Pitch to Pro
Pitch to Pro is the official podcast of Ozark United FC. This will be our platform to tell our story about the club and the special place that we call home, Northwest Arkansas. This is a journey. We want to bring you along for the ride. We'll share what's going on behind the curtain, help educate the community at large about soccer, Our league, and give updates on the progress of the club along the way.
Together, we'll explore and unpack our journey to professional soccer, the magic that is NWA, our community, and talk all things soccer from on the pitch to behind the scenes, telling the story of our club.
Pitch to Pro
Ep. 31 - Youth Soccer Registration Reform
Ever wondered how youth soccer registration could impact a young athlete's development and future in the sport? Join us on the Pitch to Pro podcast as we engage in a thought-provoking conversation with Scott Marksberry, head coach of the U20 Academy boys and Director of Coaching for Sporting Arkansas. Together, we explore the proposed shift from a birth year-based registration system to one aligned with the school year, a change that could alter the landscape of youth soccer in the United States. We'll dissect the historical context of these systems and the relative age effect, questioning how these shifts may influence player growth, team dynamics, and college recruitment.
Navigating the challenges of youth soccer requires creativity and foresight. Our discussion delves into the hurdles clubs face, particularly during those pivotal transitions between eighth and ninth grades where high school restrictions complicate club participation. Through real-life examples, we uncover inventive strategies clubs employ to maintain player engagement, such as expanding rosters and blending age groups. We'll also consider the broader implications of these changes, including how aligning with FIFA standards might streamline the system and what this means for the six million registered youth players across the country.
This episode is not just about the logistics of youth soccer registration; it's about embracing change with a positive mindset. As we chat with Scott, we emphasize the importance of resilience, adaptability, and the role of parents, coaches, and team managers in guiding young athletes through these transitions. We'll explore how positive responses to change can foster a supportive community and use sports as a foundation for character-building, ensuring that young athletes not only survive but thrive amidst these evolving dynamics. Tune in to discover how these shifts can shape a brighter future for youth soccer and the next generation of players.
Pitch to Pro is the official podcast of Ozark United FC. This will be our platform to tell our story about the club and the special place that we call home, northwest Arkansas. This is a journey we want to bring you along for the ride. We'll share what's going on behind the curtain, help educate the community at large about soccer, our league, and give updates on the progress of the club along the way. Together, we'll explore and unpack our journey to professional soccer, the magic that is NWA, our community, and talk all things soccer from on the pitch to behind the scenes, telling the story of our club.
Speaker 1:Pitch to Pro Podcast is proudly sponsored by PodcastVideoscom. Videoscom podcast videoscom is northwest arkansas's premier podcast recording studio, equipped with industry-leading equipment. The recording studio and services save you time, money and hassle. They are dedicated to helping you create, record and publish high quality podcasts for your audience. Be sure to check them out today at podcastvideoscom. Hey, everybody, welcome back to the Pitch to Pro podcast. I am your host, wes Harris, managing Director for Ozark United FC, northwest Arkansas' professional soccer club, playing in the United Soccer League. Today, I am joined by our great guest, mr Scott Marksberry, who's the head coach of our U20 Academy boys, as well as the director of coaching for Sporting Arkansas. Excuse me. Thank you, scott, for joining me today. I think we've got a good combo. That's probably on a lot of parents' minds in the soccer landscape, yeah, and I think the important message that we want to start with is everything is going to be fine.
Speaker 2:Man, the kids are going to be fine.
Speaker 1:Kids are resilient Kids are going to be fine. So let's understand why they're going to be fine and kind of talk about that. So we have a potential. You know, vote. The vote is not potential.
Speaker 1:The vote is happening, but the potential outcome is kind of this reshuffling of how do we define age groups and registrations for club and rec teams within the youth landscape today. So what do we mean by that? So today you are going to play soccer for the first time or you're looking to try out for a team. What team do you play for? Where does that kind of happen and what are you eligible to play for? So you know, we'll use my just using my oldest son as an example.
Speaker 1:He was born in April of 2016 and I'm the coach of the 2016 boys team that he plays on, and so today, everything is by your birth year. So all of my players were born in 2016. And so that is how it's been January 1st through December 31st. If you were born in that birth year, you're eligible to go play for that team. So that is how things are currently set up.
Speaker 1:So the potential change that they're talking about is to go to school year, so with an August 1st cutoff, and so August January 1st shifts up to August 1st to now July 31st. So what does that mean? That means if you were born after August 1st again using the 2016 example, august 1st, again using the 2016 example now my age group team eligibility shifts from just 2016 birth years, january 1st to December 31st. Now it becomes August 1st 2015 to then July 31st 2016. So any of my players from August 1st to December 31stst in 2016, they shift down to the age group below them and the same thing with the 2015s now that I start to get them. So that's the change that they're potentially talking about.
Speaker 1:so you know anything to add on on kind of the change or kind of what's going on, but that's essentially the basics yeah, yeah, that's the basic structure and it's a change back, right it's a change back it is, and I think like, look, there's so much to unpack here and we're not going to be able to get to everything, but what we'll try to do in this conversation is kind of talk on some of the key points, some highlights some of the impacts and key things to remember. Uh, again, this vote is coming up uh, this friday, uh, november 22nd, uh, with u? Uh governing body for the sport in the United States. Again, just to remind everybody and let's take a zoom out Right. So to your point. This is a switch back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so they made a change back in 2017 to the current birth year, and so can you talk a little bit about you know why that is? It had to do with some international things and trying to align and national team stuff. So talk a little bit about why they made that shift in 2017, because this is how it used to be the school year. What they're talking about going back to. This is how that was for a long time, up until that point, and so they made that shift in 2016, 17. Talk a little bit about that, yeah, and so they made that shift in 2016, 17.
Speaker 2:Talk a little bit about that. Yeah, and I think it was late 80s or early 90s that we shifted to school year and then it stayed that way until 2017. The shift in 2017 was interesting of this theory that, in order to align with international standards, in order to align our calendar that we use for registration with the calendar that maybe the most of the globe uses for registration, we should go to birth year and maybe, over time, that shift would potentially give our youth national teams and our kids that are developing a better competitive platform and maybe they would be on equal footing with everybody else. The trend at the time was that in the US, the strongest players were August to December birthdays.
