Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the rec kids get stuck on shitty grass fields while travel teams get prime turf fields.

I think they actually do a decent job of allocating the good turf fields to both rec and travel. There are definitely rec teams that have all/most of their games on turf. I think it holds true for practices too. There are definitely rec teams on crappy grass fields for practice but there are also a large number of teams with turf for practice. The real issue is that there is not enough turf fields

Let the rec kids have the turf. I'd prefer my ECNL kid play on grass so he has knees at age 18.

Anonymous wrote:I think the rec kids get stuck on shitty grass fields while travel teams get prime turf fields.

I think they actually do a decent job of allocating the good turf fields to both rec and travel. There are definitely rec teams that have all/most of their games on turf. I think it holds true for practices too. There are definitely rec teams on crappy grass fields for practice but there are also a large number of teams with turf for practice. The real issue is that there is not enough turf fields

Is this the ED's only job?

I think that the 6k rec kids are being serviced 1 director of rec, 1 director of operations, and a bunch of volunteers. I think that the other 20 directors are focused on travel. I think the rec kids get stuck on shitty grass fields while travel teams get prime turf fields. I think that these organizations are getting more bloated and growing on the backs of tax dollars. I think you've been told to believe that these directors are somehow subject matter experts when in fact, they're a bunch of people who stumbled into roles after years of coaching. I think there's no free market in this industry in the USA because it a) takes massive amounts of public money and b) it has no real expectation to create re-sellable assets. Free market but no production? I think my tax dollars are being used to make rich kids feel special and that these spaces could be used more equitably.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yeah. Let’s get an already overwhelmed county department involved in 7 days a week year round soccer programming for about 10,000 kids. NOT!

You're missing the point that these clubs are already being propped up by the county. The parks departments are already spending the money and taking a loss. All while these clubs run unchecked.

You believe Arlington Parks and Rec (government bureaucrats with pensions) would be a better solution to operate all of the (rec - 6,000 kids) and non-rec programs like camps, tryouts, ADP, Travel, ECNL, college/adult programs? They would have no institutional knowledge and would have to be paid an exorbitant amount of overtime to be available nights and weekends to handle the myriad of issues that crop up with referees, parents, players, leagues, everyday logistics, etc.

If you believe in a free market then these salaries are already determined by the market. If you believe that the government is responsible for determining youth soccer coaches and administrator’s salaries then I would love to see how that plays out for your local soccer organization.

If people really have an issue then they can try to get involved with their boards and change it. The complainers won’t as they have say they are too busy and continue to allow it to happen.

This topic recurs every few years when someone uses google and is apparently shocked at their organization’s salaries. Guess what nothing has changed because people don’t want to work on changing anything and love to complain.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Couldn't they run rec soccer? They have the fields and it's 100% volunteer coaches. Why is Arlington Soccer needed as a middle man?

A little history on this. The county initially ran rec soccer as just a fall sport. In 1970, when parents asked about a spring season the county said they couldn't staff it so ASA was created to take over management of the program.

I think the rec program is now too big for county staff to handle unless they hire additional staff. The 6,000 player rec program is many, many times larger than the basketball program

I'm not suggesting that parks would run this under it's current structure. And this is high fantasy at best anyway. But it were done, obviously, they'd hire staff to run this. The major change would be checks and balances on things like use of fields, salaries, fees, etc. And that would be appropriate since this is a tax payer funded program.

Anonymous wrote:Save this post.

I’m going to start a club on that grassroots flow asking help from parents and towns to fund my club. Once it gets big enough then I roll out the 3-4K per player/yearly and boom

Living lavishly with 6 figures just yelling soccer terms out there.

Foolproof plan, say it ain’t so

You just described the reason there are 117 travel clubs in the DMV. Don't forget the tagline for the parents that wins don't matter, you only care about technical development and their kid won't just be a number to you.

Save this post.

I’m going to start a club on that grassroots flow asking help from parents and towns to fund my club. Once it gets big enough then I roll out the 3-4K per player/yearly and boom

Living lavishly with 6 figures just yelling soccer terms out there.

Foolproof plan, say it ain’t so

Anonymous wrote:Couldn't they run rec soccer? They have the fields and it's 100% volunteer coaches. Why is Arlington Soccer needed as a middle man?

A little history on this. The county initially ran rec soccer as just a fall sport. In 1970, when parents asked about a spring season the county said they couldn't staff it so ASA was created to take over management of the program.

