¶ High School vs Club Soccer Debate
This is the June 11 edition of Breaking the Line , the ECNL podcast , featuring ECNL President and CEO Christian Labors , and ECNL Vice President and Chief of Staff , Doug Bracken .
On this edition of Breaking the Line , Christian and Doug take on the long-standing debate of high school soccer versus club soccer , the balance of playing both for obvious and different reasons , the fallacies that exist between the two . It is clear that ECNL prefers choice and they don't believe a league should tell the player they cannot play high school soccer .
And with a quick pivot about halfway through the show , Christian and Doug pose the question of players deciding if they want to be a big fish in a small pond or a small fish in a big pond . That discussion leads to the Bracken Brain Buster and Doug asks all involved on the show today which one of those two scenarios they would prefer .
With that I turn it over to Christian Labors .
Thank you very much , Dean . Mr Bracken , how are you doing ?
I'm doing very well . Christian , how are you ?
I'm well . We're ending the May gray June . Gloom here , hopefully soon , I think , in San Diego A little gray .
It's been raining here , man , I don't love it , so hopefully the sun will come out .
I mean you know you've gone true , Southern California soft , when you know gray is the criticism of the weather , Not thunderstorm , not tornado warning , not freezing rain , just gray .
I knew you'd gone soft , probably about three weeks after you moved there , I think .
It does happen , quicker than I would have expected .
I'm still a hardened Midwesterner .
It's a difference here because you know if it , if it rains at all , basically everything gets shut down here , so you don't ever coach in discomfort . In Southern California is what I found . You coach in sun or in less sun , and all the Gore-Tex shoes , pants , multiple layers , all the things we're used to in the Midwest , stay in storage .
They're in a storage locker .
Never wear them and I'm not going to say I miss that . As much as I appreciate Gartex , I'm quite happy not to have to put it on .
It's hard to get a lot done in those adverse circumstances . The players are not always thrilled to be training in that , so I'm sure that you guys living in Southern California have a distinct advantage in that regard .
That sort of dovetails somewhat into one of the topics today about high school and club , but it is a reality that it is just a totally different environment when you can be outside all the time and when the weather is generally pleasant all the time .
It is a very different development and competition environment than you face in places where you don't have that consistency and comfort at all seasons of the year .
Yeah , and generally when we end up at the playoffs , it's generally pretty comfortable . The weather's good . Yeah , I'd say it's a . It's probably a pretty big advantage to be able to train whenever you want , however long you want . The weather's generally going to be good , the players are going to be comfortable , coaches are going to be comfortable , it's nice .
Here's the other strange thing out here is that generally you play on grass , you know , and in the Midwest you don't play on grass because they're the only nice grass fields in the Midwest are either not used yeah Well , that's it , they're not used . Otherwise they're used , they're not nice .
To your point , our facility here . We have two really , really nice grass fields . When any international teams come in to play here in Cincinnati , they usually train at our place . That's how nice they are . Our high school-age kids maybe play a game on them , because they're obviously high school .
In the fall and by the time the spring rolls around , you can't really play until May on the grass .
So , without destroying it with the rain and the wet , yeah right and the kids look forward to it .
It's like they come to training and they see the fields out there . Maybe someday I'll be able to play a game on those fields . The game is meant to be played on grass , it is .
It's nice , it's better for you , it feels different walking on grass and turf , that's for sure . That's another topic the FIFA site visits .
When they come and do that , I'm sure they tell you things like this is great , but where are you going to build your bathrooms so that when Team ABC graces you with their presence , where's ABC graces you with their presence ? Where's your constructed facility for them ?
We did meet with FIFA about the club world cup , because their games are being played in Cincinnati and they did have a number of things and we basically said , hey , you can use our fields . Here's how much it is a day . We're not building anything here . So do you want to build it ? You can . So yeah , I hear you .
All right . Well , we're going to talk today about high school soccer versus club soccer , the balance of both , the fallacies maybe between them , maybe some of the differences between them . Where do you want to start with that ?
There's always a lot of chat about playing at the club level for the entire year versus taking the time to play high school and then come back . There's a huge debate about development and how playing full year round season is better for development and those kinds of things . So maybe we start there .
Just what are your thoughts on the different kind of ways to look at that ?
Well , let's start with the disclaimer that every context is different and so we're not going to say that any statement that we make here applies universally across all environments , because somebody is going to be mad about something .
I think most soccer people college and club and maybe to some degree , some high school people would say , in general , on average , the level of play within a club environment or a club soccer team is higher than that of a high school team , and I think that is pretty much a universally accepted fact at this point . Would you agree with that ?
I would say at the elite youth level , which is where we are . It's not said that every team in these elite leagues is the best team ever , but I think , generally speaking , at the elite youth level , that is a fact .
