I will be speaking about my forthcoming book, Single-Digit Soccer: Snazzy Subtitle to Come, on Jan. 17 at the NSCAA Convention in Philadelphia. (Yes, I’m on at the same time as a Laura Harvey presentation, but she’s doing several, so you can still see both of us.)

Single-Digit Soccer is about youth soccer, specifically the “single-digit” years — ages 9 to 6, 5, 3, etc. For parents, it’s a guidebook through all the complexities, oddities and entertaining bits of youth soccer. For coaches and administrators, it’s a plea for sanity.

The presentation will be for coaches (though some of them are surely parents as well). I’ll be dealing with issues and radical ideas, a few of which I’ve already addressed in blog posts:

– Why play travel? What you think is wrong

– Learning from Little League baseball

– Give U10 travel the boot

– An alternative to tryout-based travel

– Don’t specialize … really

– Dissension in the ranks (from last year’s NSCAA)

– Flunk the 2-3-1 (I’m a little disturbed that this is the most popular post in the series)

– Great moments in halftime speeches

– Parental habits develop early

– Can youth soccer be an afterschool program?

Catch up on all of the posts and get ready for more in 2015. Tentative book release date: June 2015.

You’ve seen plenty of skepticism in this space — and at U.S. Youth Soccer — about separating “travel” players from “rec” players before the age of 12, much less the age of 10. But the skepticism isn’t about the idea of having “travel” experiences — being paired with good teammates and good coaches, playing similarly skilled teams, and actually traveling more than 15 minutes away … on occasion. On the contrary, my sense for now is that “travel” should be open to more players and less exclusionary.

If you can make a strong case for or against that argument, please meet up with me at the NSCAA Convention in January. Or leave a comment. I want to hear all the arguments.

But today, I’m going back to the roots of “travel” from the parental perspective. Perhaps it’s just to smack around a few of the more elitist and ignorant (a redundancy?) people at a local parenting message board, but I think some other good may come out of my ranting here.

The question is this: Why do kids play “travel” at all?

The assumption some people make is that they play “travel” because their parents think they’re truly awesome players who are going to be the next Mia Hamm, Messi or some other player they’ve heard of. And yes, a few of those parents exist:

(No, I don’t know why this conversation is taking place in Beijing.)

Like all single-minded people, they fail to see that other people’s thoughts are more diverse. They think everyone wants the same thing. And so you see these people on message boards saying Club X is ripping off players by … letting them play travel when they’re not that good.

I never said this argument made sense.

In any case — some travel parents are more realistic and well-adjusted than the mom in the video or the stereotypical scholarship-chaser. They know their kids are likely to go no further than the local high school team. (In fact, in some cases, that’s the ultimate goal. Making a high school team isn’t easy.)

They play for these reasons:

1. The bonding experience of playing on a traveling team.

2. The training to keep up with the game so that they can play in high school, or in intramurals, or as an adult — or even a higher-level travel player should the opportunity arise. (Remember — puberty and growth spurts have a funny way of shaking up kids’ athleticism, and as much as we’d like to pretend athleticism doesn’t matter in soccer, those wonderful ball skills mean little if everyone on the field is three steps faster.)

3. Rec soccer can be frustrating. Teammates might not show up. Parent coaches may or may not know what they’re doing.

All of which are legitimate reasons.

So is it fair to accuse clubs of swindling parents by letting them spend extra money on a soccer experience that’s a little more serious than rec?

Consider the other things your kids might do. Piano lessons. Karate. Musical theater. Gymnastics. Ballet.

Are you spending money on those things because you think your kids might get scholarships or professional opportunities? Probably not. Should you be offended if some other kids who’s less talented than yours is taking the same class or visiting the same teacher? Definitely not. If your kid goes to an Ivy League school, should you complain about all the kids going to other schools in the U.S. News Top 25? Of course not.

So why do we get bent out of shape that our local “travel” clubs aren’t excluding more kids?

