Rising costs keeping many kids from club sports

Soccer in particular is showing a drift toward upper middle class and wealthier kids. Yet worldwide many of the most innovative and skilled players emerge out of the poorest areas. The current setup seems geared to shut out many kids with desire and potential, but who lack means.

http://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/lower-income-students-getting-shut-out-sports-n164941

Deuce wrote:Soccer in particular is showing a drift toward upper middle class and wealthier kids. Yet worldwide many of the most innovative and skilled players emerge out of the poorest areas. The current setup seems geared to shut out many kids with desire and potential, but who lack means.

http://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/lower-income-students-getting-shut-out-sports-n164941

This is not true, many teams and clubs come on here and provide a reduced rate and I'm pretty sure if your DD is good enough she can get aid.

I know that FC Dallas provides for lower income players on the boys side. Assistance for lower income players is available. It does take some searching out and communicating with club and coaches to get it.

The question isn't whether aid is available to some kids. It certainly is. Even that requires the parents to take that leap and ask / push for it.

The bigger systemic question about more and more sports revolving around pay to play club models is worrisome because of the large numbers of kids who don't get opportunities.

Clearly the funds for programsust come from somewhere. Not sure I know the answer but awareness of the issue is the first step to change.

This is so true it is why some of your best athletes today play football and basketball. In football at least at the highschool level colleges still recruit from high school where kids can play at no cost and basketball there are free leagues and courts everywhere but there again colleges recruit at the high school games. Colleges still have basketball camps and there are select teams but its not like soccer and volleyball where hardly any college scouts go. So If you are a good athlete and your parents work all the time and you cant drive an hour to practice or play in tournaments all over the country you go play at your local rec and highschool

I have 2 DDs ('07 and '05) that play academy ball and we live in Mesquite which is the opposite end of the world from anything as far as academy/select leagues go. So we drive 30 minutes to practice twice a week and 45 to a hour to get to games and tournaments. It is rough, but in rec we found a lack of development of skills and dedication to the game from coaches and players.

Deuce wrote:Soccer in particular is showing a drift toward upper middle class and wealthier kids. Yet worldwide many of the most innovative and skilled players emerge out of the poorest areas. The current setup seems geared to shut out many kids with desire and potential, but who lack means.

http://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/lower-income-students-getting-shut-out-sports-n164941

you are on to something as one of the other posters correctly pointed out FREE basketball and football starting in some middle schools but available to EVERY 9th grader. HOWEVER THERE IS NOT A "drift toward upper middle class and wealthier kids" LOL.... THAT DEVIDE HAS BEEN THERE FOR YEARS. IF ANYTHING IT IS GETTING BETTER WITH THE GRANTS AND SCHOLARSHIPS ETC STARTING TO BECOME MORE AND MORE AVAILABLE

What I can't understand is why middle schools don't offer soccer. It's a pretty cheap sport for the schools. Just need a field, which most have and a ball.

header1 wrote:What I can't understand is why middle schools don't offer soccer. It's a pretty cheap sport for the schools. Just need a field, which most have and a ball.

They started it our middle school OMG It was so bad. The last game of the year it took the other team 3 times to just kick off they still couldn't do a throw in and the coach had no idea what to do our coach had to go show their player how to throw it in. The sad thing is we played at the end of the school year so the other teams coach had all year to prepare at least she could have watched a utube video. Its all about basketball and football

header1 wrote:What I can't understand is why middle schools don't offer soccer. It's a pretty cheap sport for the schools. Just need a field, which most have and a ball.

Some of the middle schools do offer it (LISD has a soccer season, and season ending district tournament to see who the 7th and 8th grade champions are for the year).  The issue there is, at least at the school my oldest attended, was the lack of coaching and development.  They line the girls up and have them race, and the fastest 11 play, with exceptions for girls that can demonstrate that they have played the sport before.  The season (including tournament) lasts about 5 weeks at the end of the school year (kids not on the team are already working on basketball and volleyball for the next school year.)

Not sure why more middle schools don't offer it, or if they don't have interest enough to make "soccer" a separate class the way they do in High School, but I would love for them to expand the program in the area.

Lol you have to start somewhere. It seems like a lot of club coaches already coach at the hs level. Which might be the problem at the middle school level....might be perceived as getting into the clubs pockets.

DMN started series today on rise of club sports, the costs, and the effects. First part is good. Interesting section on LHGCL & ECNL.

http://res.dallasnews.com/interactives/club-sports/part1/

Deuce wrote:The question isn't whether aid is available to some kids. It certainly is. Even that requires the parents to take that leap and ask / push for it.

The bigger systemic question about more and more sports revolving around pay to play club models is worrisome because of the large numbers of kids who don't get opportunities.

Clearly the funds for programsust come from somewhere. Not sure I know the answer but awareness of the issue is the first step to change.

Questions are easy. Solutions are hard.