So let me rephrase myself because I realized
¶ Development Differences Explained
I kind of contradicted myself . Most people would agree that most club soccer teams at the highest levels in things like the ECNL are of a higher level of soccer than most high school teams .
Yes agreed .
Let's start with what do we mean by higher level ? Let's try and be more specific in our discussions here . So how do we determine what a higher level is ? Maybe I'll throw that one to you .
First and foremost , on a high school team . You are more than likely bringing together players at wildly different levels Some that play club soccer , some that don't play club soccer , and everywhere in between .
We start with clubs , recruit and pull from a broader catchment area High schools , at least public schools generally they are limited to the kids in the district . They don't bring in kids from an hour away . They don't go recruit the best kids from the district next door generally . So you're going to have a more selective environment in a club team .
It depends , because there's a really big private school presence . Obviously , I think more likely the disparity between the best player and the bottom player and there's always , no matter what level you play at , there's that best and lowest or towards the bottom , that gap is wider .
Much wider .
Much wider , and when you have that , that makes the developmental environment tougher from a soccer perspective , I would say . Now there are other factors in this which we'll talk about psychosocial and leadership and all those kinds of things that we'll most certainly talk about From a pure soccer perspective .
When the distance between your best player and your bottom player is big , and maybe even huge , it's tougher .
So that would be the first thing I would say , and it's probably true at both levels , but generally at the highest level of youth club , people are coaching for generally their profession , or at least there is a director there who's doing this professionally , which you would assume .
They've gotten their education , their coaching licenses , different things like that , and I would say at the high school level , although they're certainly great coaches at the high school level and they're certainly not great coaches at the club level , but the level of coaching is probably different .
Different in the sense that most . I think it's a safe statement that most coaches in the ECNL are full-time in soccer . Would you say that's a safe statement that most coaches in the ECNL are full-time in soccer ? Would you say that's a fair statement ?
I don't know if that's fair or not . I would say a lot of them are . Yes . I doubt any high school coaches are .
Full-time coaches , so now many are teachers , which has a different skill set that's at the table . That can be valuable .
The main differentiator is the level of players from front to back , probably also the level of competition .
If club teams aggregate the best players by nature and then high schools are limited in their ability to do so . Schools are limited in their ability to do so . The daily training environment is of a wider disparity from top to bottom and the competition environment is a wider disparity because you're playing similar teams like that that have a wide disparity .
So individually talented players tend to be inordinately successful in a high school environment , which is why you see goal scoring records that are you'll never see in a club environment , right ? The player who scores 50 goals in 30 games in high school probably scores 20 goals in 20 games in club or something like that . It is again speaking generically .
The difference in the competition level and the disparity from top to bottom means top players shine very , very brightly in a high school environment in a way that is a little unrealistic when translated to playing with the best players in the club Agreed .
So if that's a starting point , then people say ipso facto I think I used the right Latin term there , maybe not Then being in a club environment the entire year is automatically better than being in a high school environment from a developmental perspective . That is at least some people's argument . I don't say it quite that strongly .
You're around other players with your similar aspirations , your similar commitment , all those kinds of things that create an environment , hopefully , where development is accelerated .
That statement that says because the average level of club is higher than the average level of high school , therefore you should play club all the time and not high school if you are interested in maximizing performance .
Whether that is generally true or not , I think it probably is generally true but it ignores every other variable , many of which have a very big say in performance , longevity , everything else like that in terms of it ignores things like pressure , it ignores things like enjoyment and ignores things like friendship and emotion and social relationships , leadership .
Your roles can be vastly different at the two different levels . There I think it would be an oversimplification to say there are no development happens at the high school level .
I think it also ignores aspiration of the players right , Like from a pure soccer perspective .
We would all agree that being in that club environment around other players that are similar to you is better for you from a soccer perspective .
So let's do some scenarios here , because I think this is helpful when people talk about this , because and maybe I'll back up first and say one of the biggest disagreements we had with actually US soccerS soccer at the time of the Girls Development Academy and I think this plays out still in the boys side it started on the boys side was a mandate that says
players are not allowed to play high school soccer if they play in the development academy , which is also now the case in theory , even though it's maybe not enforced nod , nod , wink , wink but it is in theory what the rules at MLS Next say that if you play at MLS Next , you can't play high school soccer .
And we said that we don't believe that it is any league's job , authority or responsibility to tell a player what they must do or not do with respect to
¶ Player Choice Over League Mandates
high school soccer and therefore we weren't going to support that . We start on the side of player choice in this perspective .
And if you play in the CNL and we do have clubs that have year round club , which generally falls into sort of the 10 month season , as they call it , and we have players that play a club and high school , which is kind of a misnomer but it's often called six month season . We allow you to do both .