It’s not the central point of Bob Cook’s latest post, but it’s a good point that I have planned to raise in the book: Look, some kids are going to quit, and it’s not the end of the world.

And he gets credit for a terrific analogy:

But the more I read of this discussion — and all the fun-determinants that are a part of it — perhaps some re-thinking is in order. First, that 30 percent of a large cadre of children is sticking with anything is probably a victory, giving my research into the Christmas Gifts that Sat Unused A Few Weeks Later.

via Adults Are Thinking Too Hard About How To Make Youth Sports Fun.

I fell out of love with baseball in young adulthood. MLB commissioner Bud Selig radiated arrogance. I’d read enough about soccer and American exceptionalism to view the game as cultural imperialism, complete with its mythical origins that hid the game’s roots in foreign sports. My experience with high school baseball coaches and parents from my local newspaper days skewed negative.

Then there’s the D.C. situation, where Selig and company extorted more than $600 million off the Washington government to build Nationals Park. The city will be paying for that one for years to come, while D.C. United is left begging for a land swap just so they can build their own field before RFK Stadium finally turns to dust. (To this day, I refuse to set foot in Nationals Park. I might change my mind when D.C. United finally completes its own place.)

But one of my kids wanted to play Little League with a few of his friends this spring, and I went along with it. I even wound up helping out a bit, coaching at first base and keeping the lineup card on occasion.

And it was fun.

Little League and youth baseball as a whole do a lot of things right — some little, some big.

1. Kids progress at their own pace. New to the game at age 7 or 8? You might be in “Rookie ball” or “Single-A,” mirroring pro baseball’s minor-league system. More advanced? Try out for “Double-A,” where kids take over pitching duties from the coaches and score is kept for the first time. Then “Triple-A” and eventually the “Majors,” where everyone winds up by age 12. (Local leagues have the authority to set the specifics.)

Compare this to soccer, where players are rigidly herded into teams by their birthdates. Advanced players can “play up” on occasion, but it’s rare that a newcomer is allowed to “play down.”

2. Cool uniforms. When the Little League Athletes play the Cardinals, the players all look like miniaturized major leaguers. We don’t seem to do this in soccer. I’ve seen a few organizations that have “Fire” and “Rapids” T-shirts, but they look nothing like the MLS team apparel.

(I think Eric Wynalda, a baseball fan as well as a soccer Hall of Famer, once made a similar point.)

3. Rec trumps travel. The Little League World Series isn’t a competition of travel teams. It’s a collection of All-Star teams from local Little Leagues. And no matter what you think of the wisdom of shining such a bright spotlight on 12-year-old kids, it’s clearly the biggest event in youth sports.

Our town has several scattered baseball fields, but there’s a “home park” with a couple of fields and some walls with plaques bearing the names not of travel teams that won State Cups, but of teams that won the local leagues.

Travel baseball exists. But you don’t hear much about it. I never heard a parent talking about it at our Little League games. It’s not a big topic in our elementary school. Our local message boards aren’t full of anonymous parents trashing each other’s baseball clubs like they do with the soccer clubs.

And the mindset of the baseball parent was set down in this landmark Washington Post opinion piece this year, fighting back on Little League’s behalf against the growth of travel baseball.

But soccer is different, you might argue. Well, yes, it is. For one thing, a “good” soccer player can be dragged down by teammates. Baseball players can come from tiny high schools — a good bat and a 95-mph fastball stand out no matter what kind of competition a player is facing. A good soccer player can only do so much if his or her team never gets the ball. So soccer players have more incentive to play with similarly skilled teammates and face solid competition to prove that their goals aren’t just flukes of playing against bad teams.

This is the age to teach soccer. A gifted soccer player needs to hone skills and test them against good defenders at ages 8-12. Most doctors and baseball experts agree a gifted baseball pitcher shouldn’t even learn how to throw a curveball until his teens.

Yet many aspects of youth baseball can translate. Soccer players can get additional training, as many baseball players do, without segregating themselves from their classmates and friends. MLS would surely benefit from having some brand identity in the youth ranks.

