Yes travel soccer is more important than HS soccer for D1 college. Club teams play in tournaments over the summers where many college coaches attend to scout out potential recruits. For boys, the new hot travel league is the pre academy and academy. Many D1 ncsl teams in U13 left to go to this league.

Are you talking about Stoddert?

Did anyone go to the U9 travel soccer tryouts the last few days. It was a zoo. How on earth can they figure out who deserves to make the team?!

That would depend on the relative quality of the teams, no?

Is travel soccer more important than playing for your high school team if your DC aspires to play in college?

21:12 here again -

So far, not for us. And, I think it will help that the coach won't also be a neighbor.

Anonymous wrote:The season is over, and we're back with a dad-coached club team for our winter sport.

I have to say, one of the great things about travel is getting the dads OUT of the coaching picture. I know there are exceptions, but my experience is that it brings out the worst in the dads.

Well, I don't know how bad the dads coaching rec got, but I can tell you the travel coaches can get pretty horrible.

The season is over, and we're back with a dad-coached club team for our winter sport.

I have to say, one of the great things about travel is getting the dads OUT of the coaching picture. I know there are exceptions, but my experience is that it brings out the worst in the dads.

My nephew continued with club team but they allowed him to miss practice for high school. Club teams are more competitive but its fun to play for your high school. Also high school is only one season per year vs club which 2 seasons plus extra training.

Do most kids stay with travel soccer through high school, or do they quit travel when high school soccer kicks in?

No. Arlington does that, too.

Is Stodder the only travel league that shuffles kids through the different teams, both forward and "backward," through the A, B, C, and D teams?

Anonymous wrote:The travel soccer decisions for our league were just posted. It appears that a number of kids moved backward, that is to the c team from an a or b team, and a handful were even cut altogether. The process is so Darwinian.

Is your child by any chance moving from U9 to U10? My DS has been playing for a number of years and I remember that, and U10 to U11, as the years when the most cuts were made. It seemed that a lot of good players hadn't been ready to try travel at younger ages, so the pool suddenly expanded, and there was a lot of reshuffling. After that the teams settled down a bit.

The travel soccer decisions for our league were just posted. It appears that a number of kids moved backward, that is to the c team from an a or b team, and a handful were even cut altogether. The process is so Darwinian.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did anyone else's DS tryout for boys u-9 travel soccer at stoddert? Seemed like half the number of previous year (more like 100 kids) based on info from this thead. It wasn't half as bad as i expected other than the questionable weather. Do you know when they will post the teams and how many there will be and how many per team? Thanks!

Maybe the word has gotten out what a time suck travel soccer is, how brutally competitive it is, and how crazy the travel parents can be.

Not at Stoddert. It takes a lot of time, it's competitive but not brutally so, and the parents are relatively sane. Now at some of the clubs from the outer suburbs...

Ironic, as Stoddert is populated by the upper NW/Bethesda private school set, and if DCUM is any reflection, those within the subset of our species are all relatively insane.

Honestly, I don't think DCUM is a representative sample of any population on earth. Now, extraterrestrial perhaps...