Speaker 1:And let's talk about why that is. So I learned something new in kind of looking into this and researching, just as a parent and a coach something called the relative age effect, yes, and so let's talk about what that is first, and then why that ended up tending to be in that August to December timeframe, with a school year registration alignment, if you will. So talk a little bit about what relative age effect is first.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so relative age effect is essentially this bias, that maybe participation rates and probably developmental rates for athletes or students, even maybe in an academic setting, that those tend to be higher in the earlier stage of the selection cycle, whatever that cycle is. And so if it's a January to December selection cycle, then you're January, February, March. Maybe that's where you're going to see your highest participation rates and the fastest development rates as well. Or if that cycle starts in August, then maybe it's August, September, October where you're seeing the strongest participation and developmental rates.
Speaker 1:Exactly, and some of that is just due to growth and development of the human being. Absolutely Right, especially when you're talking about kids and sports or school. And so what you would tend to see is, I mean, some of these growth spurts. I mean, you know you have kids, you've watched them grow. I mean Emery's grew a foot in the last two years, no doubt, right?
Speaker 1:So, um, you know, and and I see it with my kids, uh as well, we just lamented over having to go buy Logan new shoes Cause he grew two shoe sizes in like four months, uh, but you tend to see that those kids that are born earlier in a selection cycle are going to hit those milestones sooner, right, and so even in those within that six month to a year frame, those people up front may hit. It's not always, it's not a given rule, but just the natural cycle of things. You may see those people get their growth spurts a little bit sooner, and so does that give them a competitive edge, or they've been playing for a little bit longer because they were born at a certain age or a little bit earlier, and so they have more touches on the ball and development.
Speaker 2:And so, if you think about it, if you're talking about nine and 10 year old kids, you're talking about 10% of your life in age difference in that birth year from January to December, 10% of the life of a, of a December birthday, that this player has an advantage developmentally or growth or physically Exactly, and so that is the relative age effect, and of course it is not, again, with everything.
Speaker 1:It's not a black and white, always true thing. Of course there are exceptions to the rule, all over the place, you can find them 100%. It's just something in a phenomenon that you see kind of in the macro, start to happen in the youth sports space and in school, and so that's what we would see. And so in those age groups within the national team, how does that, like that would transfer over into the national team? Yeah, right, and so your better players were in that august, september, november time, but then they have to align when they go play to the international standards. So now they're playing up. So talk about that, and like, what does that do? And you know you're playing one way and your club, and then you go into the national team and now you're with kids that are a little bit bigger and you know different, and so that was, you know, I'll let you talk about it but that's kind of what generated this discussion around.
Speaker 2:What should we do here tended to be October, november or August, september, october, right, that's where we were having our strongest group because developmentally they'd been ahead, which just over time it meant more confidence, more touches, more success, more things that help athletes continue to want to push and grow and develop at a higher rate. So we were seeing that Then we put our national team together and even at that point, our stronger players within a birth year now that they were on a birth year, january to December tended to be in the back half of the age group, and then we go play against another nation and their strongest players are January, february, march. Well, they've got an eight month jump or 10 month jump on our strongest players, right, and so, competitively at a U15 national team game when the US goes up against Germany Right, we were going to struggle. Or teams in Africa, we were going to struggle in those games.
Speaker 1:It makes a difference to me. It does, Like you know so, and that's why they made that shift.
Speaker 2:That's what prompted it.
Speaker 1:That's what prompted that discussion and that decision. But it doesn't happen overnight. It doesn't happen overnight, right, as we talk about in like census, but a generation of players and youth as they come into you know the playing in the sport, to kind of see that benefit, if there was one to be had, based on what we saw. And I think that you're getting enough pushback, because, if you think about the broader landscape, just to, I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of like why is this conversation now happening? If that's the good, if that's the good and why we wanted to do that, why are we talking about going back? And I think it's because you're getting enough pushback, because in the US in particular, that creates some challenges.
Speaker 1:One, and we'll talk about those, but college recruitment, yeah, the issue of trapped players. College recruitment, yeah, uh, the issue of trapped players, um, some states like arkansas, up until recently, and high school and versus club and what does that create? Um, and so I think you know, let's get into, you know what some of those things are. So talk, talk about you've been a college coach, talk about college recruitment and how that happens in soccer and why school year may make it easier on these college recruitment and coaches in that process.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I think it's important to understand that from a college coach perspective. College coaches will always say, hey, we do recruit high school games and to a degree they do. But it's really inefficient because I'm now dealing with only two teams at one location, usually on a weeknight. That means I probably have to skip my team practice to go visit to go view that game, team practice to go to go visit to go view that game and I'm only getting two teams and I'm potentially getting four graduating classes worth of players out there at the same time. But but maybe I'm only recruiting for, you know, the 2026 grad class or the 2025, maybe this year, the 2025 grad class, but I'm getting 25s, 26s, 27s and 28s that are all on the field at the same time and only 22 players essentially that I'm getting to watch in one moment.
Speaker 2:So high school recruiting has been a little bit inefficient compared to a club event where I can go to one event and I can watch 50 or 60 or 100 teams, potentially depending on the event, and largely I know that they're all coming from. All the players on one team are coming from probably only two grad classes 2025 or 2026, most likely if I'm if I'm looking at the oldest age group prior to 2017. As a college coach and I was a college coach in that time I could go to a game and know that probably 90 or 99 of the kids with the exception of a couple of outliers, maybe a kid who is playing up or a kid who's held back in school early on almost every kid is in the same grad class. And so you look at the roster and say, ok, they're all 20, 25s, except for maybe one or two total, and those are the kids that usually they were highlighted right, a big box, a big box around them.
Speaker 1:Like, okay, they may be just one year behind, but you're really there. That's like, okay, that's one to watch, fine, but you're really there for that graduating class with a specific purpose and mission, and that's where you want, I'm assuming, the majority of your time to be spent. Yeah, and so if you have, you know, I don't know, it't know, doesn't matter, who knows, maybe a lot of their players on this team could be, you know, in that back half of the year and now they're, you know, they're two years behind, so there's just it's all or from the other side of it.