Specifics aside, the big lesson to take from Little League baseball is that it’s fun. It’s creating good associations with the sport.

Travel soccer, on the other hand, simply demands too much and gives too little. I talked recently with one parent of a talented athlete who lamented an upcoming two-hour drive to West Virginia for a one-hour game. In baseball, she never traveled more than 15 minutes for her son to play for two hours. They’re ditching travel soccer in the fall.

Here’s what Steve Rushin recently wrote for Sports Illustrated (I didn’t find it online: it’s p. 96 of the June 9 issue) about seeing his kids in Little League:

Little League is celebrating its 75th anniversary this month and is a powerful gateway drug to Major League Baseball fandom. And so my children, three of whom started playing Little League this spring, have become suddenly hooked on the big league game as well.

Rushin wasn’t excited because his kids might become travel baseball stars, college scholarship material or pro draft picks. He was excited because his kids had learned to love the game.

Is youth soccer “a powerful gateway drug” to soccer? Or is it creating negative associations of overbearing parents, flunked tryouts, and long, lonely car rides?

As we concluded in the last post and confirmed from about 95% of the comments here and on Facebook, U9/U10 travel tryouts that segregate “travel” and “recreational” (“House”) players are something no one likes and everyone does anyway. Realistically, we’re not backing away completely from elite-ish soccer at that age.

So what are the alternatives? I’ll toss out a few:

1. Part-time travel. We’re already doing it at U8 in my region — at least, we’re supposed to be, but some clubs treat it as U8 travel in everything but name. Your club’s serious U8 players sign up for a program with extra training sessions under a pro coach’s watchful eye, and they play a couple of friendly games against similar teams from other clubs.

U9 and U10 are the perfect ages to continue a program like that. That’s where we move up from the 4v4 or 5v5 games into full-fledged soccer games of 7v7 or 8v8. Clubs can monitor all their players as they make that transition.

Players and their families would get to keep a foot in each world. Players can face diverse competition, challenging themselves against the elites while gaining confidence to try out what they’re learning in a more relaxed recreational setting.

2. All-Star tournaments. We already have these for House leagues — starting at U8 in our region. One postseason tournament each season. Maybe we could have a couple per season and rotate the “All-Stars.”

3. One season for House, one season for travel. Some players — please sit down so you can digest this — don’t want to spend the whole year playing one sport at age 9. And countless studies suggest it’s a pretty stupid idea to do that, anyway.

So why not offer House in the fall and spring, giving everyone a chance to play one sport per season and still sample different things, and offer travel only in the spring? You’ll have a good House league in the fall, a mix of players that includes your travel-quality players. Spring-only travel will be more affordable. Plenty of advantages.

4. Open travel to everyone. Why segregate into “House” and “travel” at all? If someone wants to get good coaching and a cool jersey at an age well before we know anything about their future athletic careers, why not let him or her do it?

Before tonight’s local youth soccer club house league coaches’ meeting, I wound up in a conversation that veered from All-Star team selection to a coach complaining that his world-beating team was broken up.

“Why do they need to do that?” this guy asked.

I tried some self-deprecating humor: “So teams like mine don’t get blown out every week.”

His abrupt response: “Coach better!”

I laughed for a second. Then I realized he wasn’t laughing. Only two possibilities: He has a terrific poker face, or he was serious. I tried to find something to say that would fit both scenarios. That’s not easy. James Bond has it easy — he knows when people are messing with him.

He doubled down, saying a couple of things that made it clear he was, in fact, not joking. I thought about trying to convey that I’ve covered youth soccer issues, but I think just babbled something along the lines of “I … write … things … soccer …”

The meeting started, interrupting the conversation. While my mind wandered a little (sorry, yes, it happens), it occurred to me I could ask him afterwards which age group he coached. Surely he didn’t mean to sound so harsh and would appreciate a chance to be heard. Then I could tell him I’m working on a book on youth soccer and would value his input.

