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
Stoppage Time Special: The Impact of Playing Up in Youth Sports
Could the decision to have young athletes play up in age groups redefine their sports journey? Join us in this Stoppage Time edition of the Pitch to Pro podcast as we unravel the intricacies of this crucial subject. We promise to equip you with insights into whether playing up is truly beneficial for your child's development or if it’s a parent-driven illusion. This episode spotlights the impact that an age group shift can have on players born between August 1st and December 31st, a crucial timeframe that could leave young athletes either invigorated or overwhelmed.
Our conversation highlights the importance of finding the right balance between competition and enjoyment, ensuring young athletes remain motivated by their passion for the game rather than external pressures. We share firsthand experiences and expert opinions on maintaining current rosters versus embracing the challenge of playing up. Through this engaging dialogue, we emphasize the need for a supportive social environment that fosters growth and camaraderie. Tune in to discover strategies for navigating these critical decisions within the world of youth sports.
Welcome to the Stoppage Time edition of the Pitch to Pro podcast. This is a highlight reel of some of the best moments from the show so far, and every other week we will be bringing you a special five to seven minute segment featuring the best stories, tales and moments of the podcast. And so that leads nicely into, I think, what is going to 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, 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.
Speaker 1:The should I play up 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 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 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, a player, a club director, whatever the case may be. 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, but go ahead and and dive into the, the, the trap that is, should my player play up?
Speaker 2: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. 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 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.
Speaker 1:That's a 17 month gap that you are now potentially playing against, and so that is what we mean when I ask Scott should I consider fighting to be 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.
Speaker 1:You know that you might see and that's a choice I'm not, you know, but and then you know, dive back into should 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 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 well, it's considerable experience, yeah, just to give you credit like yes, and I'm sure there's research out there on this.
Speaker 2:My experience is that most kids develop when they're successful and they, they, and when they're enjoying it and um, 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 is 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 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.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining us for this stoppage time special of the Pitch to Pro podcast. If you've enjoyed the conversation, you can click watch the full episode here. Be sure to tune in next Thursday for a new episode of the Pitch to Pro podcast, the official podcast of Ozark United FC, Available on YouTube, Instagram and everywhere you get your podcasts.