Moving players up

AYSO national does not approve of moving players up in divisions. All teams are balanced, with new, average and good players. Moving players up throws team balancing off and takes away access to better players for the new kids. Better players help new players improve.

This has the same destructive effect as being a feeder pool for a travel league. The good players help elevate the skills of the new players. you can see the progress over the course of the season.

I heard travel soccer is better?

This is simply not true at all. It's usually coming from a parent who is pushing their kids and want you to do the same. It is a different type of program altogether. While there are some great coaches who may be more skilled, this does not represent all of them. We have some great coaches right here in AYSO and we are working to bring the level of coaching up across the board. Our program is designed for the kids, not the parents egos. We have more players moving from travel to AYSO then players moving from AYSO to travel.

AYSO is becoming the last bastion against the professionalization of youth sports. It’s amazing to see some of the injuries being suffered by younger and younger children, injuries you expect from college or professional players. From the profit motive of organizers, to the select parents who want to feel their kids are better then yours, what is the benefit for the kids? We are part of a national organization whose primary focus is bringing quality youth soccer in a positive, safe and fun environment.

Our focus is positive coaching and good sportsmanship, not winning at all cost. We do teach kids to be winners, but we keep the game in perspective to the rest of their life. Kids should have a diverse set of activities; soccer shouldn't eat up 3-4 days a week. Push them to excel in academics!

AYSO games are competitive and they get more competitive as they get older, just with plenty of good sportsmanship! Each team is balanced with great players and average players. The great players help the average players improve. AYSO teams can and do beat travel teams in tournaments every year, maybe not alway ending in first place, but it shows travel teams are not always better.

Plus, every kid in AYSO plays half to three quarters of every game, which will not happen in travel soccer. There is no guarantee of any game time. At the end of the day, the kids just want to play.

Travel soccer is also incredibly expensive, you could easily spend thousands of dollars or more per year, once you include coach fees, trainers, referee fees, tourmanet fees, etc fees. It also requires a lot more dedication from the players and the parents. And with the cost of gas, ouch on the travel (it can be all over the state).

AYSO has consistently been the largest soccer program in the community for a reason. We continue to grow with just the kids in the Romeo School system; travel's growth comes from outside our community.

What about scholarships? Good luck there. Even if you’re in a Premiere Travel league like Vardar, your chances are very slim with so many leagues competing. If you’re in a standard travel league, they’re even slimmer. Romeo has a league and Shelby has 7 travel leagues, you get the idea. Let your kids play affordable soccer and save the extra money for college. It's very doubtful the avaerage scholarship given would recoup the money spent on a premiere travel team.

Recently, while watching a AYSO U19 game, I observed a group of girls from a travel team heckling and making fun of every play and they were brutal. Every kick or throw in had a negative comment and/or loud laugh. Not that there were any bad plays, it was a good game. I would never expect to see such unsportsmanlike and cruel behavior from a kid in AYSO. We don’t allow it. Everything in AYSO is about good sportsmanship in a positive environment.

We are not a feeder pool for a travel league, that means our primary focus is on your kids. Feeder pools generate money for travel leagues and give them a pool of players to recruit from. They are usually run as a afterthought, the quality of the program comes second to the travel teams. Complaints would result in respsones like, "it's just rec soccer". It was responses like this that demonstrated why AYSO needed to be run as a primary program. We have been very successful in improving our program by finding volunteers who just do AYSO. When they do both, travel will come first.