L’s soccer starts again in August. I had to register her for her travel season on Monday. Travel season usually consists of both Fall and Spring, with an optional indoor season in the winter. She’s been playing soccer since the 4th grade. She’s been playing travel soccer since the 5th grade, with the exception of 7th grade when we moved. That year she wanted to concentrate on making new friends in school and not worry about making new friends on a new travel team as well. I left that decision up to her, and she regretted it because she decided to play travel soccer again for a new team her 8th grade year.
This year the club she plays travel for has completely revamped what they include in their program. This is a good thing, but it ended up being costly for me. They now have three practices a week instead of two. They have a mandatory pre-season camp which was optional in prior years. They include the indoor season in their fees (indoor was optional in previous years) and include one indoor practice a week (there were no practices before) as well as their coach. Previous indoor seasons were run by a parent and were really just a way to keep the girls’ foot on the ball between seasons. They’re also including two tournaments this year instead of one as in previous years. OK, that’s a lot of stuff they’re adding, and it’s all good stuff, but it’s costing me $810 this year as opposed to $350 the previous two years. Holy Moly!
L originally started playing travel soccer in the 5th grade for a team that was, to put it nicely, crap. I paid a lot of money for the travel season for two years and she really got nothing out of it. Supposedly a chunk of the money was going for the professional trainer who attended her practices. However, he never showed up to any games, so how was he supposed to know what they needed to work on if he never saw them when it counted? The “coach” was a father of twin girls on the team, and all he ever did at games was scream at the girls from the sidelines. It was embarrassing to be around and more embarrassing for the girls playing.
She began to get really discouraged when they had won only 2 games in two seasons. The year that team increased their fee is when we were moving, so I promised L that if she wanted to play travel soccer we’d find a different team. That was when she decided to take a season off. 8th grade year she tried out for her current team. There weren’t enough players to make a U14 team (her age bracket at the time) so they played those girls up a level to the U15 team; which was a Freshman team. This meant that she only had a fall season to play. The high school level girls’ teams only play a fall season because high school plays girls soccer in the spring. The rule with the IHSA (Illinois High School Association) is that if you play for a high school team you can’t play for any other club at the same time. So bottom line, we only had to pay for half a season plus the indoor season which was extra and not mandatory.
The following year, last year, was similar in that there weren’t enough girls to play a U15 team so they played all those girls up a level again to U16. That year L was a Freshman so she also played only the Fall season for travel then played for the high school in the Spring. She really enjoyed playing for the high school, but was discouraged about halfway through the season. Her high school didn’t cut any freshman from any sport. Stupid if you ask me. I don’t think it helps anyone to be automatically accepted. How will you learn rejection in real life? Whatever. L was really pissed that she had to explain off sides, corner kicks, free throws, etc to girls who barely knew what the ball was. I told her it was life lesson on patience and understanding. Either way, she’s looking forward to playing next year if only due to the fact that they have cuts for JV and Varsity teams.
Before her indoor season started this previous year some of her teammates decided they didn’t want to play. One of those who didn’t play was the teams’ goalie. And this girl is REALLY good. None of the other girls had played that position. Somehow the parent running the indoor was able to hook up with two girls who wanted to play indoor but didn’t have a team to play on. The two girls were from L’s original travel team! One of them was a goalie but this poor girl sucked. The first game she let 7 balls into the net. The second game she let 6 into the net, the third game she let 8 into the net, and that was the last game anyone saw her at. Her family never called the parent in charge, never returned any of his phone calls or emails either. We think she was too embarrassed to return. It was so funny to watch them bicker over who “got to be goalie” after she left. They were actually vying for the position! We had a really crappy indoor season, but the girls understood that it didn’t really count for anything.
During one of the last games the coach from her original team showed up. He was there to coach his oldest daughter’s indoor team. Because he knew the two (by that time, one) girls who we picked up from his team for indoor he stopped to chat with those parents and watch a little of the game. He recognized me and made some comment that was supposed to be a joke about how disappointed he was that L had left “his” team, and how mad he was at me at the time, but the way he said it I knew he wasn’t really joking. I imagine he was pretty mad at the time. When L left “his” team she was probably one of his best players. I thought about saying something snotty back, because that’s how I am, but decided that a soccer game wasn’t the time or place. There were too many little kids around!
Now I have to go see how much gymnastics will cost for K…
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