The Blue team shouldn't be doing drills entirely different from the White and Red teams. If they are you need to reach out to the age group coordinator, or the director. If I remember they take that pretty seriously.

Red, White and Blue coaches should be talking to each other fairly often. Do you practice at the same location/day/time?

As far as moving up or down from teams within the club, it's tough. I always tell my players their tryout is the entire year - by the time tryouts comes around I don't need any additional information about them as I've seen them for 9 months. The hard part is judging other players in as little as one session and seeing where they might fit and I'll be the first to say we don't always get it right.

Not sure about Alexandria, but clubs I've been with care about all their teams. Each team provides a foundation for the other. If your club is a non-profit it's run by board members who are likely unpaid volunteers - they don't care about how much money the club makes.

Yes, we practice at the same location and scrimmage white sometimes. The issue isn't exactly moving up teams, and I'm sorry if I portrayed it that way. I just feel like my child's development is limited. This year has been really bad for multiple reasons. I think we will try out elsewhere next year and see if things can be a better fit elsewhere. Again, even if we are on the same level of team, maybe there will be a better mix of players/coach/situation.

Coach here -

I'm fairly familiar with Alexandria's program and have friends that coach there.

The Blue team shouldn't be doing drills entirely different from the White and Red teams. If they are you need to reach out to the age group coordinator, or the director. If I remember they take that pretty seriously.

Red, White and Blue coaches should be talking to each other fairly often. Do you practice at the same location/day/time?

As far as moving up or down from teams within the club, it's tough. I always tell my players their tryout is the entire year - by the time tryouts comes around I don't need any additional information about them as I've seen them for 9 months. The hard part is judging other players in as little as one session and seeing where they might fit and I'll be the first to say we don't always get it right.

Not sure about Alexandria, but clubs I've been with care about all their teams. Each team provides a foundation for the other. If your club is a non-profit it's run by board members who are likely unpaid volunteers - they don't care about how much money the club makes.

I can tell you first hand that's it's not pretty when any existing team starts to crumble, it has percussions along the entire age group no matter what level it is. That being said the perception is ALWAYS that the bottom teams are getting the shaft.

The only case I believe this is generally true is you don't always get the most QUALIFIED coach. That being said I've seen highly qualified coaches who weren't worth a dime compared to an E licensed coach who knew what he was doing... so don't always judge by what's on paper.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

We've been with Alexandria for several years, but are going to look elsewhere for next year. It has nothing to do with Tommy Park, really. My child's coach is super grouchy and mean, and he doesn't do the types of drills at practice that the red and white teams do. Yeah, he's on blue, but if he doesn't work on these skills, he is not ever going to move up.


If he wants to move up, it's not going to happen because of a few drills run at practice. He needs to practise at home by himself. That said - if the coach is a grouch who isn't doing a good job then you should probably leave anyway.


He does practice by himself, and does conditioning stuff too. We are aware of what is required. He does not, however, at present, have local friends or teammates interested in doing drills together outside practice.

I guess to be more clear, my larger issue is that I feel like the club just cares about the top two teams (and mostly the top) and that the remaining teams they field are a money grab. But, in my view, if you are paying 2K, the club should invest in developing your kid, even if the kid will never reach the top team. The club should be trying to help the kids be better than their former selves. Everyone has potential to improve, even if they don't have potential to reach red or white.

It's the same at every Club, starting at the youngest of ages. The bigger the Club the more often they never even reach down or consider young kids that start out on the lowest teams. You have to leave to move up.

You have to sign up for camps and pay coaches for individual training. The more money you spend the more attention your kid will get.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

We've been with Alexandria for several years, but are going to look elsewhere for next year. It has nothing to do with Tommy Park, really. My child's coach is super grouchy and mean, and he doesn't do the types of drills at practice that the red and white teams do. Yeah, he's on blue, but if he doesn't work on these skills, he is not ever going to move up.


If he wants to move up, it's not going to happen because of a few drills run at practice. He needs to practise at home by himself. That said - if the coach is a grouch who isn't doing a good job then you should probably leave anyway.


He does practice by himself, and does conditioning stuff too. We are aware of what is required. He does not, however, at present, have local friends or teammates interested in doing drills together outside practice.

I guess to be more clear, my larger issue is that I feel like the club just cares about the top two teams (and mostly the top) and that the remaining teams they field are a money grab. But, in my view, if you are paying 2K, the club should invest in developing your kid, even if the kid will never reach the top team. The club should be trying to help the kids be better than their former selves. Everyone has potential to improve, even if they don't have potential to reach red or white.