We set the starting point as assuming everybody is going to play high school soccer and then allow clubs to adjust schedules to the degree they want if they have teams that don't play , or allow them to add into their competition window a bunch of other stuff for those kids that don't play , or allow them to add into their competition window a bunch of other stuff
for those kids that don't want to play high school and want to stay in the club environment . So we start from a position of choice and allow players and clubs to decide what to do .
Mandates are tough in that regard . I think we've always taken that position that we wanted the players in the clubs to be able to choose their path , whatever that is , we disfavor mandates where possible . Correct . Now it's impossible to have zero mandates , right , but we prefer choice .
So if we prefer choice , then let's go back to the most common scenario , which is player and parents talking to coach about what should I do ? Should I play in the club year round ? Should I go play high school ? This conversation plays out all over the place and , like I said and I think Jacob pulled some data we have national champions on both sides .
I think that are in both categories Teams filled with players that generally do not play high school soccer and play in a year-round club environment , and teams that do play high school soccer , or at least a lot of the players play high school soccer . There's different roads to the top . I stated earlier that aspiration is one of the variables .
I think that's important to that .
So if a player comes to you and says I want to be on the national team , if that is a legitimate aspiration you know everybody has dreams that they don't want to work for but if that's a legitimate aspiration that somebody's going to work for , then you would say their job is to put themselves in the best possible soccer development environment every single day .
Would you agree with that ?
Yeah , I think it's a little bit more nuanced than that . So generally yes , but I have some caveats .
As opposed to hey , I really like playing soccer and I want to play at a high level , but it's really important to me that I also play with my friends , that I have a break quote , unquote from this environment to that environment .
That doesn't lead you to saying , well , you better be in the best soccer environment , the best developmental environment all the time .
Well , that would assume that all players that play on the national team don't play high school , and we know that's not true .
We know that's not true , but that's part of the nuance , right . So I think our issue on this is that there is no guarantee for anything .
Perspective vis-a-vis the US soccer in this debate was that if you look at the profile and history of every player on the national team , they all have a very different journey and you could probably put them into a couple of categories , but there's players that didn't start playing soccer until a later age .
There's players that started playing soccer very , very young . There's players that only played soccer from a young age and didn't really do a bunch of other sports . There's players that play a lot of sports and continue to play multiple sports throughout . So there's all sorts of different profiles , and so I think one principle of this is nothing is a guarantee .
No matter what decision you're going to make , it's not a guarantee that you're going to get to the outcome you want , but there are things that you can do to make things more likely or less likely .
Yeah , a lot of those aspirations are driven by the individual , from talent perspective and a work rate perspective , and what they're willing to put into it individually , as well as whatever the team environment is . So , to your point , there are a lot of different paths to get to that point . I think it's tough to try to prescribe one .
Agreed Now . I had a conversation earlier today with Ross Pauly , who is the new ID2 director for US Club Soccer , and he used the term when talking about identifying top players and providing opportunities for them . He used the term intrinsically motivated right , Intrinsically motivated players , because those are the ones that are going to be successful long term .
Yeah .
Right , and so I think in some of this part of the discussion has to be what does the player really want to do ? In some places players say I really like this environment , I like the .
If we're going to speak in generalities and say the level of competition within training and within games is higher in a club environment , there's players who thrive on that daily challenge , that daily stress and I don't mean that in a bad way , I just mean that in a testing way .
That's what they want , because that meets what they desire in their soccer experience , because they want to feel improvement every day . They want to feel challenged every day . They want to feel like their mistakes maybe , uh , get punished by good players every day . And then there's players that that don't want that challenge and push and stress 12 months a year .
Or they feel peer pressure . That could be another thing . Maybe they do want it , but they don't want to be a pariah at the school they're at . Here's what it always kind of boiled down to for me when I talk to players about this .
Whatever decision that you make , there's some consequence could be good or bad to that decision , and when you take such a decision , you need to understand what you're getting into .
And why ?
Yeah , and you can accept the consequences good or bad , and you can accept what it is then you're going to make a good decision . Is good or bad and you can accept what it is , then you're going to make a good decision .
If you get into a situation and you can't accept it , for example , I'm always very wary of players who are dribblers going and playing sometimes in high school , because that could lend itself to some not great things happening to you .
Well , you're talking about a player in high school who is a good dribbler , who then is going to have way more opportunity to dribble and is also likely going to be tackled by less skilled players who are more fatigued because they play more games in a shorter period of time and a higher injury risk .
Correct , and so the consequence for you may be that right , and you have to understand that and take that into account when you're making the decision . So it's about thinking about all the things that are at play and accepting them or not .
Right , Because if you don't want to get kicked for three months , then that's something you ought to consider right , that's fair .
That's another scenario .