After all, parity in house leagues is a legitimate issue. Blowouts aren’t fun for anyone. But you hate to tell a bunch of kids they can’t play with their friends just because they’re too good. I like hearing from parents and coaches on issues like this.

Meeting ends. I turn and ask what age group he coached. “Why don’t you ask (so-and-so) — we did fine against his team.”

So I won’t really have anything for the book from this conversation.

On the way out, I mentioned the conversation to a friend of mine. He pointed out that if the guy think he’s such a great coach, he should be able to win all his games with whichever kids they assign him. Good one.

They say to check your ego at the door if you’re going to be a youth soccer coach. Particularly in a recreational league in which the luck of the draw may or may not give you good athletes, your “results” may or may not match your coaching skill. I’ve coached good teams and not-so-good teams, and I think I’ve done a better job with the not-so-good teams. I’ve seen terrific coaches who do everything they’re supposed to do and still lose, and I’ve seen utterly clueless coaches win. I have my clueless moments, and my teams sometimes win in spite of me.

It’s soccer. It’s about players. As a coach, you measure success by two metrics — how much did players improve, and how much did they enjoy the experience?

And if I do my job too well, my players might move (and, in fact, have moved) to travel teams. Maybe I should coach worse.

The chorus against specializing in one sport at an early age is growing.

Just today, I’ve stumbled into two pieces:

– Specific: NPR on kids suffering back injuries.

– General: Changing the Game author John O’Sullivan at Potomac Soccer Wire, presenting mountains of data.

It’s such a temptation, isn’t it? Your awesome athletes get overrun by a team that’s practicing twice a week through the whole school year and doing a few things in the summer, and you feel like you need to keep up, right?

(Of course, it’s also tempting for me to print out O’Sullivan’s piece and present it to the gloating parents in our indoor league, but that’s another rant.)

For the Single-Digit Soccer book, I’ve already interviewed a lot of famous athletes. The vast majority played more than one sport growing up.

So you need to ask — is it your goal to develop a good high school (or college or even beyond) soccer player and a well-rounded person? Or to win U9 games?

Update: Thanks to Setting the Table for pointing me to a radio discussion with John O’Sullivan and radio host Marc Amazon. I like the host. Then he gets a scary caller — “Dave from Columbus,” who says he’s a coach of elite 9- and 10-year-old football players. He’s not worried about burnout because the only players who burn out are the ones that stink.

So, so many things wrong with that statement:

1. What can you tell about a kid at 10 years old? You can’t even tell that much at age 17. Freddy Adu and Lionel Messi were once close to the same level. U17 stars wash out all the time. So you’re telling me you can tell who’s a good player and who isn’t before kids even hit puberty? Suppose your good little running back goes through a growth spurt and ends up 6-4 and scrawny? Suppose your big lineman doesn’t grow much more? Suppose you had a 9-year-old who was going through a clumsy growth spurt and settled into being a pretty good athlete by age 11, and you told him to go away at age 10?

2. What’s the point? You just want to coach kids who look like the total package at age 9, and the rest can just go sit on the sofa?

3. “If these kids don’t specialize, how are they going to make any money?” How many pros do you know, Dave? How many of them specialized? Not many. A lot of NBA players played other sports. I can’t think of a soccer player I’ve interviewed who played nothing else.

But Dave is also an old-school soccer basher who thinks soccer is a sport for weaklings and isn’t American. Bully for him.

I think Dave has built a business convincing parents they need to pay him so little Billy will be a D1 football player. And guess what? No one can promise that. I’m not going to call Dave from Columbus an outright fraud, but he’s not looking good.

“So how do I know you’re not an absolute idiot,” Amazon asks him. Good question. The next caller also buries Dave, pointing out how many prominent NFL players are crossover athletes. Some NFL players barely even played football growing up. And there’s another three-word argument: Michael. Jordan. Baseball.