Speaker 2:It's for a college coach now putting together your showcase schedule of how you're going to go visit different games. I'm now having to watch U17 games and U18 games, or U18s and U19s. I have to get both because half of the U19s is in the grad class I'm focused on, and the older half of the U18s, or U17s, are in the grad class, and so I have to hit double the games really to get the same number of kids as when it shifts back to school year. Man, the vast majority of those are all going to be in the same age group and I've actually made my it's actually made my role as a as a college college coach a little bit easier to scan the fields and say, hey, I only need to hit these specific age groups because that's where the vast majority of the grad class will be.
Speaker 1:So then talk, because I think this kind of goes a little bit hand in hand here. That's really good insight into the college game, which in the United States college sports, especially in soccer, there's a big difference with. I mean, it's again not unanimous elsewhere, but the vast majority of the soccer kind of system and pyramid landscape is really academy-driven, versus in the United States a lot of our professional talent a little bit less so in some of the other sports, but still heavily relies on college soccer. Yeah, and so. That's why they have a much bigger voice with US soccer than maybe in another country, right, yeah, and so yeah, especially the women's side, Right, I mean the women's side.
Speaker 2:That's been such a critical development piece over decades now on the US women's side is that we have a really great, strong college soccer program on the women's side soccer program on the women's side and it makes sense as part of the pathway for future professional women's players or national team women's players. The vast majority of them played in college before they went on. Maybe less so on the men's side, but on the women's side.
Speaker 1:I mean that is a big step in that pathway, the men's side, to your point, it started to evolve a little bit. We've seen a lot more academies start to pop up within certain systems mls, usl, um, others and you know international recruitment as well and those player. There's all kinds of roster rules and how that impacts. You know how you put together a roster. We won't go down that rabbit hole but it's still a. You know it's not as heavily relied on as it once was, maybe 20 years ago but it's still very heavily relied on for talent and as players continue to want to play, continue their playing career. If they're not into an academy system, they go to college and try to get seen in that route through another four years. And so it's still a very important part, both from where we get our players but also for a player to continue their career and try to continue to develop and pursue goals and dreams or just get education and use that as a means, whatever their goals are right.
Speaker 2:I think there's a whole episode in that topic in the future.
Speaker 1:I love that. I love that. We'll have you back for sure. So where I was going was you and your club team with the 08s have experience with this and what the birth year created, which is something called a trapped player. Can you explain what a trapped player is and why that is a big deal, and how did that come about with the birth year shift?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so we the trapped player phenomenon really came about because of this, maybe. Maybe we had some of these outliers that existed in this space before, but there weren't enough to have a label. The trapped player moniker kind of came about because of the shift in 2017. And I think every club in the US talks about it. We all talk about the problem, and it's essentially two age groups where you have. One is that whatever age group is split between eighth grade and ninth grade, and then the other is whatever age group is split between well, half of us just graduated and the other half still have our senior year from high school. Yeah, and so the the eighth and ninth one is is probably the, the trickiest one. Um, because we do. We do deal with attrition as well at the older age groups, and so it kind of became everyone kind of squeezed that into. Let's do a year and a half of soccer instead of just half a year and try to make teams just on the.
Speaker 1:The half a year, that's remaining Because you lose some of the roster size. So you need to expand it and say now you're combining age groups.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it became an easier answer at that 12th grade and kind of age group. So with the eighth and ninth, though, is an interesting space, because you get essentially half. Let's go with half. It's really usually about 60% maybe of the kids who are now in ninth grade on a team. The other half are left behind in eighth grade. But if that ninth grade group is in a state where high school soccer does not allow you to also play club now, it means that we have these eighth graders who don't have enough players for a team anymore unless we have enough eighth graders across the rest of our club that we can combine and blend and make something happen. And those players are the trap players, right. They don't have the option to play school soccer. They're not in high school yet, they can't play there, but maybe they don't have enough players on their roster to make an actual team, right, and so for half of the year.
Speaker 1:Half the year whenever the high school soccer season is what do you do?
Speaker 2:What's your answer for those kids? And I think clubs have tried to come up with every possible way to solve it and everyone's kind of creatively found ways to do it. But we'd also be lying to ourselves if we said that we haven't lost kids because of that half of a year who maybe found track and field at their school, at their, at their junior high or their middle school, where most junior highs and middle school soccer programs either they don't exist or they're not strong enough maybe to push those kids. Well, the track program was happy to bring them in and turn them into hurdlers and 400 meter runners and everything else. Um, kids found basketball, they, they football a lot of boy side. They find football at that age because it didn't require a lot of skill development up to that time to be a great football player. When you're in eighth grade, you're an athlete. You can move, you can run, you can run for the entire game. Those kids are very attractive. They can kick, they can do.
Speaker 1:You know they become very attractive additions to school sport programs at that time and you even get even in places where you know and this is again a broader conversation about youth participation and attrition and what happens as you get older but you also have in those split groups on that eight to nine.
Speaker 1:You also have in those split groups on that eight to nine you may have kids that choose to play high school soccer but they don't want to commit to both the club and the high school. But high school may be more important to them and their journey and what they want out of playing soccer. And so well, I I'm gonna give up. And so if there's enough that can happen to any team, doesn't matter what the the splits are on on your registering. But it exacerbates itself when you have the split with the birth year because you already have let's call it you know best case 50 of your team is in high school versus the eighth grade and then if now only a couple of them choose to only play high school, that's a bigger impact than your entire team is in high school versus the eighth grade. And then if now only a couple of them choose to only play high school, that's a bigger impact than your entire team is in, is there?
Speaker 2:So what happened with my weight team was actually a decision that the older players made. The ninth grade players made that they weren't going to let the eighth grade teammates get trapped, and so we had all but three of our ninth graders decided to sit out of high school as freshmen, which is a hard decision.
Speaker 2:That's a hard decision too. They didn't necessarily want to do that. It's not like they wanted to miss out on high school or they weren't trying to say, oh, high school is not valuable. It was. They were looking at their team and saying, man, we got seven or eight guys here who aren't going to have anywhere to play if we all go, or they have to play in an environment that's maybe not as good for their development, is not going to push them as much, um, and so those players decided, hey, let's, let's stay out. And so we went to Dallas cup and we we kind of pursued some bigger events in that in that spring season, which was awesome, we had an amazing experience with it. But man, that's a big ask If every year you're asking all of your ninth graders to sit down. We didn't ask them to do it. They made the decision to do that, which is what made it work. But it's a tough one.