Another issue is there is a reality that if you are in a good teaching and development environment , longevity in that environment is a positive thing and you can go to principles of teaching like Doug Lemoff would talk about in terms of interleaving and retrieval and the ability to continue to scale and build new concepts while reinforcing existing concepts .
That gets broken if you go from one environment to a very , very different environment that don't speak to each other , and so when you talk about your individual development , which again , let's assume , in one and this is an assumption , it's not a statement of fact in one area there is a logical , coherent methodology that is at least trying to continue to lay on
ideas and build on concepts , and then you go for a period of three months into a completely different environment where very few of those concepts are even referenced or reinforced or required . That does have an impact on learning and on development performance . Would you agree with that ?
Yeah , and that's a consequence and you have to decide whether you want to do that or want to accept that and even if you can do that , because maybe removing yourself for three months , which puts you at risk because you're at the bottom of your club team- that's another interesting scenario I see a lot , or used to see a lot , is when you talk about and this
is a phrase that's been used in Talent ID Forever bubbling up , right , players who start to bubble up in terms of their performance level , starting to put them on the radar of whatever level of identifications , whether you're talking about college recruiting , whether you're talking about national team players who are starting to go from unknown to be scouted and to be
noticed .
Right , and I think in a lot of players , if you're not performing at the level that you want to in order to be selected , whether college or something else or you are developing into being more of an impactful and consistent player , from being less consistent and less impactful , staying in the environment is way more important for you than a player that may already
be performing at that level , because you know you see players that start to bubble up towards the end of a club season and maybe start to get noticed and then they go away . And to our previous point , that learning gap and that development gap , because they're two totally different environments .
When you come back , it's just like and I think you could have teachers talk about the difference , the difference of after a summer vacation . You basically
¶ Individual Player Development Paths
lose a month of school or whatever the time period is , because you have to go back and get everybody back into the learning mode and remind them and go back to some of Doug Lemoff's principles of interleaving and putting and forgetting .
You have to go back and reteach what you taught at the beginning of June , because during July and August they didn't do anything .
Yeah .
Yeah Right , and there is a reality of that in soccer .
When you go from an on average , higher environment that takes more demands and imposes more demands upon you physically , emotionally , technically , whatever it may be to an environment with a wider range of ability where some of those demands reduce or disappear , you're gonna have to do a repeat when you come back into the high level .
You don't just snap your fingers and step back in . Would you agree with that ?
absolutely , but I do also think it depends on where a player is in their development . I think some people handle it better than others . Yeah , right it could depend on where you are in your development . Some people handle it better than others . Yeah Right , it could depend on where you are in your development .
Some people definitely handle it better than others .
Well , and some people may need the emotional break or the change of scenery for lack of a better words to kind of re-engage and re-inspire themselves as well , which is I don't know where that fits probably some psychosocial piece , yeah , but that may actually outweigh some of the others for some players .
Yeah , totally agree . I have always struggled when the players complain about their high school experience .
And then go back to it and then go back to it .
So that's where I'm at . But I think everybody has to decide what experience they want to have , and obviously you have a young son . I have a son who's in it right Because he's about to go into high school . He and I've talked about what kind of experience he wants to have .
That's an important factor and for him , taking the two , three months and going and being with his friends and being part of his school and his community is really important , and so I'm going to support that right .
Similarly we talk about in training design . If you're going to make us an activity that looks less like the game , so let's just go .
Basic stuff of you're going to train without defenders there may be a reason to do that here and there , but be aware of what you're taking away in terms of demands of the game or constraints and I think it's a similar thing here is for players that don't play high school or don't play club year round either one .
You need to be aware of what you're taking away and that is very individualized . That's why I think , fundamentally , I just disagree with any sort of mandate that says to play in this league you must not play high school soccer , because what you're taking away .
First of all , we've acknowledged there's some very good high school programs and places where high school soccer is not as big of a difference from club soccer .
Now , a lot of that is private schools or unique circumstances like that , but there are places like that that exist and it would be false to say that the difference between these two environments is night and day .
Then there are the individual factors that we're talking about and if you take away some of these things , that may be really important for that player at that time based on some just anonymous mandate . I think that's tough to do .
I would say my kid is a trapped eighth grader and he played on his junior high school soccer team this year for two months . The level wasn't very high and the competition level wasn't very high .
It was a really good experience for him because he's a young kid on his club team and one that probably questions things because he's the youngest kid on the team and there's a difference in a year . A year makes a huge difference , right ? A lot of those kids are freshmen .
He's an eighth grader , probably questions himself , sometimes from a confidence perspective , and then for him to go into that environment and be , I would say , the best player and have different responsibility probably helped him in that moment .
That might be a big spark to him in the future 100% .