So Dave clearly falls into the Friday Night Tykes school of stubborn old-school idiocy. We don’t have any of those coaches in soccer. Right?

Another update: Another tangentially related link — participation levels in youth sports are dropping as the “casual” player is left out.

A few sessions at the NSCAA convention made a couple of things clear to me:

1. Not everyone’s buying into the U.S. Soccer curriculum.

2. Not everyone’s buying into the Development Academy.

Tackling the second point first: A session on the Development Academy and high school soccer, which have been separated for all eternity by the U.S. Soccer powers that be, turned into a gripe session about the Academy.

One of the gripers is Steve Nichols (no, not Steve Nicol), a Baltimore coach who ditched the successful Baltimore Bays to form a new club called Baltimore Celtic, which is heavily populated by ex-Bays. He’s also a high school coach at McDonogh, one of several strong Baltimore teams, and he didn’t see the point in barring his players from high school play, particularly when the Academy only gave his Bays 4-5 challenging games. He’d rather take his Celtic teams to big tournaments all over the place (sponsorship helps).

Nichols may come across as outlandish, but the standings back up his claim that his Bays cruised through their Academy divisions. (They’re a little less dominant now that so many players have gone to Celtic.) And he’s not alone — Alecko Eskandarian, the MLS veteran and former Philadelphia Union youth technical director now working with the New York Cosmos, said he “cringes at the thought” of some of the lesser clubs being called “academies.”

Nichols also didn’t like top-down approach from administrators who weren’t distinguished players or coaches: “Why should (they) tell Alecko Eskandarian and Jeff Cook (Union coach, another panelist) what to do?”

No one on the panel was much of a fan of denying Academy kids the high school experience. Eskandarian said he needed to play high school and have responsibility. Colorado coach Theresa Echtermeyer said she’s going to her 20-year high school reunion, not her 20-year soccer club reunion.  (That said, Eskandarian also liked what the Union was doing in setting up a high school along with its Academy program.)

How does all this affect the single-digit years? Indirectly, sure. But Academy programs continue to trickle down into “pre-Academy” years as well, as do rivals such as Baltimore Celtic, which has tryouts all the way down to U8.

And the resistance against the top-down approach to youth soccer is clear elsewhere as well. In some cases, no one ever tried to push it seriously — for all the talk of trying to hold off on competitive soccer at young ages, those of us at a recreational soccer session agree that our tryout-based soccer is starting at U10, U9 … U6? “Times are changing,” muttered the man who settled at the back of the room and said his club was selecting players at U6.

Then there’s the curriculum.

It’s not that people were voicing specific criticisms of the work Claudio Reyna unveiled a couple of years ago. But neither are they taking it as something every club should follow.

A session in the NSCAA Club Standards series — surprisingly crowded given the dry title “Implementing a Curriculum for Player Development” — was based on the assumption that one size does not fit all. Clubs should feel free to pick and choose from the U.S. Soccer, U.S. Youth Soccer, Canadian or any other curriculum.

Another session raised a tough question: “Coalescing the USSF, USYS, and NSCAA Curricula for U8-U10: Can it be done?” (I had to leave early for the NWSL Draft, so I don’t know the answer.)

The differences aren’t vast. It’s not as if one group is striving for a possession game while another urges kids to boot it upfield to a lumbering forward. But the disagreements jump out of the charts. U.S. Soccer rates “passing” as one of the top skills a U6 should learn; another curriculum doesn’t even check off passing until U8. (I know of some coaches who insist kids can’t grasp the concept until U9.) U.S. Youth Soccer suggests several tactical teachings at U6 and U8 — USSF has nothing.

Massachusetts coach Mike Singleton had the tough task of leading this session, but he brought an open mind. In Spain, Singleton said, a club can lose its charter if it doesn’t follow the federation’s dogma. That’s not the U.S. way.

So whether it’s diversity or chaos, U.S. youth soccer isn’t going to a “one size fits all” approach any time soon. Is that a good thing?