Speaker 1:And that's a hard decision and a very mature decision to be asking someone to make at that age. And so kudos to your team. You know to look after their teammates. And so kudos to your team. You know to look after their teammates. And so you know again, just for context for people, up until recently Arkansas had a law that you club soccer could not even practice officially during the high school soccer season, so that it didn't conflict and you got the participation that at the high school level, and so that up very recently changed. But there are other states where that is the case.
Speaker 1:Um, it's not, I don't think, the majority across the us, but it's certainly a an issue for enough again, enough players where trapped player became a moniker after the birth year. You know, shift Moving back to school year gets everybody on the same playing field and plan as they grow and get older. And so you know, the other side of the trap was you graduate high school. Half of your players are graduating high school and maybe they don't play college soccer or, you know, maybe they go play college soccer or they just choose. Okay, I'm not going to play soccer anymore, I'm done with my playing days. That leaves the other half or whatever it is.
Speaker 1:However, many players are the makeup of your team that are still seniors, that want to keep playing, but they don't now have the numbers and they've got to reshuffle and try to find players and come up with a team. So that's the trap player on that other side. And so again, aligning to that school year. Just it doesn't completely eliminate the problem because, to your point, there were still outliers based on whatever the situation was before with school year. But it certainly gets rid of especially that transition from eighth grade to ninth grade and then the graduating high school problem that's just naturally created based on your registration rules yeah, and I'm guessing that the outliers now will take on the moniker of the trap player.
Speaker 2:But but it really will be unique situations. A, a kid who is, you know, um, was held back in school or something. Maybe they moved here and they were in a different track or something like that. It'll be, it will exist, but it will be. It won't be nearly the magnitude that we've had to deal with right now and we're having to solve a problem for one or two players a year, not half of every age group.
Speaker 1:Exactly, and I think so. There's a couple others in terms of why are they looking at this? One is increasing participation. Or and again and you can certainly speak to this is around the idea that maybe when a parent is looking to get their kid into soccer, or the kid says, I want to play soccer, you see this a little bit more so on the first time that they're registering than necessarily later. But the kid may be more excited, or the parent may be more excited about the possibility of playing the sport if they are able to go and play with their friends.
Speaker 1:Well, who are their friends? A lot of the time it's kids at school, and so if you're a school year registration, the kids at school would be the same ones that would be eligible to play for that team that they're looking to join and play for together. Maybe and there's no like, well, I have a friend at school, but now they're not eligible to play on the same team I am Well, I'm only going to play if I can play with Johnny and he can't play on the same team.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we deal with it. Several times a year we have conversations with families that say, hey, we're really excited to come check out your club. This will be our first time playing competitive soccer, but first time playing competitive soccer. But my son or my daughter has made this really great group of friends at school and they all play for your club and they all play on the same team. And then we get their registration information in and go, oh, you're a December birthday and they're all January, february, march.
Speaker 2:You can't, you can't play on their team Like it's not. It's not an issue where, like, you could have a kid play up, maybe if we needed to, but you just can't. You can't play on their team Like it's not. It's not an issue where, like, you could have a kid play up, maybe if we needed to, but you just can't play on their team. It's, it's not allowed. And then it's a decision to be made. Right, like, are you so interested in soccer that you're willing to stay and play? We'd love for you to play still. Right, here's another team that's going to be a similar level, the right group, similar age group, similar grade in school, but it's not all your friends. Right, are you still interested in doing that and families have a decision that they have to make at that point.
Speaker 1:Yep, absolutely, and so that's the thought is, we will see increased participation or propensity to participate, and that's important for the sport.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. The social piece is huge. It is as much a driver as really anything else for the vast majority of our players. Yeah Right, there's a small group that's really driven by competition development like the highest level, but the vast majority of youth sports is social and it's fun and it's enjoyable and I think we're going to see a really big boost in participation based on this shift going back to, if it happens, going back to August 1.
Speaker 1:Not to mention the you know, small little sporting event that the United States is hosting here in 2026 with the World Cup, which we will get a natural boom anyway, yeah, hosting here in 2026 with the world cup, uh, which we will get a natural boom anyway, yeah. But I think they're also looking at participation levels over the course of since they've made the shift. Obviously, there's a little bit of a of a caveat in numbers and comparing anything with covid, um, sure, and all of that um, but I think that they're also thinking about how do we maximize the effect on the country and the sport from hosting the world cup, and youth participation is a massive, massive uh metric that we watch and look at as a sport in a country, in a governing body, and if you look at that lens and how, where are we, you know, going? You can't grow as a soccer nation if your participation is dropping, and so that's the other piece as well, and then the final piece. I'll say that there's obviously a lot more, but maybe something that people might not think about or know about um is alignment of registrations, um, and all in. You absolutely deal with this all the time, but, um, and all the admin back of the house, stuff that nobody gets any credit for and nobody wants to know about it, but it's so important.
Speaker 1:Um is, when they made the shift in 2017, there were a lot of actual there's.
Speaker 1:There's there's more programs and all this other stuff, but there's basically in the us, underneath us soccer, there's kind of club and then there's rec, essentially yeah, there's more to that, sure, but two main verticals there's rack and then there's club, some rec programs that are kind of independent to, and not necessarily as beholden to, all the rules and regs and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:As club soccer is chose to not make the shift from birth year to or from school year to birth year, so currently there's a good chunk of recreational programs and leagues that are kind of independent on their own, but they still have to register players to say that they're playing, and those numbers then have to get recorded from us soccer to fifa that are split on birth year to school year, and so they're not. Now us soccer has to be the ones on the back end to align everything and figure it out based on fifa standards and be in compliance with FIFA's reporting rules, which I don't think people understand how important that is, that we are compliant Can't participate in things like the World Cup or can't host a World Cup or all of those things If you're not compliant with FIFA reporting rules and all these other things which registrations are a part of. So they have to do that work and it's a nightmare right now with a split the way it is yeah, yeah, I, I think.
Speaker 2:um, so what you're looking at from that perspective is, say, we have roughly six million registered youth players right across across the country and where, well, first I should pause and say that you gave me credit for dealing with that stuff. I don't do any of that, that's all my wife.
Speaker 1:That's.
Speaker 2:Jennifer Marksberry. Yeah, jennifer, she's the one that makes all that happen. I look at it and say, dang, that looks complicated and she manages all of it and does a great job. So all the registrars out there doing great work. Bless you, yes, yes and oh man, I feel so bad for you all for this year.