I mean he seemed to be a different player in a good way as he came back to club , right , because he found something there from a confidence perspective and that's a part of it . That's just his experience , right . It could be the opposite thing can happen .
I think the point we're trying to make and I would reiterate because you already said it is there is no one size fits all and when you look at the history of players in this country who've gone on to play on the national team and whatever they've come from lots of different experiences If you want to be a pro or you want to be this or that , you have to
play all year round .
I think is definitely a false proxy and so ultimately and I think another thing we believe in very clearly is , ultimately quality will win out , and the way that that happens is through competition . And this is an interesting story is when the Development Academy , when the Boys Development Academy , shut down in 2020 .
And clubs were leaving that and deciding to go to ECNL or to MLS next . We're leaving that and deciding to go to ECNL or to MLS next , one area of the country which shall remain nameless . One of the reasons that several clubs I think it was six or eight clubs that were sort of banding together in this did not come to the ECNL .
If you remember this , doug . Oh I remember , because they wanted not only a regular season where they only played each other , because all of them didn't play high school soccer and they wanted to stay that way . And we said that's fine , keep your group together in the regular season .
And they said but we also want a separate post-season only for the clubs that don't play high school soccer . And we said absolutely not . At the end of the day , the best will play the best and the truth will out .
And that was one of the most important reasons why they did not want to come and join the ECNL as a group at that point , because they wanted what I would call a segregated postseason . And the interesting piece of that is the first year of the postseason in the ECNL boys after the fall of the DA .
It was a 50-50 split between DA clubs or former DA clubs , which were kids that did not play high school soccer , and what we used to call non-DA clubs , which were clubs generally that did play high school soccer .
And it was a 50-50 split in the postseason in terms of the number of champions , the number of finalists , the number of semifinalists , the number of quarterfinalists , evenly split . And that was such a powerful statement because it proved again what you just said , which is there's no only way to do .
There's no one way or the way , there are multiple ways to do things .
There's no one way or the way , there are multiple ways to do things , and that continues to persist in what we're doing . Because if you look at the winners of the ECNL , you have totally varying amounts of time .
South Carolina Surf U15 , they're on a six-month schedule , crossfire Premier on a 10-month schedule , right on a six-month schedule , crossfire Premier on a 10-month schedule , right .
And then you had LAFC , socal and San Diego Surf was kind of in the middle . When you say that , because that's actually interesting , because where your high school season falls also has an impact on this right . So in California your high school season is in the winter . You have a full fall and you have a full spring and you have a break in the winter .
That actually a full fall and you have a full spring and you have a break in the winter that actually works out okay .
If you want to play high school soccer In most areas of the country not Southern California , obviously , but most high school boys soccer's in the fall and you finish that in late October , early November and then from November through July everybody's playing club and that's a nice long period of time and the girls there's lots of places where you play your club
soccer in the fall . Then you go into winter and then you do your high school soccer in the spring and then you go back to club in the post-season . That's probably the most absolutely disruptive . That high school soccer can be .
Yeah , that's tough . I think here we have high school soccer in the fall . When the kids come back , we do have them for the next eight months or whatever . It is seven months .
So what you just said , because the Midwest Conference which you were in when you were in Wisconsin , to have that season kind of right in the spring and then come back and go to the playoffs , I mean that's tough , that's really difficult , really tough , really tough .
It's why , generally , the teams that have done the best in the Midwest in the postseason are teams that either played in the spring or didn't play high school soccer , because it's really hard to go from what we've all agreed is a generally lower level of competition in March , april , may , early June , and then jump straight into the highest level of youth
competition .
Yeah , and on the girls' side , I think there's something like nine different high school seasons across the country or something crazy like that .
The boys , it's not as bad , but I just think you could see that there are a lot of different ways to do it , and I think anybody who says , oh , you must do it this way if you want to Now , I respect a club's ability to do it , and I think anybody who says , oh , you must do it this way if you want to Now , I respect a club's ability to do that
and say , by the way we do our clubs and our schedule and our training and competition , you're either with us 10 months or you're with us it's never really six months , it's probably more like seven but you're either not playing high school or you are .
A club can do that because they manage the day-to-day environment . But I just don't think is that a league doing that accomplishes very much except force decisions that may not be appropriate for individuals .
Yeah , you can't say one way or the other . And I think there is something to be said too for playing and having those crowds and playing at your school and being walking around halls and having scored four goals .
For those that that means something for yeah totally , totally , and you have to respect that , because I think a lot of this is about experience , and we can't take that out of it .
I know it's hard for a young person to know what kind of experience they want , but I think it's part of it , and to say it's not part of it is , I think , really short-sighted . So I think it's an individual situation . I've advised people in a lot of different ways on this . It's very individual , though , and it requires some thought and some conversation .
