Friday, Feb. 20, 2015
Paul Gardner's SoccerTalk is a benefit for Soccer America members.
In search of youth soccer ... and do we really want it anyway? Part 2: Correcting bad habits, or the intrusion of the adults
Youth soccer is a manifestly imperfect sport. What else would one
expect from kids, anyway? It is, we are told -- this is an ongoing
criticism --
full of bad habits that have to be corrected. But from the
youth-development point of view -- in other words, from the way adults
see things -- the biggest negative of youth soccer is simply that of
being youth soccer. Or of not being a young mirror of the adult game.
The problems begin with that word “play.” Boys play soccer. Adults play soccer,
too. We do not
describe the adult game as work. We acknowledge, without giving things
too much thought, that soccer (like most sports) is a slice of
adolescent life carried
over into adult life. It turns out to be a
decidedly awkward transition for soccer. Especially when we consider the
position of the professionals.
As the sport’s pinnacle, the pro
game inevitably sets the standards. What the pros
do, how they play the game is what matters. At that point, it can be
truthfully said that play becomes work. From the heights of the pro
game, youth soccer ceases to be seen as a version of the sport
with its own personality, its own idiosyncrasies. It
becomes merely a resource off which the pro game can -- must -- feed. A
satellite of the pro game.
Which may or may not be a good thing.
We’ll look at that in a moment. It will be argued, correctly, that not
all boys wish to become pros, and that there are plenty of youth
programs that serve such players. I would argue, not
entirely mischievously, that college soccer is one such program.
But
even non-pro-oriented youth programs are, in effect, substantially
influenced by the
pro game. It can hardly be otherwise.
In this country, the United States Soccer Federation, with a membership
that is overwhelmingly youth and amateur, is deeply involved in youth
development. That sounds appropriate. But this slogan --
“Together We Can Develop World-Class Players” -- is a stated aim of the
U.S. Soccer academy system. And what can “world-class players” mean, if
not pro players? And if that is
the aim, then one can be sure that a pro slant on player
development will be dominant.
Add together the USSF academy clubs
and the academy teams run by pro and semi-pro clubs and you have a
formidable network of resources and personnel devoted full-time to
youth-development in this country. All of it determined to breed
world-class players.
The same emphasis is to be found
outside the burgeoning academy system. Next Gen USA is a
player-development program -- though it calls itself a Player
Progression System -- “dedicated to
accelerating the development of
promising young players who aspire to play college, professional or
international soccer.”
On the face of it, this is all unexceptional. There is nothing sinister or devious here. The
adults want to help. And the boys want to become top players. No doubt the boys’ parents are all in favor, too.
Central to all the development schemes is the acknowledgement that there
are some important differences between youth and adult (i.e. pro) soccer.
Youth soccer will naturally be seen as a product of adolescence, an immature activity to be replaced by the real thing. The
development schemes have the surely admirable aim of helping that progression along, of accelerating it, as Next Gen puts it.
Except that admirable aims do not guarantee admirable results.
There
are several aspects of all these contemporary youth-development schemes
that, either by design or as an “unintended consequence,” work to
undermine the best
laid plans.
In
particular, adult involvement. Any meaningful definition of youth soccer
must surely begin with the perception that it has little time or need
for direct adult input. The adult influence will be
there, of course, indirectly -- from the fathers and uncles and older
friends, and from television watching. But when it comes to playing the
game, it should be of the boys, by the boys, for the boys.
Above all the game is played in the spirit of what Mark Twain called
“boy-life.”
Twain left no doubt that he saw such a life as one
full of “natural and healthy
instincts,” which were suppressed once adult society -- what Huck Finn
called ‘sivilization’ -- took over. Huck wanted no part of it -- “I
can’t stand it. I been there
before.”
Huck couldn’t stand the adult intrusion into his
boy-life. But he knew instinctively that the adults were going to win.
The wonderful sadness of Twain’s
novel is
that we all know that Huck’s life outside ‘sivilization’ is doomed as
soon as it begins.
Just a few years will see it gone, but those
years are the sweetest of all. Should it
not be that way with youth soccer? A few years to play the sport as part
of boy-life, to infuse it with something of the carefree
adventurousness of youth, away from the rigidities of the classroom,
the strictures of the teacher.
“I don’t want to go to school and
learn
solemn things. I don’t want ever to be a man . . . I want always to be a
little boy and to have
fun.” No, not Huck Finn. That was Peter Pan, another boy in flight from
adults, lured away by the sad, beautiful freedom of youth.
Look for Part 3 of "In search of youth soccer ...
Street soccer -- to be crushed or cherished?" on Monday, Feb. 23.
We welcome and appreciate forwarding of our newsletters in their
entirety or in part with proper attribution.
© 2015 Soccer America, 145 Pipers Hill Road Wilton, CT 06897 USA http://www.socceramerica.com/