Speaker 2:We all know what's potentially coming is going to be a big headache for our registrars across the country. But so if you take an age group, so within our US soccer, our 6 million players we have registered and say the U13 age group and we're reporting that to FIFA as US Augur. Our 6 million players we have registered and say the U13 age group and we're reporting that to FIFA as U13s. And within the competitive platform, that means our U13s are what is that? Our 2012 age group this year. So that's 2012 birth years all the way through. But on the rec side, that U13 age group is being reported as basically seventh grade school year, and so now we're August to July, which means we have an overlap of a whole bunch of months there and a whole bunch of kids.
Speaker 2:Which way does US soccer position that when we're turning it into FIFA? It creates a lot of headaches on their end and it's all connected back to the electronic player passports and some of the stuff that fifa has created, um, post-covid. So, yeah, it's going to make the system a little more streamlined, a little bit easier to manage. Yes, the first year will be clunky, it will be painful, it will be a lot to deal with from an admin perspective, right, um, but it's going to streamline a lot going forward. It's going to make a lot going forward. It's going to make things a little bit easier in the long run.
Speaker 1:So that's the other major reason. There's obviously a ton underneath, but that's kind of the last major reason why they're contemplating all that. So, again, it makes college recruiting a lot easier. Yeah, it'll increase participation. You will not eliminate, but greatly reduce the impact on what we now call trapped players. And then it's going to align the registrations for us soccer to be compliant with fifa reporting.
Speaker 1:Um, so those are the main four ones. Anything else that you'd add in terms of why are they considering it? I think those pieces pretty much cover our whys. Yeah, because then we'll move on to like impact and that'll be kind of our next part of the conversation is okay, I understand why now, but what does that mean? But what does it mean, basil? So here's the like again, just to reiterate what we started with the kids will be fine, they're going to be fine, you are going to be fine. Parents, coaches, everybody it will all be fine. The kids have got this, they've got this. So, but yes, there is going to be impact, yes, there's going to be impact.
Speaker 1:And so the biggest thing that this is going to have impact on is kind of a reshuffle up and down the age group vertical, on teams and rosters. So, using my team, my 2016 boys team, I've already looked and I know you've already looked from a club perspective, so you can answer this here from a club. You know size scale, but on my team I have 12 players. We're 77. I have 12 players Half of them so six are in that August 1st to December 31st on the 2016 age group. August 1st to December 31st on the 2016 age group, they will move down to the you know age group below us, the newly defined age group below us. That's where they will fall. I will then also start to receive, when I look, go to evals and tryouts for the following fall.
Speaker 1:If this were to pass and that's when it was going to be put into place was, you know, fall 25 and spring 26, 26, which is what they're talking about I would then receive players born from august 1st through december 31st on 2015 in every single age group, and so that is going to have an impact for, obviously, teammates. They're used to playing. My team's only been together for a season. You've got players that have been together for 10 years, since age eight, 10 years that are going to have this potential impact right, so that's a lot more time to be spent together and playing as a team and and knowing each other. Now, obviously, players come and go. They they have tryouts every year, right, but that's.
Speaker 1:You have a core group that's probably been together for that long, right, so that's teammates. You've got parents that have gotten to know each other through their kids and become really close, um, and then you've got coaches. You, yeah, you know, either as a parent or a team or a or a player, you may be used to a coach and they've been your coach for years or however long, but their player is one that is moving down or you're moving down, and now you get a new coach or coaches and assistant coaches. I'm losing one of my players. His dad is the assistant coach. We've become really close. He's moving down, so I'm going to lose my assistant coach. So, yes, there's impact on teammates, on on players and parents and coaches. Yes, I think it's really important to say again everybody will be fine, but talk about you.
Speaker 2:Know, I gave the example of 50 numbers on on our situation and we have roughly 800 players um, maybe just under that uh registered on our competitive platform and, um, what we're seeing is about it's about a 60-40 split, roughly about 60-40 split. That uh, january to July is about 60%, but that's about 60% of the year, 58%, right, and then August to December is the other roughly 40%. So there's a lot of shifting and, to your point, the coach connections, because we're a community club right, we're a community club that has some very, very high level teams and some very, very high level players and development going on. But the core of our club and the base of our club is not just that team, it's not just the elite couple of teams that people know from our club. It's the kids who just want to play and they love the game and they want to participate in the game. Most of those are coached by someone with a connection to the team. We have brothers who coach, we have moms and dads who coach, we have uncles who coach, we have neighbor who coaches. We have, you know, such a variety of ways that these connections have come about People from churches that just knew a family that got involved in coaching and have played the game in the past. Those dynamics will shift a little bit when now two of our coaches, who have been with us for a really long time, all of a sudden their kids are now on the same team and that means that somewhere out there there's a team that doesn't have a longstanding coach from our club that's associated with that age group, and so it's going to be a little bit tricky there, I think.
Speaker 2:Where it gets even more interesting, though, for us and this maybe goes back to the relative age effect and some of the impacts that maybe we're going to see long term and and maybe there's a chance to just kind of discuss that, gosh, they maybe we didn't give the birth year enough time. You know we're going to make that shift. Maybe maybe I didn't give it enough time to see what the impact was going to be, because what we're seeing when we look at this breakdown is that, while 60% are January to July, it's more like 66% of maybe our top team in each age group, our most competitive team in each age group. Now you're looking at a roster of 15 players and 10 of them are January to July and five are August to December, and that's a pretty notable split. When you start looking at, two thirds of the group falls into that first section.