It costs money to play organized soccer. Who do you suggest foot the bill for other peoples kids to play organized soccer and why?

Lefty wrote:

Deuce wrote:The question isn't whether aid is available to some kids. It certainly is. Even that requires the parents to take that leap and ask / push for it.

The bigger systemic question about more and more sports revolving around pay to play club models is worrisome because of the large numbers of kids who don't get opportunities.

Clearly the funds for programsust come from somewhere. Not sure I know the answer but awareness of the issue is the first step to change.

Questions are easy.  Solutions are hard.

It costs money to play organized soccer.  Who do you suggest foot the bill for other peoples kids to play organized soccer and why?

Club soccer is what it is and there are coaches that earn every dime they get. The middle schools are where it should be pushed. Part of the problem with the rising cost is there are too many people willing to pay for their dd who doesn't want to be there or can't play at a high level. I don't mean that ugly either. I don't think my kid is the next Mia. It just seems like there should be another level between rec and ppl. Or maybe different fee levels for different leagues.

Parents foot the bill. Unless their kid is really, really good. Then the other parents lower on the pyramid foot the bill.

It is fine unless the costs keep expanding and topple the whole thing. We can compete with middle class kids, but if it becomes only upper middle class and wealthy kids who can afford top level soccer, can't imagine that will work out long term.

If other sports start following the same trends with the focus moving out of schools and into private professionals, expect to see our competitiveness take a hit there as well ( basketball is starting to look more and more like soccer and volleyball).

DMN article about the time and money needed to participate in youth sports in Dallas. This is part one in a series of 4. Upcoming articles will focus on the burnout, the cost and the future.

http://res.dallasnews.com/interactives/club-sports/part1/

The soccer section of the article:
Tough cuts

From July 24 through this weekend, hundreds of 10-year- old girls will crowd soccer fields at Flower Mound’s Chinn Chapel Complex and UT-Dallas, taking part in the qualifying rounds for the Under-11 division of the Lake Highlands Girls Classic League.

The top 20 qualifiers will go into Division I in the LHGCL, the first significant step on the path of elite youth soccer in the Dallas area. For at least three seasons, until some of the top teams and players migrate to the Under 14 Division of the Elite Clubs National League — girls soccer’s top national organization — this is as good as youth soccer gets in North Texas.

“The girls here, they are going to be the players in ECNL, the stars in high school, the ones who get college scholarships, the ones who will play professionally and maybe play for the U.S. national team,” said Texas Spirit North coach Iseed Khoury, who also is the girls coach at soccer powerhouse Frisco Wakeland.

Khoury said that keeping the game fun is his top priority when working with his youngest players. Yet, it’s still competitive, almost brutally so. Allowed a roster of 16 players at the qualifying tournament, Khoury cut 10 players over the past month.

“It’s very tough to tell people, some of who are your friends, that their child isn’t good enough,” he said.

High-level club experience is so ubiquitous in some varsity sports, especially at the area’s bigger and more successful high schools, it seems almost a requirement.

“It’s one of those ‘Keeping up with the Joneses’ sort of things,” Meagan Wilson said. Wilson is a U18 coach for ECNL program D’Feeters, as well as McKinney Boyd. “If they don’t [play club], they put themselves into a huge disadvantage. When they go into U9, U10, U11, if that’s the first time they are getting into it … those kids are already so much more developed. The opportunity for them to get on those teams, unless they are just tremendous athletes, is less.”

Khoury said that in 35 years of coaching, he’s had only one player become a starter for his high school team that didn’t have high-level club experience.

Khoury and Wilson — along with baseball coaches Barry Rose (Frisco Wakeland) and Jeff Sherman (Flower Mound Marcus) — say that the quality of incoming players are as skilled as ever, making cuts for the freshmen team fraught with difficulty.

“You always have your top-of-the-top kids, but No. 8 through 15, it’s more like eight through 25 are right there — real close in talent level, skill level,” Rose said.

Why don't they do a follow up article on the clubs and coaches that are offering an affordable club soccer option to kids. Coaches that are volunteering their time to help kids learn the sport and find opportunities to play beyond High School. Now that would be an interesting article and show parents the options that are available to them! They could do a follow-up article on where the money paid in club soccer actually goes!

I don't know of any academy or select coach for that matter, across the last 14 years, who won't scholarship a kid if they're good enough.

So what's the issue here? Clubs won't scholarship mediocre or below average players?

Who would? Do you want less talented players if they're billionaires or on welfare? Well, sorry, could name a club or two who would take a kid in a wheelchair if the parents have good credit.

So speaking of, what is the average cost (including uni) for a mid-level team from some of the larger clubs, like FCD, LP, DT? What would you say about cost of the smaller or indy teams?

Fundraising is available through Ranger/Cowboys/Verizon/Gexa/AAC etc...
Middle class has a lot of options and low income as well.