Parent’s Sideline: Commitment

My son started playing soccer when he was five years old. We had just moved to Virginia and I had a very active boy who needed a physical outlet. As my husband had experience with soccer, I called up the local league and signed Max up. Fearful that there might not be a spot for Max, my husband volunteered to help coach a team. The yellow Bulldogs came into existence and thus began our son’s and our journey into the world of soccer.

As soccer is growing in popularity, it is also becoming more competitive, even at younger ages. If your child shows promise and enjoys the sport, you have to decide what you are willing to put into the sport as well, because I don’t know of a single young man or woman playing soccer today at the high school and college levels who got there without commitment from their parents as well.

There are several types of commitment, first of all, from the player. It doesn’t matter what parents are willing to do to help, if the child isn’t willing to put in the time and effort to be the best they can be. There are also the commitment of time, money, and support.

When kids are very young, there are only local house league teams. There teams typically practice once a week and hold a game each weekend. The coaches are usually parent volunteers and your expenses don’t go beyond a uniform, cleats, and snacks, when it is your turn to provide them.

However, once your child makes a select team, practices are often 2-3 times a week, with games on the weekend and tournaments on holiday weekends. These select teams, also called travel teams, do just that. Divided into divisions, with Division I being the most skilled teams, you try out for these teams, and are accepted or rejected. The goal is to find the best team you can, and the highest division you can. Select teams travel around a certain geographical area during league play, and are admitted to tournaments based upon their record. So as parents, you need to be ready to get your son or daughter to all the practices and games. If you can’t do it yourself, then carpools are a good way to go. I have seen more than one good player lose playing time, or get dropped completely, because they (or their parents) aren’t committed to the team.

There is also a commitment of money. I would estimate that we spent a couple of thousand dollars each year on soccer uniforms, cleats, gas to and from practices and games, snacks, and going to tournaments. As your child and his/her team become older and more skillful, there could also be hefty fees for coaches, indoor soccer, and summer camps. We are not a wealthy family, so the money was carefully budgeted, but well worth it.

Finally there is the commitment of support. By the time Max was ten, it was apparent that he was an excellent player. His aggressiveness, speed, and skill made him a force to be reckoned with on the field. However, it soon became apparent, even with a paid coach, that Max was far better than most of his teammates. We had to make the choice, and it was a difficult one, to leave his team and find a better team for Max. Max made the district ODP team and through that we learned about other teams and their tryouts. In the end, Max was accepted on a team that was an hour away. This took a large commitment on my part (yes, ladies, we often get the brunt of carpooling) to see that Max made it to practices and games on time. This commitment was not easy as my husband was traveling a great deal and I work full time as a teacher and could not get off work early. So finding a carpool became essential if Max were to succeed on this new team.

Moving to this new team was necessary in order for Max to move on to the next level of play. In the years to come, Max would make two other team moves, but never again were the moves as hard as the first one, where good friends were left behind. And once we took this leap into a new realm of time and commitment, we were ready for the next stage, the Olympic Development Program.