Why don't we take a break Christian now , and we'll come back ? When we come back , we'll talk big fish , small pond . Small fish , big pond . Let that ruminate .
Nike is a proud sponsor of ECNL . Nothing can stop what we do together to bring positive change to our communities . You can't stop sport because hashtag . You can't stop our voices . Follow Nike on
¶ Big Fish In Small Pond Debate
Instagram , facebook and Twitter .
And pick up your summer with Continental Tire . Purchase a set of four qualifying Continental tires now , through June 30th , and get a $110 Continental tire prepaid MasterCard by mail . Visit ContinentalTirecom to learn more . Continental Tire , the smart choice in tires .
We turn it back once again to Doug Bracken . So , christian , what are your thoughts on that concept ? Big fish in a small pond versus small fish in a big pond ?
well , so we can take this individually and we can talk about club level , because big fish , small pond , you're you're talking high school soccer and an individual player ? Yeah , to some degree .
Or you could be the very best player on a club team of a you know a different level where there might be a better teams out there . You know what I'm saying ?
Yeah , or , or you could be , you can take it to a club level .
Yeah , I was just getting ready to say that and say would you rather be a club that is winning a lot of things at a lower level of competition , or a club that is fighting to compete and does lose a lot of games , even if they may be competitive , but is generally on the other side , but you're at the highest level of competition .
Love that this is going to be a multi-layered conversation . What ?
do you think ?
me personally like , well , I mean , I just want to play the best and I want to be the in the best environment I could possibly be in . And so if that means that I'm a small fish in a big pond which I'm sure we all have been at some point I certainly was at some point that I love that , just because I love the challenge of that .
So that's an individual level , like I just love that challenge of being in the very best environment . I can be in being in the very best environment I can be in From a club perspective .
It can be hard when you are really fighting and it's really hard to win things and there are a lot of external factors that we've talked about before that can work against you .
And maybe just because I'm older , that when you do win something it just means that much more because you know , you know , and maybe just because I'm older , you know that when you do win something it just means that much more because you know , you've , you've done it against the very best when you do it .
So to me that's that's what I want to be part of .
Talk about this in the recruiting process . You know , and I know I've spoken to players about there are some players who just they players who just they want to play , and what I mean by that is they want to be on the field .
They want to be on the field a long time and they want to be on the field early in their college career and that may lend itself to choosing certain types of schools , compared to the player who says , listen , I'm willing to sit on the bench , I'm willing to maybe not play a lot in my first year or two .
I want to try and make it at the very , very top level that I can . There's not a right or wrong there , but to me there's a know which player you are .
Because if you're a player who you just want to play and you're not that bothered about saying I played at the highest level or the best level or won a championship , you just want to play and you're not that bothered about saying I played at the highest level or the best level or or won a championship , you just want to play then you probably need to go to
a small pond type environment yeah , I don't know , man .
I just feel like when you have to really work for something , it just feels so much better , right , like . But but that's your perspective . If you saved for a year so you could get that 10-speed bike that you could only ride two months a year in Wisconsin because the weather sucked , it does suck .
So you saved for a year , I mean that feels better than having you went and mowed the grass for those two years . You really put in the effort . You're going to look at that bike a lot different , don't you think ?
I think that's a messed up analogy , but I . I listen , I I fall into the into the category of I'd rather shoot for the top and see if you can get there and then you land where you are , then not . But I know that there are players that don't feel that way and it goes back to what do they want out of their experience ?
doesn't that say something about you as a player ?
oh , yeah , for sure it does . I mean generally there , yeah , for sure it does , but it also I mean this is , this is something that you also see in , in and again and again . I'll go now I'll go back to the clubs . There may be clubs that they don't want to play at the highest level because the highest level exposes things and the highest level is hard .
Yeah , and you know you always look if you'd go to general . You know platitudes like you learn more from failing than you do from success , and failure exposes a lot of things that are hidden in success .
It's really hard to compete and grow and be happy if you're losing a lot , and there are people that would say I would rather not lose as much , not learn as much , not be forced to improve as much , and just go somewhere where life is easier and we can pat each other on the back Wow , yeah , you're probably right about that , but , man , I don't know that
that serves you .
Moving forward , I'm not advocating for it , I'm saying we've seen choices like that . Yeah , we will all acknowledge that life generally is hard and great , but also hard . Your ability to challenge yourself and fail and be in environments where you fail serves you . I'm not trying to get philosophical on life here , but that's what's great about sport .
Philosophical in life here , but that's what's great about sport Generally . I think we would all agree that sport is a great teacher and that's why I see a lot of successful people who played sport because they just have been in those environments where you face adversity .
You have to decide what you're going to do in those moments and you learn from it and all those kinds of things that it provides . Being at the very top and challenging yourself at that level I think that's how you get there .
