Road Bumps, Not Goose Bumps

OK, I admit I was looking forward to additional goose bumps (see Of Goose Bumps and Finger Tips - recap of 2007 region final game) in Libertyville.  A big part of me wanted to relive the regional success we found last summer and this event would provide a prime opportunity to try and do just that.  This would also be a fantastic early season test for the team to see how the group continues to measure up to other top regional and national competition.  However, it was not meant to be.

When all was said and done we just could not get enough numbers to make it work.  Only one of our HS players was able to get the OK from their HS coach to join us for the event.  I’m pretty confident I could have convinced many of the other HS coaches to release our players for the event if I spoke with them directly, but I wanted the OK from the parents of the HS players before approaching the coaches and most of them, considering that their girls were some of the youngest and newest to the HS scene, didn’t feel comfortable in having me rock the boat.  I don’t know this for sure but it’s my pretty good guess. Understandable.

We had a number of guest players lined up. Sting and Brownie, much to my delight, were ready to come with the team when asked, Chilly was in, and a few other White teams players who were asked to come were also initially set to join up.

As I mentioned, I had called Rory Dames (Eclipse Select Coaching Director) last week when I began to get the sense that our HS players were out and told him about the trouble I was having putting a team together for the event.  I wanted to honor the commitment we made to the tournament and knew how pulling out at this time would cause a major headache for their organization.  He told me that we could come as a US Club Soccer team and use guest players (though the tournament said no guest players could be used) and I was confident that I could get something together.  I emailed him yesterday (Sunday) and let him know that I had managed to form a team of 14, but then had to call him today (Monday) and let him know that 2 players had had conflicts come up and now could not go, so we had to bail on him.  I’m sure he wasn’t happy but he was understanding of the situation.  Looking at the adjusted schedule now posted online, looks like things worked out OK.

Real bummer for us though as, as I mentioned already, the event would have been a great gauge for us (if we had buy in from the entire Blue team) to see where we were at.

I’ll still be heading to the event with our U13s and plan on catching a bunch of the U14 games down there to scope out the other top teams at our age group.

I'll be out of town on Labor Day weekend as well with the U11s at the NSR Gold Cup in Naperville, so our non-HS U14 girls will mix in with the White/Green team training next weekend, and I'll see them the week after. 

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Though I'm disappointed that we had to forego this event, I'm excited for our girls who will get the chance to experience HS soccer at a young age.  And this has absolutely nothing to do with the soccer.  The soccer will be decent for some of the girls involved, but the training we can offer in our club team setting surpasses the majority of HS programs out there.  Not because of the coaching, but because of the level of play at our sessions as there is little doubt that we try and play better soccer than most HS programs. 

The benefit the girls will see is the respect that they will receive from most of their older HS teammates.  Young HS players are usually taken under the wing of older players, and this goes a long way towards increased self confidence and self esteem in the HS setting when upperclassmen acknowledge the younger players in school hallways, HS football games, etc.  This was a GREAT experience for me in my HS years and one that I would want all the girls to experience at some point.  This is one example of how the hard work the kids put in at the younger age groups pays off in soccer life and non-soccer life down the road. 

High school soccer as an underclassman s one of the encouragements I use all the time with the kids and the parent group at the younger girls Academy ages.  They may not see tangible development results now (though they are clearly there to the trained eye).  But down the road when their daughter plays varsity soccer as an 8th, 9th, or 10th grader, when the girls at a delicate time in their social lives get boosted by involvement with varsity sports, this is a great result of the work that is put in now (at the Academy age levels). 

The weight that parents place on HS sports was made evident to me a few years back.  When I was with the Woodbury Inferno (currently U16), we had a fantastic defensive-minded player named "Mouse".  Mouse was a tough, tenacious, and aggressive player who would tackle a fire hydrant without fear if it had the ball.  I know, I know.  Not a very intimidating name for a tough defender, but she squeaked every time she made a mistake on the field, thus the nickname.  I know many an opposing attacker back in the day who left with bruises with Mouse's name on them. 

Mouse's parents, especially Mama Mouse, were not extremely supportive of the year-round training that I had implemented with the U11 team back in 2003.  No matter what I did to try and sell them on building a solid foundation and skill set at the early ages and how this would benefit the girls in the long run, no matter what reasons I gave for regional/national tournament travel and exposure/experience, there was always hesitation on Mama Mouse's part as to why the kids needed to be in such a structured environment.  Luckily, we had success on the field back then and Mama Mouse was hesitant to have her daughter leave the team. 

Then, Mouse made the varsity team at Cretin-Derham Hall HS as an eighth grader.  I ran into Mama Mouse that November and she saw me, ran over and gave me a big hug, and told me that NOW she understood what I was talking about.  Her daughter was a starter in a varsity program and the technical skills and sense of the game that Mouse possessed put heron par (if not above) those of her HS peers.  Mouse then transferred the next year to Woodbury HS (her community school) and played an important part of their Minnesota High School championship season. 

To me, this exemplified the typical Minnesota soccer parent.  For all I know, this is a good representation of the majority of soccer parents in the US.  With the importance of HS in our society, parents are proud to say that their little one made varsity as a 8th grader.  I'm sure this is the same in all other HS sports.

I also don't take issue with HS soccer for one other very important soccer development reason.  Kids on teams like ours will undoubtedly settle into specific roles on the field.  The pressure to perform at the level of tournaments we attend is high, and it becomes increasingly more and more difficult to give players additional experience in game situations in different playing positions. 

High school soccer provides an excellent opportunity for players who may be more role-type players in our environment to play more of an impact-role in their respective HS program.  For example, a girl who may help our club team best as an outside defender may be the go-to central midfielder in her HS program, our star center back might be the leading goal scoring forward for her HS program, and so on.  I've seen it happed on plenty of occasions and this is a good thing for player development. 

I'm in the process of tracking down all our HS players' schedules and am looking forward to watching them all in action this fall.