HooDat wrote: ↑Mon Jul 15, 2019 1:51 pm
pcowlax wrote: ↑Mon Jul 15, 2019 10:06 am
Yes, exactly, that is my point. I have extreme familiarity with the course of youth soccer over the past 35 year. It went from a sport no one outside of small niches had ever heard of to a very popular youth sport by the early 80s. At that point it was just town rec leagues, ala the halcyon days of lax everyone is referencing on here. It then moved to town travel teams, where after several years of rec the best players in the town would form a team that played against other towns, while rec still carried on for others. In the early 90s clubs really started to come up, which were geographic, in my small state of CT there were 3-4 top clubs splitting kids across the state mostly based on where they lived. This continued for a number of years before clubs expanded their reach, kids would “be on” a club in CT (Oakwood) or PA (Delco) and live in Ohio and just fly in to play in tournaments. This was the rule ( flying was of course not the norm but driving long distances obliterated the previous geographic basis) until the last 5-6 years when ODP completely took over. There are still the clubs but many of the very best are just locked into ODP from early years and the wondrous regionals tourney is lessened for it. AND YET, youth participation remains sky high. This is what I have been trying to say. There are MANY problems with club lax!
But just having an emphasis on clubs, or an aggressive selecting out of top players, does not mean your sport needs to crash, or that your youth participation needs to crash, or that kids who are not joining top clubs at age 8 need to stop playing the sport.
The fundamental nature of the two games is so different that you can't compare them. Soccer can be played in some semblance of its intended form by kids who have never touched a soccer ball before. Lacrosse is NOT the same thing. There is a base skill level that at least some players must have to play it. You pull those kids out and the game of lacrosse is no longer fun past the very, very early stages.
More importantly, there have been enough rec league soccer kids to keep the rec leagues full for the kids who don't want to travel. From the 70's to today, I have yet to see soccer rec leagues suffer for participation.
add to that,
the rise of club soccer was in response to demand based on volume.
the rise of club lacrosse was based on the demand created through manufactured fear, and preying upon parent's belief that they could use money and an edge to get their kids an advantage.
what hoo dat says here is spot on.
less than ten years ago, our youth system fed 10-11 high schools. there were 3 major "towns", and the majority of the players came from one town who administered and marketed the program.
forced a split so our town (3 high schools) would have our own organization, and what had been 80 boys over 8 grades for years became over 250 within several years. in the last 3+ years, that ~250 and 14 teams over 8 grades has dropped to 90 and 5 teams. again, to feed 3 high schools.
not coincidentally the local clubs, following baltimore's lead to make it a 365 day payday --- went to spring (and an abolishment of playing rec @ the same time) -- after first bleeding from summer to fall, to winter workouts and box.
our town did not fill the pockets to the tune of 160 players to these clubs. or even close. but they took enough of them, that their buddies (who either couldn't make the club teams yet, or could no longer play with their skilled friends in rec) --- bailed, sooner or later. no longer could get better thru osmosis. the whole construct of getting better together, year to year, evaporated.
taking out 10-15 kids, out of 4 teams at a bi-annual age group -- takes out a lot more of them.
if you have 6-8 teams per year in soccer (which is what our town rec league has, in the spring and the fall), where everyone can still play at a "base" level and it's still a similar game, kids can get better... losing even 10+ kids per grade doesn't matter in the impact of their willingness and incentive to play.
this was not a very difficult thing to predict. i've had this conversation and prognostication with people since before the mention of spring club leagues was even broached. many other people have as well. the numbers will be dropping substantially over the next 5 years in my opinion. us lacrosse will be in crisis management mode, shocked that they couldn't see it coming, and citing other sports as this being inevitable. they helped screw the pooch all along. high school teams will drop jv (they have already), then it will be dropped as a varsity sport at many places. not if, but when.
p.s. our schools' populations are growing annually, and have averaged over 1 new hs per year in the county to accommodate for over a decade.
