Ranting Soccer Dad

Lesle Gallimore has been head women's soccer coach at the University of Washington since 1994, and she's the current president of United Soccer Coaches. 

In this conversation, we talk about how college coaches adapt their recruiting to the new "elite league turf war" environment. And we talk about how players adapt and whether they *can* adapt. 

For example: Could Gallimore's most famous player, Hope Solo, work her way through the system today and be discovered? 

Coincidentally, Solo made a lot of news this week, and I discuss that before the interview (which was recorded before all that news happened). The Gallimore interview starts around the 10-minute mark.

Dennis Crowley didn't just start a soccer team. He created a laboratory for "open-source soccer." 

He shares business and financial info on his NPSL club, the Kingston Stockade, on Medium. And though Kingston might not be the likeliest market to have a club that would climb an open pyramid to Division I, he has become one of the most thoughtful (or reasonable, if you like) advocates of promotion/relegation.

In this conversation, we talk about the challenges of putting together a pyramid in the lower divisions. Yes, there's more than "U.S. Soccer stinks," though he argues the federation could be doing more to facilitate change and stability. And at the end, he shares his experience of seeing the Stockade make their Open Cup debut.

The guest is Daryl Grove of the popular Total Soccer Show podcast. The topic is his hometown club, the Richmond Kickers, which has a couple of decades of history as a youth soccer club with a professional team on top of and integrated into its internal pyramid. 

Yes, really. It's not just a pro team that started up some half-assed youth programs. It's not an MLS team that has Development Academy teams and little else. See its tryout page to see how many levels of travel soccer it offers, and then look at its "Little Kicks" page to see former pro player Luke Vercollone's programs for preschoolers. The Kickers also join forces with the rival Richmond Strikers for the Richmond United Development Academy pro

Today's guest is an English/American/German soccer writer/referee/parent/coach/player. He's Ian Plenderleith, and we had a good conversation about the differences in the USA and Germany -- at least, as many of them as we could fit in a one-hour chat.

Read more of Ian's work at ...

- The Quiet Fan, a blog related to his upcoming book

- Referee Tales, dispatches from the fields in Germany

- Rock n Roll Soccer, his book on the NASL (the old one)

- Twitter

Maybe they're not turf wars. Maybe it's just healthy competition.

Christian Lavers is fully immersed in the complicated landscape of U.S. youth soccer. He's a technical director with FC Wisconsin and an executive with the ECNL and U.S. Club Soccer. And miraculously, he still sounds optimistic. Even "nice." If you're looking for mud-slinging, you're not going to find it here. Instead, you're going to hear a candid but polite take on why we have multiple national championships and other stuff that those of us who cover youth soccer complain about. 

He's aware of the travel requirements these days -- "not every game should require a hotel stay or flight," he says. But he sees different organizations filling different legitimate needs.  

Leading

It’s a futsal/grassroots doubleheader! After a brief intro (no full rant this week), you’ll hear from Leslie Hamer, who works with futsal at every level from the grassroots to the pros. She has been getting futsal into New York City public schools and now into colleges.

Next up: Jason Longshore, whom you may know as a commentator on Atlanta United games but has spent much of the last 12 years working with Soccer in the Streets, an organization that brings soccer (or futsal -- whichever makes sense for the available facilities) to underserved communities and schools. You may know them from their effort to put a small soccer field at a MARTA (local transit) station.

This week: The Ranting Soccer Dad Guide to Youth Soccer is officially underway. Check out the first couple of entries and support it on Patreon.

In the podcast, I spend about five minutes explaining all that. Then I go on a rant about the generation gap in understanding soccer and why we don't have a glorious promotion/relegation pyramid just yet. (Plus a few ideas on how to get there. Or how not to.)

Do you know Mike Davitt? Until a few weeks ago, I didn’t, either. He’s a longtime soccer coach who, like many longtime soccer coaches do, also became a soccer parent. He’s originally from Kearny, N.J., hallowed ground for U.S. soccer.

After listening to a few of my rants, he emailed me and said he didn’t think youth soccer was doomed. It might even be a good thing.

I’ve been hoping to find people like that for the podcast, and so we chatted. Our conversation (starting around the 15:00 mark) ends up with an interesting idea on educating coaches, which is an issue that popped up in the big election. We talk about the positives of having an alphabet soup of leagues and organizations, how to help parents make educated decisions (23:00, including a suggestion that we should stop using the word “academy” unless you’re in the DA), how to watch out for players