It's the same at every Club, starting at the youngest of ages. The bigger the Club the more often they never even reach down or consider young kids that start out on the lowest teams. You have to leave to move up.

the funny thing is, if you are at Alexandria and do a year at LMVSC/Gunston/Annandale/SYC... and then try out the year after, you're more likely to get a look by people deciding who belongs on what team than if you're on the third team year after year. I think the same holds for most large clubs and in some ways, it makes sense- a top team coach just doesn't have the bandwidth to coach their teams and know enough about kids does two or three levels to know who to move up

Anonymous wrote:

We've been with Alexandria for several years, but are going to look elsewhere for next year. It has nothing to do with Tommy Park, really. My child's coach is super grouchy and mean, and he doesn't do the types of drills at practice that the red and white teams do. Yeah, he's on blue, but if he doesn't work on these skills, he is not ever going to move up.


If he wants to move up, it's not going to happen because of a few drills run at practice. He needs to practise at home by himself. That said - if the coach is a grouch who isn't doing a good job then you should probably leave anyway.


He does practice by himself, and does conditioning stuff too. We are aware of what is required. He does not, however, at present, have local friends or teammates interested in doing drills together outside practice.

I guess to be more clear, my larger issue is that I feel like the club just cares about the top two teams (and mostly the top) and that the remaining teams they field are a money grab. But, in my view, if you are paying 2K, the club should invest in developing your kid, even if the kid will never reach the top team. The club should be trying to help the kids be better than their former selves. Everyone has potential to improve, even if they don't have potential to reach red or white.

It's the same at every Club, starting at the youngest of ages. The bigger the Club the more often they never even reach down or consider young kids that start out on the lowest teams. You have to leave to move up.

I guess to be more clear, my larger issue is that I feel like the club just cares about the top two teams (and mostly the top)


Is the behavior you see for your son's team standard across the club at all age groups? And does your coach behave differently when he is coaching top teams? Or is it possible that
- you just have a bad coach this year?
- in general the poorer coaches get allocated to the lower teams, which results in the effect you observe but perhaps provides a little more hope than if the club truly doesn't care about the lower teams at all?

Remember, just like schools, no large club has only good coaches, there are always some weaker ones.

We've been stuck with this guy for two years. The coach my child had the year before was fine. He was clearly was more interested in the older age group he coached, but he didn't yell and was nice enough. The one he had when he was littler was energetic and fun.

Anonymous wrote:I guess to be more clear, my larger issue is that I feel like the club just cares about the top two teams (and mostly the top)

Is the behavior you see for your son's team standard across the club at all age groups? And does your coach behave differently when he is coaching top teams? Or is it possible that
- you just have a bad coach this year?
- in general the poorer coaches get allocated to the lower teams, which results in the effect you observe but perhaps provides a little more hope than if the club truly doesn't care about the lower teams at all?

Remember, just like schools, no large club has only good coaches, there are always some weaker ones.

We've been with Alexandria for several years, but are going to look elsewhere for next year. It has nothing to do with Tommy Park, really. My child's coach is super grouchy and mean, and he doesn't do the types of drills at practice that the red and white teams do. Yeah, he's on blue, but if he doesn't work on these skills, he is not ever going to move up.


If he wants to move up, it's not going to happen because of a few drills run at practice. He needs to practise at home by himself. That said - if the coach is a grouch who isn't doing a good job then you should probably leave anyway.


He does practice by himself, and does conditioning stuff too. We are aware of what is required. He does not, however, at present, have local friends or teammates interested in doing drills together outside practice.

I guess to be more clear, my larger issue is that I feel like the club just cares about the top two teams (and mostly the top) and that the remaining teams they field are a money grab. But, in my view, if you are paying 2K, the club should invest in developing your kid, even if the kid will never reach the top team. The club should be trying to help the kids be better than their former selves. Everyone has potential to improve, even if they don't have potential to reach red or white.

We've been with Alexandria for several years, but are going to look elsewhere for next year. It has nothing to do with Tommy Park, really. My child's coach is super grouchy and mean, and he doesn't do the types of drills at practice that the red and white teams do. Yeah, he's on blue, but if he doesn't work on these skills, he is not ever going to move up.


If he wants to move up, it's not going to happen because of a few drills run at practice. He needs to practise at home by himself. That said - if the coach is a grouch who isn't doing a good job then you should probably leave anyway.

He does practice by himself, and does conditioning stuff too. We are aware of what is required. He does not, however, at present, have local friends or teammates interested in doing drills together outside practice.