I will join Tim in this. My son has been playing soccer for four years now, both indoor and outdoor. Our closest playground is a part time operation, but they fielded 8 and under 10 and under 12 and under etc for indoor and out door. That is until this year.
I have been pretty happy with our experience until last year's indoor league. The reason for the dissatisfaction was the apparent lack of interest by the coach. A young man with very good skills. But practices were not skill building they were experience building, which does help. Part of my problem with this approach is I wanted my son to learn some skills. But most of the players had pretty decent skills. In fact one had a father who played on the Mexican National team and plays adult soccer in the cities. This year our Playground couldn't field a 10 and under team for indoor soccer. My son was offered a chance to play on a 12 and under team or go to a second playground. Not wanting to match a third grader with a 6th grader, we chose the alternative playground. The problem is the second playground never returned my phone calls. They never called to tell me when the first practice was etc. If I hadn't stopped by the playground to try to run into staff, we would have missed more then the first practice. This team, coached by last year's indoor coach, had a group of kids who never played soccer. One boy had some decent skills. My son had some knowledge of the game but lacked the skills. The rest were playing for the first time. So he had to work on skills, Did a pretty decent job too. Unfortunately, he missed two of the games. Leaving me to coach. My concern this year is we had a two game schedule and then a four game schedule. I assume this was done to allow the city to make sure they had all the teams covered. The problem was we played the two teams from the two game schedule again in the four game schedule. Not much for variety. Although the kids liked going to the same gym each week. I will finish by agreeing with Tim about the directions. If I had followed the directions to Hancock, I would never have made the first game. It sent people east on 94. All in all, my experience isn't bad. My son has met a new group of kids and they were of similar experience and skill. Mike Fratto Payne Phalen >>> "Tim Erickson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 04/16/2005 2:15:47 PM >>> I posted the earlier announcement, partly because I've been meaning to bring up this topic in this forum for a long time. Its registration time for Spring sports at local parks. I'm wondering how satisfied folks are with the youth sports programs being offered at local parks? As a parent with kids that have been participating on city organized teams for about five years now, I'd have to say, that I'm fairly unhappy with the service that I've been getting at local parks. A couple of quick anecdotes, then I'd like to hear from others..... 1) One of the first years I signed my son up for soccer, I indicated on the registration form that I would be willing to help coach. I never heard back from anyone. We finally got a phone call, giving us 1 day notice for a "parent meeting." As I had other plans that night, my wife took my son to the meeting. When she got home, she asked me if I knew that I was the coach. Which, I didn't. I had never been notified or formally asked to take the job. I did take the job and loved it. 2) Last year for soccer, we were told at Park A that my 10 year old son was ineligible to play on the 10 & under soccer team (he just turned 10 during the season). He was also told that park A had no 12 & under team for him to join. We went to Park B. At park B we were told that my son DID belonged on the 10 and under team (which made sense to us). At his first practice, there we 7 year olds on the 10 and under team, because they had been told that Park B had no 8 and under team. I asked the park staff and was told the same thing. Later in the season, I learned that Park A did have a 12 & under team. Remember, I went to Park B because I was told they had no 12 & under team. I also learned, that despite at least 3 parents being told that Park B had no 8 and under team, in fact Park B did have an 8 and under team. At the end of the season, I also learned - that in fact, my 10 year old son was ineligible to play on the 10 and under team, because he would be turning 11 some 10 months after the end of the season. He and his other 10 year old friend finished the final 1-2 games of the season, despite being a year to old (actually, they were both less than 2 months too old). 3) I remember talking to another parent who showed up at an "away" game for the final 10 minutes of the game, with a daughter who was in tears, because they had spent the last 45 minutes driving around the city, based upon written instructions from our "home" park staff, that had at least 2 clear and distinct errors in them. I've had quite a few other experiences of this type, but these are the ones that stand out in my mind. Yes, there are some very good folks that are working very hard in this underfunded system. But, I must say, the youth sports program is definitely the city service with which I have had the most problems in recent years. Overall, I'm an unhappy and reluctant client of these programs. Anyone else care to comment? Best wishes, Tim Erickson Hamline Midway [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- ================================================= Tim Erickson http://www.politalk.com St. Paul, MN - USA 651-643-0722 [EMAIL PROTECTED] iChat/AIM: stpaultim ================================================= ------------------------------------------------- JOIN the St. Paul Issues Forum TODAY: http://www.e-democracy.org/stpaul/ ------------------------------------------------- POST MESSAGES HERE: [email protected] To subscribe, modify subscription, or get your password - visit: http://www.mnforum.org/mailman/listinfo/stpaul Archive Address: http://www.mnforum.org/mailman/private/stpaul/ ------------------------------------------------- JOIN the St. Paul Issues Forum TODAY: http://www.e-democracy.org/stpaul/ ------------------------------------------------- POST MESSAGES HERE: [email protected] To subscribe, modify subscription, or get your password - visit: http://www.mnforum.org/mailman/listinfo/stpaul Archive Address: http://www.mnforum.org/mailman/private/stpaul/
