The drive anywhere in southern california on the weekend sucks. Try getting to Santa Monica or LA for a game. Even if you live in LA it takes over an hour. There is no place easy to get to in southern california on the weekends.
Discovery League- "We've created a monster!!!"
- Thread starter timbuck
- Start date
Well at least you didn't play in the 100 degree heat of Norco.
Time spent: 1.5 drive out + 1.5 game time + 45 warm up + 45 return drive is almost 5 hours just for a single game not to mention the transportation and parking expensives.
Do that 14x times x 16-18 players and it gets expensive and it's cheaper overall to play @ home.
We have really good fields @ 5 high schools + 3 college fields plus dignity sports parks and others like the Toyota fields all within a 15-20 min drive or bike from our place. Driving out 100 miles from LA County to any of those complexes and it would suck if the games where not great and the competition really worth it.
SoccerSanDiego
BRONZE
And then for competition after our 1.5 hour drive we get 3 boys SD Surf teams (07, 08, 09) that lost by a combined 24-0... Surf is just a ponzi marketing scheme designed to get the paying recruits..these teams have no right to play at this level.
You are really hosed if you have multiple kids playing on the same day. And if they are both in "Discovery" but one has their games in Norco and the other in Oceanside every week.
SoccerFan4Life
PREMIER
As you get older you realize how dumb it is to spend 4 hours on traffic for some youth sport game on a weekend. I could have played a great round of good in that time. These parents that don’t have their kids in sports are smarter than we think.
Discovery is a joke on the boys side. Most games this weekend were blowouts. Only one game at 08 had less than a 3 goal differential including a 9-0 . My buddy's kid plays in that league and they're livid about the lack of decent teams.
If my college team was in town playing USC/UCLA, it's not likely I'd drive 2 hours to go watch them play 1 time per year.
But I do it every weekend for a kid to play who will probably be done playing by the time she's 17.
Or, looked at differently, as you get older you realize how dumb it was to spend 4 hours playing golf when you could have spent that time with your kids while they were still young (even if much of it was driving them to and from soccer games). Before you know it, they've grown up and left the house and you have as much time as you want for golf or whatever else you like to do on your own.
SoccerFan4Life
PREMIER
Or how dumb it is to drive 4 hours in the car splitting up the family to take kids to different games. My boys are done playing and they told me that they hated the long drives. My little girl still has ways to go but i will not miss it when she quits. This youth soccer obsession is just insane. Playing soccer at 100 degree weather stuck in traffic for 2 hours.
Only in this country do we all chase the youth alphabet soccer. The rest of the world is simple, you are either elite and will commit to play at the top level. Everyone else is fine playing local sports.
In the 05 discovery group- there are 2 teams from the same club. They were scheduled to play each other in Oceanside on Sunday. I don't see a score posted yet.
I really hope these teams are playing today or tomorrow at practice instead of driving 90 minutes to play the team they likely share a field with 2 or 3 times per week.
I really hope these teams are playing today or tomorrow at practice instead of driving 90 minutes to play the team they likely share a field with 2 or 3 times per week.
Thing is hardly anybody fan wise beside a hardcore ish parent wants or will drive 2hrs to see a single youth sports game. Grandmother is not sitting outside in 100 degree weather 2 hours away.
College games at least when local you can have a nice size crowd, friends and fellow students cheering so some sort of culture or fun atmosphere that is often lacking # some random out of County game at a remote complex.
Teaching players to drive by 16 worked for us, personally after watching 1k+ games between the 3 of them I happy watching video highlights of regular league games.
Why do you guys do it that way?
Up by us, the home team supplies the field. Might be full of gophers, but it's usually pretty close for at least one team.
It's the "Discovery League"
I "discovered" that driving in traffic on weekends makes me angry.
I "discovered" that a lot of teams think they are better than they are and opted into this league.
The league "discovered" that they can make money by convincing parents that this new league will get them college exposure. I can guarantee that unless a college coach lives within 4 miles of silverlakes, oceanside or del mar- aint no coaching making that journey.
Quality time playing golf or tennis with ours is something they still both enjoy.
When younger they tended to enjoy the longer rides and talks more. Older not so much, more into their music, phones, socal apps, mates, etc.
Over the weekend son came by the house and wanted to play some tennis and I was like let's go to the courts. Went down flames in 3, too fast & strong for the old guy but was fun to be humbled.
in the 05 we had a great game that went 3-2
uh ya I looked quite a few of imbalanced games
SoccerFan4Life
PREMIER
100%. Boys quit sports by junior year. They got into playing guitars and playing golf with the old man. They are in college now and they come home to play guitar and sing rock n roll songs. I am just watching them jam and drinking a beer. They bring up old youth sports stories. Their overall assessment on youth sports: coaches yell too much, parents are idiots when their kids don’t play well, and all of their friends playing soccer got minimal to no scholarships. They are loving college life and I have a new perspective on youth sports.
SoccerSanDiego
BRONZE
Perhaps you missed my above post where sd surf lost 3 games by a 24-0 margin...they pull this bs all the time for marketing...play down in tournaments and up in leagues..guess they aren't alone. There should be a rule that if you lose by more than 7 goals, you dont get to play in that league again for 2 years