Speaker 2:Maybe, in terms of that development piece and what the intent was at the beginning, you could probably make an argument that we're heading in that direction. Probably make an argument that we're heading in that direction, that the strongest players are at the younger ages, where, where they came into the system yes, in birth year. Maybe you can make the argument that the strongest players now are january to july, and so flipping it back is it's going to be really interesting, I think, to see how do those dynamics shift, how's that going to change and and what's that going to look like. You know, whatever we, whatever we choose, we just need to stick with it, right, but I think it'll be interesting to see how you know, how that shakes out over time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and now that gets into kind of the conversation of should we, shouldn't we right? And you did it. You made the decision to go to birth year in 2017 for an explicit goal of helping the national team aligning with international standards. You know, team for an explicit goal of helping the national team aligning with international standards. Um, you know, a lot of what I've read and seen and heard is you know, well, is the national team performances, even not necessarily at the older, first team, but even the underage groups? Are they materially better than they were? Is it enough time right to actually critique ourselves and look at that and start measuring that? There's all of those arguments kind of in place to your point. Um, and you know, you're starting to see that the, the, you know the people that are vying for the change are saying, well, that really only impacted our most elite players and most elite programs. 98% of you know now we're upside down with trap players, with college recruitment, with blah, blah, blah, and so that's and I'm not arguing either way, I'm just, you know, to share with people a little bit around. You know, the, the people that are saying either pro or con on this decision and it there's like, like we said, said at the start, there's a lot to unpack here, yeah, um, and there's a lot of impact, and so I think you're getting in.
Speaker 1:You know, us soccer, when they made a change after this amount of years, are getting enough pushback because of the reasons that we mentioned. That it's back on the table, yeah, and their voices were heard, which, to some degree, I think is a good thing. That it's at least back up for discussion. If that's the case on the amount of pushback in voices that are being heard, is they're listening? Yeah, which is what they're supposed to do? Yeah, and not make decisions in a vacuum. Now you can again. I think there's still argument to be had on. Is it the right thing or wrong thing? And I'm not going to push either way, but it at least, from a positive side, shows that they're at least listening to their constituents.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which I think is good. And I think, if you think that we do tend to we expect long-term results in the short term. Yes, we do, and so that's the way that we do things. And so we look at something that has Insane gratification it's a long-term plan. Long-term, this could be really great for development. And then we look at it two years later and say, god, it's not working. Oh, okay, hold on. Yeah, we haven't had any time to see whether or not this was going to work.
Speaker 2:And these were Klinsman era changes. Right, like Klinsman was the, and so you think about how many things have changed in that time since Klinsman was the head coach of our national team and he was part with Tab Ramos and those guys to bring in the small sided game standards and the 77 and kind of re-change the way we do the game at the youth level. That I think largely we would all look at now and say, okay, I mean there's some things that maybe we don't love about the 4v4 age groups or whatever, yeah, but but largely those things have been really good for the development of the game to shift to 4v4, 77, 9v9, 11v11 and we're progressing the game and the build out lines, and I mean some of the little things they did then. This change was part of all of those sweeping changes that happened at that time and I think you know we look at it over time and say, okay, I mean maybe on one side the argument would be, well, we didn't give it enough time, we needed to see what was going to happen. But maybe on the other side we look at it and say, well, yeah, this was a decision that was intended to impact our national team and our top 1%.
Speaker 2:Should every other kid be subject to that, when really we're just trying to develop a system? Klinsman and Tabramas and those guys they were trying to develop a system that helps the national team, right, but the vast majority of kids, like we said, they just want to play the game and they want to have fun. We want them to be the game and they want to have fun. We want them to be lifetime players. We want them to be future coaches and future adult players. Absolutely their moms and dads on the sidelines that are coaching their own kids and that's how our game grows organically and culturally. And so maybe this is one case where we look at it and say, no, this shift really makes sense for that piece of development Right and say, no, this shift really makes sense for that piece of development Right?
Speaker 1:I wholeheartedly agree. As we've tried to lay out, there's definitely pros to the birth year, there's pros to the school year, there's cons to both. Just like with anything, nothing is black and white, it's kind of gray. You got to weed through it and try to understand what is going to be the best benefit for the sport game in the long run. I think it was a great point that I think too often in so many facets of our life, but especially in sports, we look at, we're too short-sighted and we don't look at the long game, and so that leads nicely into, I think, what is gonna be the largest single question and decision that is going to come out of this, which is, if it happens right Again, caveat, if the vote happens the way that we think it will and people are talking about it, but there's still a chance it won't Should I, as a parent or as a club, allow teams to keep their current rosters and play up with a good chunk of their team? Or, as a parent, should I fight to keep my player on their current team and roster and play up if they fall into that, august 1st through December 31st. So this is going back to now. The should I play up?
Speaker 1:Conversation is not unique in the school age. Yeah, you have this conversation with I don't know how many players and parents all the time already in the birth year. No, it happens. It's now going to happen a lot more because of this shift. That is going to happen, but once that shift happens, now you're back to. You know the cadence at least, or frequency of it is now, but you're going to have it a lot more in this upcoming year. If you are a coach, a parent, a player, a, a club director, whatever the case may be, um, but I would love your thoughts as someone that has been in and around the game and had this conversation I don't know how many times at this point, um, but go ahead and and dive into the, the, the trap that is, should my player play up?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, yeah. I think the the first thing would be if if we can kind of remove the glorification of that concept, because it really tends to be a parent driven concept, right, like the parents love the idea of their kid playing up and most kids don't really care, they just want to play. Uh, they want to play with their friends, they want to play whatever, and I very rarely have heard a nine-year-old kid like I think playing with older kids is going to be better for my development. We don't hear that from those kids. They just want to be with their friends and they want to play soccer and they want to learn and they want to compete at a level that's right, where maybe they're being pushed.
Speaker 2:No one likes to win every game by a bunch of goals. Nobody certainly wants to lose every game by a bunch of goals, and so if we can get the right competitive level, if it's the right social environment, if it's super fun, then the ones who really want to push and get to that higher level, they're going to do it because of how much they love it, not because they're in the older age group and they're being pushed and maybe being terrified by older kids or whatever it is, it can actually hinder growth more than it helps in a lot of cases.
Speaker 1:And I just want to reset for a second so that people understand what we mean by this is, even though you're shifting the registration deadlines, and the definition of that you could still, just like it is today roster players that are younger than that cutoff line. So, in my instance, I have six players that are August 1st to December 31st in 2016. I could, theoretically, in you know, talk in potentiality here you could choose to make that still your roster going forward. That would still comply with the new school age grouping and those registration deadlines. What that would mean, though, is that you are going to have, naturally, a younger team and, in some cases, significantly younger, significantly 17 months, up to 17 months. So I have a player that's born in December. They could be playing against a kid. You know, a December 2017 kid, under that scenario, could be playing against a player that was born in August of 2015. That's a 17 month gap that you are now potentially playing against, and so that is what we mean.
