Anonymous wrote:Why is a 2016 team with ten players assigned the same amount of field space to practice on as a 20 player team of high school seniors?

Someone, please explain this.

Because the coach of that 2016 team makes the rules and he likes more space

Just wondering, is that true if most of the players are on scholarships?

Seems to be a major misconception in this thread about field costs, and how rec and travel work. Rec programs are the biggest money maker for any soccer program. This includes house leagues as well as rec clinics and camps. Why? because they are open to the largest volume of participants. Even though the fees are significantly lower, a house league runs with almost zero overhead cost. The coaches are volunteer and field space (yes even turf) is essentially free for youth clubs.

Youth clubs are (almost always) non-profits that receive field space allocations from the county *based on the size of their recreational programs*. The fields are priced at less than $10/hr in most cases. The reality is that all these rec players are subsidizes your travel team (which have VERY high overhead costs and are not profitable if we are talking about the top level). A healthy rec program is also essential for clubs to continue to get field space allocations from the county.

Last spring. They weren't shot AT, they were shot. The bullet entered the body.

There was a brawl between a large group of adult men at a pick up game at Hutchison. Someone pulled out a gun and shot someone else. Then there was a large manhunt through Herndon looking for the suspects who ran off.

(These are the groups of rowdy pick up players crowding the fields at Hutchison and Arrowbrook that the families are complaining about).

The people who live in the area trash the fields. My son's team has to pick up garbage before they practice at Arrowbrook.

Anonymous wrote:Which field had someone shot at last year? Was it Arrow Park?

Yeah, the field at the elementary school in Herndon. It is a nice facility that is utterly trashed by the community.

Which field had someone shot at last year? Was it Arrow Park?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they are trying to rebuild their girls side, pissing dozens of parents off so much that they vent on a public forum is NOT going to help attract more players next spring. Negative publicity on here has to be terrible for attracting new families. I know a lot of people who won't try out for Valor or GFR because of complaints on here.

Herndon admin need to fix these field issues or people will be complaining here all year. They will have tryouts next year and no one will
show up.

Yeah the other two clubs closest to us are GFR and Valor. We have experience with one of those and there is a reason we left. Why can’t these clubs just offer a decent product for what they charge?? What is wrong with the soccer orgs that so many people have so many complaints? If it’s not one thing it’s another. My kids also do a different club sport and we have never had any problems there, with multiple clubs. We’ve only ever changed clubs for that sport due to schedules. And the people running those clubs are not well paid at all. They are just competent people who act like professionals and take their jobs seriously. Why is it so hard to find people like this in soccer??? It just seems like a sport that attracts the most corrupt and greedy people to be in charge. So sad for the kids who enjoy it.

We’ve had our kids in four different soccer clubs, and every one of them was a train wreck for one reason or another.

Anonymous wrote:My son's U13 third team has half a field one night so we can scrimmage against the second team (other half of the field). and two nights with only a quarter field. I thought we got so little space because we were a third team but it sounds like we have more than a lot of other teams!

Are there really older teams with only a quarter field each practice?

YES. I have asked our manager to talk to Herndon about the lack of field space and the busyness of the fields.

Anonymous wrote:If they are trying to rebuild their girls side, pissing dozens of parents off so much that they vent on a public forum is NOT going to help attract more players next spring. Negative publicity on here has to be terrible for attracting new families. I know a lot of people who won't try out for Valor or GFR because of complaints on here.

Herndon admin need to fix these field issues or people will be complaining here all year. They will have tryouts next year and no one will
show up.

Yeah the other two clubs closest to us are GFR and Valor. We have experience with one of those and there is a reason we left. Why can’t these clubs just offer a decent product for what they charge?? What is wrong with the soccer orgs that so many people have so many complaints? If it’s not one thing it’s another. My kids also do a different club sport and we have never had any problems there, with multiple clubs. We’ve only ever changed clubs for that sport due to schedules. And the people running those clubs are not well paid at all. They are just competent people who act like professionals and take their jobs seriously. Why is it so hard to find people like this in soccer??? It just seems like a sport that attracts the most corrupt and greedy people to be in charge. So sad for the kids who enjoy it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why would you take field space away from high school boys travel teams and give it to rec teams? Herndon has plenty of grass fields with goals for rec teams to practice on. The grass fields are apparently nice enough to play AC Milan travel games so they can't be too bad.

That is not a smart business decision. Driving away your club customers who pay $3000 to please your rec league customers who pay $50 (and are heavily subsidized by the travel fees) seems very foolish.

Do tell how travel subsidizes rec???? Again have your travel team practice on grass. You do occasionally have games on grass after all.

Most of the Herndon rec players are on scholarships. Their $25 or whatever they pay certainly does not cover all the field costs and admin costs and league costs. Where do you think the money comes from ?

When we played rec they ask for donations every time you sign up. We always donated at least what we paid. That's where they get the money from. Your travel fees are not being funneled to the rec league. Your travel fees are going to tech director, coaches, refs, and league entry fees. Rec leagues are mostly run by volunteers and the costs is significantly less than travel. I don't know why you have such contempt for poor people that want to play sports but it's not a good look.

Oh please, no need to be histrionic. No one with "contempt for poor people" even considers playing Herndon soccer.

At this point I don't know why anyone chooses Herndon. I would much prefer Herndon have their act together instead we drive further to another club that gets dragged on DCUM. But hey we at least have fields. All the angst against the club allowing rec kids to practice on fields while not allocating enough space should be directed at the clubs mismanagement. The rec kids aren't the problem Herndon's management is.