I think it is , although I will say there's also a matter of where are you in terms of a general talent or ability or performance level , because you want to strive to get to the top If you are really , really struggling .
I mean , this is the issue we deal with and you know we were , we were meeting with some clubs this past past week and one of the questions that came up was hey , you guys talked I've talked a lot about promotion and how clubs get into these . You know , from the regional league . What about the opposite way , what about relegation and moving down ?
About the opposite way , what about relegation and moving down ? You know , because if you're at the bottom for a long time and you're losing a lot and that's not changing , you have to look and say is , is this , is this the right spot ? Is , is this losing we talk about ?
There's losing that's competitive and then there's losing that is just unproductive for everybody .
If you lose a lot of games by one , two goals and occasionally bigger , that's very different than losing a lot of games by four or five goals , in which case maybe the level you're at isn't the right one and you need to drop a level where there is going to be more success versus somebody who's right there and they're just not quite getting over the line , but
they're punching .
That goes for individual players just as well as teams and clubs . Again , I think it's just its personality , and some too , but you always want to challenge yourself at the highest level you possibly can , and if you don't do it and you got to go somewhere good and work on your game to get better or whatever it is then that's what you do .
This also shows the importance , I think , in clubs of having multiple levels of teams that have connectivity and relationship between the second team and the first team .
If there's not connectivity there , there isn't a path to the top and there's not a spot down where somebody who's under maybe too much pressure , too much demand for what their performance can be , there's not a spot to go and then bounce back up and there's not a spot for the player who does really really well and is the big fish , you know , in the second
team but maybe needs to be pushed up . And I think that is one way you can look at clubs , especially clubs talking about development environments
¶ Pathways Between Teams and Levels
is what is the connectivity between the second team and the first team ? You know , is that just in name and uniform only , or is there movement between them ? Is there a connection between them ? Are the coaches of the first team even aware of who the top players and the second teams are , and are those players provided opportunities when they bubble up ?
And , by the way , that doesn't mean everybody , it doesn't mean it needs to happen to a lot of people , but if there's never anybody bubbling up , that's probably not a good sign . If there's nobody who's going from second team to first team over the course of a season , because then really got to question what development may or may not be happening .
And again , that goes to clubs too , which is why the regional league is , we say , is a pathway , and it is . It has been . I would always want to be challenged at the highest level that is possible for me , for the teams , for the club , whatever that means .
Some of those decisions are not in my hands , right , so I have to accept that , always going to get to a ceiling somewhere where you have to get better , whether that means you can't get over the hump and get in the ECNL , whether that means you can't get over the hump and win your conference , whether that means you can't get over the hump and win the
national championship , whatever that is , there's always going to be that challenge that faces you . So glad that we have that pathway here and I agree with you at the club , individual , player level , that pathway should exist because otherwise it's tough to say that you're in the , in the , in the level of development , when you're probably probably not .
Well , you can get better by developing players or recruiting players , or both , and I think both is generally the answer , even of the best developmental clubs , because of all the factors that go into it .
Well , the cream rises to the top right and the best players want to be around the other best players . So any narrative out there that says oh , you just recruit players , you don't develop them .
Well , listen , there are places where that is true , because if you get the best players and you're going to win games , people want to come and play with you . You know , the issue is what are you doing internally ?
You may do a great job , and not very many players are good enough to move up , because there's great players from outside that always want to come .
But if there's no connectivity , if there's no , if there's no relationship between the coach and staff , between the philosophy , between anything , between the second teams and the first teams , or the third teams and the second teams , or whatever it may be and , by the way , you can run a club that way . Just be transparent about it .
I'm with you . This conversation got my frack and brain buster . I came in today and I was like I don't know what I've got , but now I do . I want to ask you one question , which we should have done at the beginning PSG five , inter Milan zero Champions League final Crazy .
Inter was built in a way that if they fell behind , they fell behind a few times and they came back . But if they fell behind and were being pinned back , maybe they just went to the well too many times , maybe it was just unlucky . I don't think anybody saw that coming to that degree , especially the way that they had eliminated Barcelona .
Could have been seven or eight . They just dismantled . That was wild . That was wild . Just had to say that . Wild indeed .
Final break . Told that was wild . That was wild . Just had to say that wild indeed . Final break , two more spots from two great ecnl corporate partners and then the bracken brain buster to wrap up the show want the same expert advice from the pros at a discount tire store while shopping online , meet treadwell , your personal tire guide .
Whether you're driving to practice or game day , Treadwell gives you tire recommendations based on your vehicle location and driving habits . Get matched with the perfect tires so you can stay focused on the goals that matter most . Shop with Treadwell at DiscountTirecom . Shop with Treadwell at DiscountTirecom . Did you know ? Ecnl provides free recovery sessions .