Speaker 1:When I asked Scott, should I consider fighting to be, you know, playing up or keeping on the same roster, or that's what we're talking about, and so I wanted to level set that because and and help people understand that that is a potential, you know that you might see and that's a choice, I'm not, you know. But and then you know, dive back into your play up, and I think you did a great job by calling out that a lot of the time, the glorification of it one, but then, two, that a lot of the time it's driven by the parents, yeah, yeah, so now talk, you know, once we can move past that, talk a little bit like developmentally, um, and you know, yeah, you may be able to, you may be an, a squad player now if you were to still try to move up and play. But I think what? Think what you and I have talked about, because we had this conversation with my son and Coach Chase because he played up to start in 4v4. But talk about development and what that does, and how do we think about that as a coach?
Speaker 2:and a player. Yeah, so I think we have a. We have a very small percentage of kids who develop when they have to fight for their lives. Right, and those do exist out there. There are those kids that when they have to fight for their lives, like they're going to find a way through it and they're going to develop. Most, I would say, in my experience, most of the kids and this is anecdotally, I don't have research on this it's considerable experience.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just to give you credit?
Speaker 2:Yes, and I'm sure there's research out there on this. My experience is that most kids develop when they're successful and when they're enjoying it, and that's where confidence comes from Right. And so I think we could. We could look at a player and say I might have a conversation with a parent that says, hey, we think the only way for this player, for my player, to get better, it's going to be if he gets a chance to play up with either a stronger team in the age group or with an older team. And I might look at the same kid and watch them play and say, actually, you know, what I think would be best is if they played on the lower team in our age group for a few games. Stay on your team, train with your team, whatever, but go get some game time with the team that's actually lower than your child's team. So if we have three teams in the age group, instead of moving from the second to the first, maybe play some games with the third. Play some games with the third and let's just experience what it is to lead to get confidence, to maybe play a different position, because they're such a critical piece of the success for the team. Let them feel what it feels like to be the reason that the team won a game or had success or turned the game around or whatever that is. And let's see what that does to them. And my experience and this is with my own kids, by the way, as players and they love the game and they've played it at all the different levels but they still will point back to a season.
Speaker 2:My oldest will point back to a season where he spent the entire season playing with the weakest team probably in our entire club. Every single game he played with that team. Now he was on his same team but he played every game with this other team as well, just to help them out, and he played as a center back when he's normally a striker or a winger. He played out of position, he had to talk, he had to communicate, he played with players who couldn't keep up and he just exploded in confidence that season and he exploded developmentally and socially and in leadership and in mentorship and saw the game differently. And now he's seeing the game like a coach and at the end of that year, when he goes back to his team, he was with them the whole time, but when he was fully just back with his own team. He's a completely different player as a result of that year Not playing up, that year playing, I guess, what people would say down. But for me it was just playing in a different environment that allowed him to develop different pieces of his game and different characteristics.
Speaker 2:And so I think that part is hard for parents maybe to process sometimes. I think kids tend to be great with it. Kids don't mind. Kids are so resilient and they're so durable and they don't view it as a team B team. Parents view it as a team B team. We don't mind, kids are so resilient and they're so durable and they don't view it as a team B team. Parents view it as a team B team. We don't as a club. We don't talk about it that way. I said it now because it paints a picture maybe clearer. But we don't talk about the A team and the B team and C team and all that kind of stuff. That's a parent thing and the parent label sometimes carries over to the kids and you can tell when a kid is talking about it and you can tell when a kid is talking about it. It didn't come from the parents. It's usually coming from the parents. It's not coming from the kid, the kid's not making that up, they're getting that from somewhere.
Speaker 2:And so when this shift takes place and we start talking about having teams, even now that are saying, well, this won't apply to our team, right, because we're pretty good. Well, yeah, you guys are very good, but yeah, I mean, we also don't want this kid to play 17 months up in games. That's not going to be great for that kid. That's not the environment he needs. He already is fighting to hang with this group because it's a very strong team and he's 12 months out. And the answer is parents, social, hotel trips, team travel, you know, whatever. All of that.
Speaker 2:It's all those pieces that are hard and they're real. Right Relationships are real and it's such a critical piece and relationships with coaches and relationships with teammates and family. This is community, man. Like, people come to our club and they find their community and they find their village and they find their people and this is now who they you know, they hang out with at holidays and we get families who end up going on vacations together and we see all those things happen within the soccer space. Yeah, so the shift is hard and I get it. But when we look as a club, sometimes we have to be the ones that just make the hard decision and say, ok, I get it, your team is good, you guys are good, but it's not right for us as a club to put you in this environment where now you're having to play these older kids and it's not going to be the right developmental environment and we're going to have to step in and make hard decisions. You know, probably most likely to make this stuff happen If it passes, yeah, if it passes, and they have, I mean Skip Gilbert from US Youth Soccer, the CEO.
Speaker 2:He's come out and said that the three organizations which, by the way, I'm super stoked that US Club, usys, ayso are coming together Are you kidding me? Like there's collaborative effort between the three of them to talk this through, and they put out's collaborative effort between the three of them to talk this through and they put out a joint statement between the three, which is really powerful, I think, for the youth soccer space, because it tends to be very fractured. Yes, and so to see those three organizations come together and have Skip Gilbert say hey, we want to do this in a way that minimizes, you know, the issues that we have or minimizes disruption within the teams. I don't know what that's going to look like. I don't know how you minimize disruption unless they do something, maybe with the oldest ages only or something like that.
Speaker 2:The reality is you have to disrupt across the younger ages and across the middle school ages. Maybe they try to figure something out for high school ages. I don't know. I really I have no idea what that might look like. But yeah, at the end of the day, somebody's going to have to make the decision that we're going to get these kids in the right environment for the kid and as clubs, I think we have a responsibility to do that and to even sometimes have hard conversations with mom or dad to say, hey, it's not because we don't like your kids, it's not because your kid's not good, it's because we do like them. It's because we think they're good and because we want them to grow and develop that we want to get them in the right environment and not one where they're just getting bullied by a kid who's double their size because they're 17 months older, and so I think that that kind of leads us into our last point.