No one's criticzing rec kids. Everyone is criticzing whoever is in charge.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why would you take field space away from high school boys travel teams and give it to rec teams? Herndon has plenty of grass fields with goals for rec teams to practice on. The grass fields are apparently nice enough to play AC Milan travel games so they can't be too bad.

That is not a smart business decision. Driving away your club customers who pay $3000 to please your rec league customers who pay $50 (and are heavily subsidized by the travel fees) seems very foolish.

Do tell how travel subsidizes rec???? Again have your travel team practice on grass. You do occasionally have games on grass after all.

Most of the Herndon rec players are on scholarships. Their $25 or whatever they pay certainly does not cover all the field costs and admin costs and league costs. Where do you think the money comes from ?

When we played rec they ask for donations every time you sign up. We always donated at least what we paid. That's where they get the money from. Your travel fees are not being funneled to the rec league. Your travel fees are going to tech director, coaches, refs, and league entry fees. Rec leagues are mostly run by volunteers and the costs is significantly less than travel. I don't know why you have such contempt for poor people that want to play sports but it's not a good look.

Oh please, no need to be histrionic. No one with "contempt for poor people" even considers playing Herndon soccer.

At this point I don't know why anyone chooses Herndon. I would much prefer Herndon have their act together instead we drive further to another club that gets dragged on DCUM. But hey we at least have fields. All the angst against the club allowing rec kids to practice on fields while not allocating enough space should be directed at the clubs mismanagement. The rec kids aren't the problem Herndon's management is.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why would you take field space away from high school boys travel teams and give it to rec teams? Herndon has plenty of grass fields with goals for rec teams to practice on. The grass fields are apparently nice enough to play AC Milan travel games so they can't be too bad.

That is not a smart business decision. Driving away your club customers who pay $3000 to please your rec league customers who pay $50 (and are heavily subsidized by the travel fees) seems very foolish.

Do tell how travel subsidizes rec???? Again have your travel team practice on grass. You do occasionally have games on grass after all.

Most of the Herndon rec players are on scholarships. Their $25 or whatever they pay certainly does not cover all the field costs and admin costs and league costs. Where do you think the money comes from ?

When we played rec they ask for donations every time you sign up. We always donated at least what we paid. That's where they get the money from. Your travel fees are not being funneled to the rec league. Your travel fees are going to tech director, coaches, refs, and league entry fees. Rec leagues are mostly run by volunteers and the costs is significantly less than travel. I don't know why you have such contempt for poor people that want to play sports but it's not a good look.

Oh please, no need to be histrionic. No one with "contempt for poor people" even considers playing Herndon soccer.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why would you take field space away from high school boys travel teams and give it to rec teams? Herndon has plenty of grass fields with goals for rec teams to practice on. The grass fields are apparently nice enough to play AC Milan travel games so they can't be too bad.

That is not a smart business decision. Driving away your club customers who pay $3000 to please your rec league customers who pay $50 (and are heavily subsidized by the travel fees) seems very foolish.

Do tell how travel subsidizes rec???? Again have your travel team practice on grass. You do occasionally have games on grass after all.

Most of the Herndon rec players are on scholarships. Their $25 or whatever they pay certainly does not cover all the field costs and admin costs and league costs. Where do you think the money comes from ?

When we played rec they ask for donations every time you sign up. We always donated at least what we paid. That's where they get the money from. Your travel fees are not being funneled to the rec league. Your travel fees are going to tech director, coaches, refs, and league entry fees. Rec leagues are mostly run by volunteers and the costs is significantly less than travel. I don't know why you have such contempt for poor people that want to play sports but it's not a good look.

I guess if Herndon doesn't disclose their finances nobody knows who is paying for what.

And I'm sorry, but no way are people regularly donating extra when they sign up for rec sports. That's nice that you did, but a whole rec league is not run on "extra random donations" by people.
There are multiple paid full time HYS employees helping run rec soccer. Rec sports are still expensive to run even with mostly volunteers.

Anonymous wrote:I don't mind paying more so some rec kids have a chance to play, but for $3000+ per player, our team should be able to practice soccer at soccer practice. Please move these rec teams and pickup players off the travel fields! I don't mind paying for rec kids, but I do mind our kid only having scraps of field space to practice. Having to deal with rec teams AND pick up players and only a quarter of space on the fields is nuts.

We are new to Herndon this season and really regret leaving our former club. It never occurred to me that club practices could be so chaotic or that teams would be given so little space. (My son regularly had half a field to practice on three times a week since U13 at two previous clubs.) The Arrow Park field is complete insanity.
It honestly feels like a fight could break out there any moment.

I said the same thing to my wife after pickup last week. we get there at 5 and its not bad but by 6:30 pickup, way too many men and teens just hanging around (some seem very annoyed that the field is being used).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why would you take field space away from high school boys travel teams and give it to rec teams? Herndon has plenty of grass fields with goals for rec teams to practice on. The grass fields are apparently nice enough to play AC Milan travel games so they can't be too bad.

That is not a smart business decision. Driving away your club customers who pay $3000 to please your rec league customers who pay $50 (and are heavily subsidized by the travel fees) seems very foolish.

Do tell how travel subsidizes rec???? Again have your travel team practice on grass. You do occasionally have games on grass after all.

Most of the Herndon rec players are on scholarships. Their $25 or whatever they pay certainly does not cover all the field costs and admin costs and league costs. Where do you think the money comes from ?

When we played rec they ask for donations every time you sign up. We always donated at least what we paid. That's where they get the money from. Your travel fees are not being funneled to the rec league. Your travel fees are going to tech director, coaches, refs, and league entry fees. Rec leagues are mostly run by volunteers and the costs is significantly less than travel. I don't know why you have such contempt for poor people that want to play sports but it's not a good look.