New Territory, New Issues

I have never before taken a team of girls for their U14 year.  Though I feel that I’m extremely qualified to take any youth age group, my passion has always been in working with the younger players so I’ve recycled myself back to the U10 or U11 age group and looked to pass teams on to other coaches at the U13 age group.

As I mentioned previously, things didn’t work out to pass the group on as there was no one to take them come the end of last season, so I decided to stay on for one more year.  I don’t want people to think that I’m not excited about this prospect as I most definitely am.  It will just make for a busy year as I will also be heading up the new batch of 28 U11s in the East Academy, assisting with our East Academy U12s, managing all 4 (North, South, East, and West) Academy programs, webmastering the increasingly more and more complex Bangu website, working with the Minnesota Thunder in their youth development programs, volunteering at Macalester College (my alma mater) to help Coach Leaney with the Women's program, attempting to keep my eyes on an 11 month old baby girl who can somehow manage to crawl around at nearly the speed of sound, studying to pass my real estate broker's license exam (I'm a licensed realtor, mainly to develop a piece of property my family owns in the Kenwood of Minneapolis, and now looking to get my broker's license and start up a company), bringing to market a handful of soccer training devices, and last but by far not least, trying to see my wife every once in a while.  Too much on my plate?  We’ll see.

Anyway, not being used to the U14 age group, I am definitely running into some unforeseen issues, namely conflicts with high school programs.

I contacts Craig Perry, the head honcho at the Minnesota State High School League (MSHSL) to verify the exact policy governing club play during the HS season.  Though there are a lot of rumors going around, no one seemed to know the exact restrictions placed on these players.  Last year, people didn’t think HS players could even attend August tryouts once they began their HS training year.  We found out that this was not correct as players just couldn’t participate in 11v11 organized play outside of their HS programs beginning in September.  They could come to tryouts and play 10v10, or even 10v11, but not full 11v11.

I just wanted to be sure I knew the facts, so it made sense to approach the people who knew them. Here's the email chain.

Hi Craig,

I have a U14 girls team with players trying to make varsity programs this fall.  I’m looking for clarification on exactly what these high school players can or can’t do with our club when in HS season.

If you can call me, that would be great.  Cell phone is best and the number is below.  I will also try to track you down next week.

If it is easier to email, here are my questions:

I believe that the only restriction in place prohibits high school varsity soccer players from 11v11 play with their club teams.  Please confirm this is correct, and that 8v8 play would be OK.  Also, please clarify if this restriction is only applicable to varsity athletes or if this includes ANY high school player (JV, 10^th grade team, 9^th grade team).

If we have athletes that fall under these restrictions but we have an event the weekend of Aug 24 in Illinois, is it possible (assuming that it is OK with the parents and the HS coaches) if players are not names to high school programs until after this event?  I realize this will mean missing 1 or 2 early season games, but our team plays at such a high level that my guess is these young players would prefer to travel to Illinois and compete even if this means starting their HS seasons late.  Or, once teams start practicing in mid-August does this constitute a commitment to the HS and thus no 11v11 play with club.

Thanks in advance for your help here.  I know you’re probably busy, but the input would be appreciated as we are holding tryouts this week.

Mark,

The summer season for high school athletes extends through Labor Day.  Even though many of the MSHSL fall sports start in August, students are allowed to participate with non-school/summer programs until Labor Day.  After Labor Day, members of a high school soccer program are not allowed to participate with a non-school soccer program during the high school season.  Participation is defined as but not limited to: practice, scrimmage, competition, training, and tryouts.

Individual schools do have the prerogative to not allow non-school competition during the extension of the summer season through Labor Day.

Craig Perry
Associate Director
MSHSL

Craig,

Thanks for getting back to me, I appreciate the information.  Is this rule written in any policy that you can forward to me or that I can access online somewhere?

Mark,

This information can be found in MSHSL Bylaw 208—Non-School Competition and Training.

Go to the League website then: Resources, Publications then Eligibility.  The bylaws are in the 2007-2008 Official Handbook.

Craig Perry
Associate Director
MSHSL

Perfect, thanks!

Last question, I promise. :)

Do these rules only apply to Varsity athletes? Or do they hold for JV, 10^th Grade, and 9^th Grade?

Mark,

The rules apply to all students grades 7-12 who participate in high school programs—varsity, JV and sophomore.

Craig Perry
Associate Director
MSHSL

So, under this policy, our HS players could in fact join us for any event prior to the Labor Day Weekend without jeopardizing their HS eligibility.  Nice.  The Eclipse event in late August would now be a great opportunity for me to gauge where we are at with the new group relative to some of the strongest teams in the country.  The individual and team strengths and weaknesses highlighted by this level competition would serve as a great resource when looking to design training sessions for this group this coming winter.

Last year we traveled to the same event and had a less than stellar showing, tying the Chicago Magic (IL), beating Ohio Elite (OH), losing to the PDA Charge (NJ), and tying MTSC Blaze (OH).  However, results aside, the knowledge and experiences gained from observing the team in action allowed me to organize specific training sessions in the following months that helped elevate the team to the next level, as I feel was evident by our summer successes at Regionals.  I’m looking for the exact same thing this year and am excited to see the team in action.

However, even with the current MSHSL policy out in the light, I'm still feeling a hesitation by most HS players' parents in confronting the coach to see if their daughter can make this event.  It is obvious that parents are putting a lot of stock on their daughter playing HS soccer at this young age and they do not appear ready in the slightest to ruffle any feathers in the HS scene.  I can understand this to some extent.  We'll see what transpires in the next few days.

I did place a call into Rory Dames, Coaching Director with the Eclipse club and gave him a heads up as to our developing player situation.  Obviously, at this point he's kinda screwed if we drop out, so I'm going to do what I need to do to try and honor our commitment to the event.