in this unhealthy system under the guise of teaching him "life lessons," we find now that he doesn't even want to play in high school because he has lost his love for soccer. And it's not like his interests changed. He's just fed up.

He is likely to be done before he grows or has the chance to play for his school, and that is sad. And I feel like it is a parental failure, more than anything.

Calling this little kiddie expensive travel soccer a 'contract' is ridiculous.

They should make it a free market like it was back in the day.

F*ck you to the Club and move to another one when they treat you like crap. Instead, you have parents afraid to do anything and the kids suffer. The Clubs/leagues hold all of the cards and the threats and the kids are prisoners.

Any time a parent raises a legitimate issue, someone here responds to their point to argue why any plea for a more reasonable system is wrong or otherwise misguided. Are there club people posting here? Do the majority of us really think that the status quo is ideal?

But you hit the nail on the head, and I'm as guilty as the next parent. We, as parents, allow it.We accept that we are wasting money and allowing kids to be mistreated or misguided because we think it will hurt our kids' opportunities if we open our mouths. I've watched clubs roster kids, having them travel to out of town tournaments and pay for hotel rooms, and then not give the kids one minute of playing time and any of the three games. I stood by, because my kid was playing. And I feel like crap about it.

It seems like each year I see more things, some involving my kids, some involving other kids, that make me feel more and more disgusted with myself for participating in this madness. At younger ages, we turned down offers from a team likely to stay together because we wanted our child to be on a "top team" only to have him get demoted after a season when the coach changed and he didn't favor DS's style of play. We could have had a better situation, but we felt like we were trying to do the best for our son. The balance of power favors the clubs and the system is opaque, time consuming, and keeps families running in different direction every weekend. These sacrifices might be necessary for the very top level players who must travel distances to find adequate competition. But everyone is doing this, including players who won't even make their high school's varsity team. Clubs exploit this and somehow educated, assertive parents with the best of intentions enable the continued existence of this system.

Yes. You are correct. I have a U14 with many late b-days on the team and they are playing Men in the first division of their league. Men that only need to take 1 step to their 10 steps. Not skilled men or necessarily possessing soccer iq, but at this point in time size wins.

The problem is this is 'end of the road'. Most kids give up travel soccer by HS/entering HS, many before they even come into their growth spurt. Feed those kids non-organic foods loaded with hormones . I saw a D team player have a major growth spurt at 12/13 and went straight up to the DA team. He is over 6ft at 14.

Calling this little kiddie expensive travel soccer a 'contract' is ridiculous.

They should make it a free market like it was back in the day.

F*ck you to the Club and move to another one when they treat you like crap. Instead, you have parents afraid to do anything and the kids suffer. The Clubs/leagues hold all of the cards and the threats and the kids are prisoners.

Anonymous wrote:

I

maintain that the current US travel system does not work for the below U13 set.

Kids can show for one tryout and then are locked in place for an entire year. Kids change drastically in these years--even month-to-month. It should be a pool of players that can be reconfigured as they change. Some kids will exceed and not be getting enough challenge by December and some top team players will be floundering and taking space away from kids that need to move up. It should not be a 'punitive' environment. The color divisions make it a caste system and kids and parents get all worked up into a frenzy over this stuff.

Agreed except I'd go further and say it doesn't work through u-15. Too much emphasis on winning, too much emphasis on bigger, stronger, faster at younger ages, too little emphasis on technical skills at younger ages, and too darn much driving. Kids spend more time sitting in cars than they do actually playing and practicing.

Yes. You are correct. I have a U14 with many late b-days on the team and they are playing Men in the first division of their league. Men that only need to take 1 step to their 10 steps. Not skilled men or necessarily possessing soccer iq, but at this point in time size wins.

The problem is this is 'end of the road'. Most kids give up travel soccer by HS/entering HS, many before they even come into their growth spurt. Feed those kids non-organic foods loaded with hormones . I saw a D team player have a major growth spurt at 12/13 and went straight up to the DA team. He is over 6ft at 14.