The 2013 season has brought major changes to the world of Georgia high school soccer. The U.S. Development Soccer Academy is now requiring certain high school students to leave their high school teams to join the academy teams, two of which are based in metro Atlanta. Based on invite-only, the academy’s goal is to “improve the everyday environment for the elite youth player,” according to the U.S. Soccer Federation website.
Founded in 2007, the academy is a partnership between U.S. Soccer and the top clubs around the nation to eventually produce stronger candidates for the U.S. National Team. However, it wasn’t until this school year that the academy began requiring players to leave high school teams altogether to join academy clubs full time. This, predictably, has made waves in the high school soccer community.
Some of the top teams in Georgia were stripped of key players prior to the 2013 season, including defending Class AAAAAA champion Collins Hill and traditional powers Lassiter and Walton. Collins Hill, which has won state titles in three of the past four years, lost six returning players to the Development Academy.
“You can’t fault a player for trying to play at the highest level even if it affects them (negatively),” said Collins Hill coach Michael Burrell. “I just wish there was some way we could work it out where they could do both. Maybe that’s something we could evolve into. Pro and con, the kids love playing for their high school and their friends.”
Centennial coach Phillip Thomas, whose team is currently ranked No. 2 in Class AAAAAA, did not lose any players this year. But Thomas still does not like how the academy is treating high school players.
“My issue about the academy is that in the United States right now, the next level of soccer for a teenager is college soccer,” said Thomas. “And a key component to being able to play college soccer is academic requirements. And when you eliminate high school soccer from a kid’s experience in playing soccer, you eliminate that accountability in the academic world and getting used to a five-day work schedule.”
High school players must be passing four of five classes to be eligible while academy players have no such requirements.
The drastic change in how the academy goes about managing its players has been attributed mostly to the United States Soccer Federation youth soccer technical director, Claudio Reyna, a former U.S. National team player and member of the U.S. Soccer Hall of Fame. While the academy teams in the past would select players for 16-and-under teams and 18-and-under teams, they never required 10-month participation and mandatory training sessions that prevented high school participation. But prior to the 2012-13 school year, the USSF handed down its latest requirements for academy participation.
“The biggest (problem) I have for this being the first year the USSF put this into place and they just came out, made a rule, made a statement and that’s it,” said Lassiter coach Sam Dietrich. “There wasn’t really a lot of discussion about it. There’s a lot of seniors out there from a lot of schools who had to make a tough decision on whether or not they’d play high school this year. In my opinion, for them to play freshman, sophomore, junior year, and then their senior year someone tells them they can’t or they have to make a choice, it’s put a lot of boys in some hard circumstances where they’ve had to chose one over the other.”
Walton coach Bruce Wade, who lost two returning players to the academy, had another point on the issue. Wade believes the academy takes players who don’t necessarily have the talent or skill to fit on a national team and therefore are wasting their high school years playing for the academy.
“(The academy) forced the kids to make a decision I don’t really care for,” said Wade. “And some of them were starting to quit the developmental league because they weren’t getting a lot of playing time. Kids want to play. Not everybody’s going to be a pro some day. So if you miss out playing your high school years and you don’t play pro or major college, basically you sat around and wasted your time.”
The Development Academy has the noble goal of improving the nation’s soccer prowess, but, according to some coaches, may be going about it at the expense of high school and college soccer.
Loading ...