Ecnl has partnered with MarkPro , a staple for recovery in professional sports . Markpro is a unique , safe , portable e-stim device that feeds sore muscles and removes metabolic waste . Stop by the Recovery Zone during your next event .
As mentioned , we end again with Doug Bracken's Bracken Brain Buster . Take it away , Doug , Okay .
Jacob Dean , time for you to come in for the Bracken Brain Buster . Would you rather be a big fish in a small pond or a small fish in a big pond ? Let's go to Christian .
I'd rather be a big fish in a big pond .
That is not . That's not one of the choices .
That's not one of the choices . I think that's what we aspire to be . So if the only way to get there is , you know what , isn't it koi that grow to the size of the pond ?
Koi fish .
I think they do , or goldfish . Goldfish grow to the size of the pond . If you keep them
¶ Bracken's Brain Buster Challenge
in a bowl , they stay small . You put them in a lake , they get big . So I think I want to be a goldfish . Grow to the size of the pond , okay .
Okay , so you're happy in whatever pond you're in , and you'll be just as good as the size of the pond .
If I'm in the small pond and I see the big pond , I probably want to get over to the big pond . I got to figure out how to do that .
Okay , got it All right . Dean wants to be in whatever pond Leah's in . But besides that , Dean .
What are your thoughts ? Yeah , great question . And you are right , I'll go to any pond with Leah at any time , and I think my answer is similar to Christian .
I mean , I like being in all the ponds , quite frankly , and trying to touch and influence as many people as possible , probably not in a big fish type way , but in a way that hopefully makes a difference . I feel like I completely avoided answering that question .
That is the art of Dean the voice lanky . He can just wiggle away from the question . All right , let's go to Jacob Boren .
I wanted to be the big fish in a big pond but I got cut from my high school soccer program and cut from my high school baseball program program my freshman year and then I played hockey as well and my junior year I got cut from my high school program and ended up playing for a different high school because in st louis it's a club sport so you can play
for different high schools if you get cut from big programs . And , uh , I actually played really well in a dark direction .
Man , yeah , well yeah .
Well , let me finish . I was going to say I excelled , being the big fish in the small pond .
Did you end up in the NHL ? And we don't know about it .
Absolutely not . That would have been great .
I'm going to call you Icarus from now on .
He is resilient . I did . I'll tell you that .
So for me it was better to be the big fish in a small pod , because that's where my talent level was and because I knew that that's where I was going to be the best , uh , it did not serve me to be the small fish in a big pod .
That is a very humble and wise answer from Jay .
Did you know that at the time , or is this statement Okay great ?
Reflective I . I still thought when I was in college that , you know , if I worked out hard enough , I could play semi-pro hockey for a couple of years , and that was not a shot , not a shot in hell .
Okay , I love that . I love it when we can reflect all , all of us . I think I already answered this . I want to be a small fish in a big pond . Give me the biggest pond and I want to go try to figure out how to do well in it . I just I like that challenge . I'm all about being the small fish in the big pond . I like it .
Thank you , Christian , for inspiring me with that . Well , I think Jacob actually probably really gets the credit here . He is the big fish in the small pond of Breaking the Line podcast . Thank you .
All right ?
Well , appreciate it . Good discussion . Our next podcast will actually be , I think , a special one , right , jacob ?
Yes , it will be .
We will be at the playoffs .
We are going to go live from the ECNL boys playoff in Seattle in two weeks .
All right , well , we'll be there , we'll answer questions , we'll do some mailbag talk about things very relevant to the teams that are playing in seattle and san diego for a birth into the finals and for a u18 championship , and recap some of the rl playoffs which are going on right now in the central this weekend and upcoming in the other three areas .
So busy , busy time of year . Lots of teams who have worked hard to earn their postseason on right now in the central this weekend and upcoming in the other three areas . So busy , busy time of year .
Lots of teams who have worked hard to earn their post-season that are now at that moment of testing and make it or break it see if they're going to be big fish in the big pond of the .
ECNL . I knew you were going to go there . I love it .
All right , and that's a wrap .
That is a wrap , but we do have some special people to thank Jacob Bourne , a key player in putting this podcast together every two weeks . I want to thank Reed Sellers for editing the video element of the ECNL podcast , colin Thrash , our producer , and I'm Dean Linke , the editor .
We also thank all the great people at the ECNL , including you , the members , coaches , administrators and players . Remember we want to hear from you , so check out the email in the close . Thanks for being with us on this week's edition of Breaking the Line the ECNL podcast .
Thank you for listening to Breaking the Line the ECNL podcast and remember if you have a question that you want answered on Breaking the Line the ECNL podcast , email us at info at theecnlcom .