I think the rec program is now too big for county staff to handle unless they hire additional staff. The 6,000 player rec program is many, many times larger than the basketball program

Anonymous wrote:Yeah. Let’s get an already overwhelmed county department involved in 7 days a week year round soccer programming for about 10,000 kids. NOT!

You're missing the point that these clubs are already being propped up by the county. The parks departments are already spending the money and taking a loss. All while these clubs run unchecked.

Yeah. Let’s get an already overwhelmed county department involved in 7 days a week year round soccer programming for about 10,000 kids. NOT!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To the points made earlier regarding why taxpayers should care, these clubs are all subsidized. Arlington Soccer pays next to nothing for prime access to turf and grass fields. These are constructed and maintained through tax dollars. They in fact, could not operate without these fields. Furthermore, they reserve huge amounts of space that then isn't available to the public. Now, you can make the argument that this is a good use of public space and I wouldn't disagree. In the end though, and this goes for all these clubs, they're basically an unregulated Parks and Rec extension. The Arlington salaries may not be the most egregious in the area, but if they were a part of the government, they wouldn't be anywhere near where they are.

It's definitely true that the clubs need field space to survive. But it's also true that those fields may not exist but for the clubs. I think of it as a public/private partnership. I can't speak to Arlington, specifically, but I'm familiar with two jurisdictions where some of the fields wouldn't exist, or wouldn't be maintained, without the clubs advocating for them. The larger clubs can point to their large membership and community benefits to convince municipalities that sports fields and lights are high value community amenities. Also, they provide a service they are ideally suited to execute. These same municipalities all have their own recreational departments, but I'd venture to say that they aren't as successful at attracting participants or using the facilities at their highest value.

These clubs definitely play a big role in advocacy for these fields aka making sure the public says it's okay to spend the money. They don't spend big chunks of cash to help it though. And I agree that it's a net public good to have these spaces. But to say that these municipalities couldn't handle these programs internally is just a myth at best. These clubs are all bloated with "directors" that have no experience off the field and are thrown in admin roles. They heavily rely on volunteer work, which is crazy when you think you're paying upwards of 5k to have a kid on a team. I'm not saying municipalities are perfect, but it's at least got some oversight. At the very least, on the rec side, Arlington already runs youth basketball internally. Couldn't they run rec soccer? They have the fields and it's 100% volunteer coaches. Why is Arlington Soccer needed as a middle man? As for Travel, maybe it gets more interesting to try to make happen. That said, they do it with swimming and gymnastics, 2 programs that are completely filled up every year.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To the points made earlier regarding why taxpayers should care, these clubs are all subsidized. Arlington Soccer pays next to nothing for prime access to turf and grass fields. These are constructed and maintained through tax dollars. They in fact, could not operate without these fields. Furthermore, they reserve huge amounts of space that then isn't available to the public. Now, you can make the argument that this is a good use of public space and I wouldn't disagree. In the end though, and this goes for all these clubs, they're basically an unregulated Parks and Rec extension. The Arlington salaries may not be the most egregious in the area, but if they were a part of the government, they wouldn't be anywhere near where they are.

Don’t clubs pay to reserve space? And can’t anyone, nonprofit or for profit or a live person, reserve them for a fee?

They do not pay to get the fields. They have an agreement in place where they pay per player per season. Same in Fairfax County. They get first dibs on field space in Arlington County. Other people can reserve space at a much higher cost and only when the space is available.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To the points made earlier regarding why taxpayers should care, these clubs are all subsidized. Arlington Soccer pays next to nothing for prime access to turf and grass fields. These are constructed and maintained through tax dollars. They in fact, could not operate without these fields. Furthermore, they reserve huge amounts of space that then isn't available to the public. Now, you can make the argument that this is a good use of public space and I wouldn't disagree. In the end though, and this goes for all these clubs, they're basically an unregulated Parks and Rec extension. The Arlington salaries may not be the most egregious in the area, but if they were a part of the government, they wouldn't be anywhere near where they are.

I believe most of us are happy they aren't part of the government adding more to our tax responsibilities

That's the point though, you already are. Turf fields cost a million dollars to put in. Arlington soccer isn't sending that to the county. They pay $10-$30 per player, rec or travel, per season. Even if they had 10,000 players all from out of county, that's 60k a year.