Speaker 1:Maybe and then we'll wrap up is again, everyone is going to be okay, they got this, you've got it, the kids got it. But I think it's also really important if you're a parent or if you're a coach. Yes, this is going to cause change, and change is hard, especially if you've been rooted in that for and your teams have been together for however many years and to your point like relationships are real. Yeah, that is very real. We don't want to discount that at all. No, we love that. We love that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, does it mean that you can't hang out ever again and keep going on those trips and keep going over each other's houses and birthdays and godfathers, gods, all those things, absolutely not. It just is going to be, you know, mean you're not going to see each other twice a week for practice and and the hotel trips. Or you may be at the same tournament but you're not playing, and so you have the hotel trips and now you're just not on the field together, right? So change is hard, I think, but the important message I would personally convey, as someone that's been around the game, is your kids are going to take cues from their parents and their coaches. And so if you as a parent or a coach or whoever you are, mentor are viewing this as if it happens and you go into it with a negative attitude and you don't see the positives and lean into it and how is this going to be better? And go into it with open eyes, fresh heart, all the fresh eyes, fresh heart. You know all the fresh eyes, open heart, all those things the players are going to follow suit and what that's going to do is create disenfranchisement from the sport.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that, ultimately, is catastrophic for me. All I care about, I don't care about wins and losses, you know this I care about. Do my players fall more in love with the game after being done playing with me or from playing with me and I had a small part in that and they develop a greater love for the game and they can't get enough and they want to do more. And they develop a greater love for the game and they can't get enough and they want to do more and they sign up again to play next year, then I've done my job. That is going to be so much harder if everyone around them has a negative attitude about this change.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah and I think, yeah, that's a measure we give our coaches every year. Right, we measure success in our season based on how many of our kids want to come back next week, next month, next season, next year. Right, we measure success in our season based on how many of our kids want to come back next week, next month, next season, next year and play the game again, and that is such a huge measure of success for us. One of the things we talk about with our team managers across our club, who they're kind of our front lines of communication and will be a massive part of this as well, our team managers mostly moms and dads will be caught in the of this as well. They'll our team managers, you know, mostly moms and dads will be caught in the middle of a lot of the emotion that comes up around this change. You know we challenge them with a few things. One of those things is from the Weezer song if you want to destroy my sweater, pull this thread as I walk away like don't be a thread puller and let's put an end to thread pulling within, within our teams. And so when you, when you know that someone is just, they're just kind of tugging at. Well, the club doesn't, well, the U S soccer doesn't care if blah, blah, blah. When a parent's doing that in front of other parents, they're most likely doing that in front of their kid, and so to your point that that becomes toxic, or at least negative for that kid's experience in the sport, and they start to associate the sport with this negative reaction from mom or dad.
Speaker 2:Another thing we talk to our team managers about is make a small deal of things, Because it's easy to make a big deal of anything. So how can we find we have to make effort to make a small deal of something? And so can we look at this thing? That's a big thing and it's a hard thing, and can we figure out? What can we do to minimize the impact of this and lessen the blow for the kids and for the team, so that, man, they see that there is a bright future in the game and there's a bright future with whatever their team is going to look like and whoever their coach might be next year, and whatever that scenario might look like.
Speaker 2:That could be very different, it's still going to be fun and it's still going to be an awesome experience. Again, the kids give them three weeks in a new environment and and ask me after three weeks then come and tell me well, they're just not having as much fun as they were you. 99% of the time it's not happening, but kids are so resilient, they love it. It'll be mom and dad and it'll be grandma and grandpa. It'll be somebody related to the kid that's got to struggle with it. And so, on the front end, the more effort that they can make to just make a small deal of it I mean it is a deal. We don't have to hide it, we don't have to pretend like it's not happening. But let's make a small deal. It doesn't have to be a big thing, it doesn't have to be detrimental to the experience.
Speaker 1:And this is actually, you know, if you view it as an opportunity. One of the things I love about youth sports is that it builds character, it builds good human beings, and part of life is how do you deal with change, adversity, absolutely obstacles, whatever the case is, and this isn't necessarily an obstacle to shift, yeah right. So how do you positively approach a change and deal with it, acknowledge it again, deal with it in a good, positive, healthy way and move on with a good outlook for, you know, enjoyment and betterment of the game and a bright future and all those things. I think this is one of those opportunities again in the youth sports space that you know is kind of out of your control. There's things out of your control that you can't understand. All of these are life lessons and I love that about youth sports. And here's another one, an opportunity potentially coming up within the soccer space.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know it'd be.
Speaker 2:An interesting experiment would be to tell, make this announcement to a group of kids with no parents in the room and put cameras on that and see how the kids respond and see what questions the kids ask and see how they walk out of the room and then have the same exact conversation with that group of kids parents in a room where the kids are not in the room, and let's see how the parents respond and let's record all of that and then put those things side by side and say, ok, which group here is handling this with more maturity?
Speaker 2:Maybe? Which group here is handling this with with flexibility and with with the optimism and looking at it and saying, hey, this could be really cool. Wow, that kid's in my class at school and I've never been able to play with him because he's older or whatever that is. I think it would be a really healthy view for parents to watch how kids handle this, and the more that parents can step back from their own reaction to this and watch how the kids react Genuinely watch how the kids react. I think maybe our adults could learn a bit from watching the way that our kids handle change, adversity, a need to be flexible and relationships, and how they handle relationships that maybe are going to be harder because of this, and how they handle new relationships as they develop because of it.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Well, scott. I think that's great. I mean, there's so much more that we could talk about with this Um and it. There's so many layers to it and different side conversations. But for the purposes of today, I think, and what we wanted to do, I think we did that. Hopefully, you guys learned something. Um, you know again, keep watching this space. You'll talk with your club director and your coach and other parents and players and we'll all be on this journey together to see how it unfolds. But you know again, the important thing, everything is going to be fine. The kids are going to be fine. They got this.
Speaker 1:So that's it for this episode of Pitch to Pro. We hope you enjoyed it. Be sure to catch out. Catch all of our other episodes on pitch to procom or Apple, spotify, youtube, wherever you find your podcast content. We're there, check us out and until the next episode, we'll cut it there. Thank you for listening. Cheers, no fish circuits. Oh, thanks for joining us on this episode of the Pitch to Pro podcast. Be sure to tune in again in two weeks for the next installment and check out the Stoppage Time series for a recap of today's episode. Be sure to find us at Pitch to Pro on YouTube, instagram and everywhere you get your podcasts. Until next time, northwest Arkansas cheers.