Marshall U wins NCAA men’s soccer with 25 foreign athletes

You are never going to get the NCAA to take a formal role in developing Olympic sports. There's no money in that. The NCAA is mostly interested in revenue sports. What's in it for them? Informally it does a good job of developing Olympic athletes but it's not their job officially, That belongs to the governing bodies of individual sports.

applebys123 wrote:

Alright bud, imma just call your bluff right now. I highly doubt you are a foreign athlete, who "knew (I) coming at the expense of tax payers and US athletes.", and now wants a "25% cap on foreign athletes to the US."

More likely, you are a young white US male who is salty they couldn't make a D1 team and now likes to play pretend "foreign athlete" online to give his nationalist worldviews an air of credibility.

America's universities are the best in the world in part because they admit people from all over the world.

You are incorrect Sir.

And I decided to live, work and raise a family in the United States proudly and happily.

I am pushing 60 years old now, have seen a thing or two, and with respect to my initial post I firmly believe situations like Marshall’s soccer team, or any team from any sport, that is predominately composed of athletes from other countries - is not right.

If you are from a low/middle income family, it's IMPOSSIBLE to get your kid the coaching and opportunities needed to compete with international players in soccer.

I could not afford to do that for my son. He still went All-State in high school in a fairly big state. He didn't get any scholarship offers. Local state schools offer a roster spots but he would have never played over international kids whose native countries had extensive training for soccer athletes starting at 2 years old. D3 schools were too expensive and the D2 schools were bad academically.

Most Americans never have a chance, it really sucks. Seeing Marshall abuse the system this was really pisses me off.

HRE wrote:

You are never going to get the NCAA to take a formal role in developing Olympic sports. There's no money in that. The NCAA is mostly interested in revenue sports. What's in it for them? Informally it does a good job of developing Olympic athletes but it's not their job officially, That belongs to the governing bodies of individual sports.

Couldn’t those governing bodies invest in the NCAA in return for an agreement to prioritize American athletes?

Most of us never got athletic scholarships and had to pay for college. It's great if you get one but no one who doesn't get an athletic scholarship is screwed.

Tribe wrote:

HRE wrote:

You are never going to get the NCAA to take a formal role in developing Olympic sports. There's no money in that. The NCAA is mostly interested in revenue sports. What's in it for them? Informally it does a good job of developing Olympic athletes but it's not their job officially, That belongs to the governing bodies of individual sports.

Couldn’t those governing bodies invest in the NCAA in return for an agreement to prioritize American athletes?

Why would they? It would cost money and the NCAA does develop Olympic sports very well even if it's done inadvertently.

I-99 , the corrupt Bud Schuster fleecing of the entire country.

You don't think college and universities, and expensive private schools like the one in PA where the Trump boys go, don't acquire land to expand their footprint thereby taking the land off the tax revenue market?

I-99 is a pretty useful road if you're in that part of Pa. If Schuster fleeced someone to get it more power to him. And what does your second comment have to do with college athletics and particularly the idea that foreign athletes cost taxpayers money?

😂

HRE wrote:

Tribe wrote:

Couldn’t those governing bodies invest in the NCAA in return for an agreement to prioritize American athletes?

Why would they? It would cost money and the NCAA does develop Olympic sports very well even if it's done inadvertently.

I’ll go back to my tennis example - the USTA invests a lot of money in the USTA training center and a small handful of athletes. They pay stipends, coaches, provide facilities. But they have had arguably higher yield from the NCAA. US men’s tennis is at an all time low. If they invested that money in collegiate tennis with an agreement that schools emphasize American player development, it would be more cost effective than their current system.

Do you know how much money American tax payers paid in those scholarships for those foreign players, might be total zero?

Schools have different aspirations, winning matters and best way to win in soccer in foreigners according to Marshall. They got their banner, how many people remember in few years the methods when looking at that banner?

american man wrote:

If you are from a low/middle income family, it's IMPOSSIBLE to get your kid the coaching and opportunities needed to compete with international players in soccer.

I could not afford to do that for my son. He still went All-State in high school in a fairly big state. He didn't get any scholarship offers. Local state schools offer a roster spots but he would have never played over international kids whose native countries had extensive training for soccer athletes starting at 2 years old. D3 schools were too expensive and the D2 schools were bad academically.

Most Americans never have a chance, it really sucks. Seeing Marshall abuse the system this was really pisses me off.

I totally disagree with this. In terms of income, there are many free academies, and those that aren't free have financial hardship policies. The catch is that these academies are only for top level players, so your son needed to be good enough to make them. But it is definitely not impossible for lower and middle income people to get top level training for their kids.

Your son not getting any scholarship offers and not being able to play over international kids at the local state school is simply a reflection of the level your son was at. Blaming "the system" is just an excuse.

And no place on earth has extensive training for kids at 2 years of age. Having said that, my kids started playing organized soccer when they were four, but the reality is that kids don't need high level organized training when they're very young. All they need to do is spend a lot of time with the ball and play as much as possible. Messi didn't go to Barcelona's academy until he was 13, and your son had the chance to start at an MLS academy (for free) at the same age.

There are plenty of chances or opportunities for American players, but no one is entitled to a scholarship or even a spot on a college team just because they are American.

truth here wrote:

This is DISGUSTING.

Our NCAA system is solely developing international athletes. That's why USA men's soccer can't qualify for the Olympics or the World Cup. Young American soccer players never get a chance to play in their own country, they are pushed out by foreigners who had a soccer ball by their feet by the time they could walk.

College Soccer does not develop players for the olympics or for the World Cup. Those good enough for the olympics are turning pro at 16/17. Same with the World Cup.

I feel like I've been in this thread too much by now but your post is intriguing so I'll dive in once more. From what I know, most of the kids who go to the USTA academies pay a fairly hefty fee to go there so while USTA is paying to create the academies they also are getting money back. But I'm not sure of this. Maybe you know?

If I understand the arrangement you're proposing USTA would pay for a kid to go to college and play for that school rather than have the school giving the player a scholarship in exchange for prioritizing US players over foreign ones, which I assume means playing Americans even if there are better foreign players available.

As a college coach, why would I want that arrangement? If I'm looking to win matches, qualify for national championships, the kinds of things that will help me keep my job and maybe get a better job, I want to play the best players I can. And if USTA is paying for my players it will become another "supervisor," i.e. to keep my job I not only have to keep my AD happy, additionally, to keep my flow of players coming I need to keep USTA happy which probably means they're going to want to oversee what I do in terms of practices, overall training, and match strategies. It doesn't appeal to me but maybe there are people who'd want it. But I'm betting not many.

On USTA's end you need to remember that developing American players, getting American winners at Grand Slam events, etc. is not the primary concern. Maximizing revenue is. As long as TV ratings are bringing in good money and sponsors, as long as the numbers of recreational players is growing and many of those players are taking lessons from USTA certified instructors, playing in USTA leagues and tournaments and so on USTA is happy.

If TV ratings were dropping badly because Americans are not getting into the late rounds then that would be a concern. But there's no evidence of that happening. Tennis fans seem to want to see Nadal, Djokovic, Federer etc. in the semis and finals. Tennis fans seem to respond to players as individuals rather than as citizens. An American champion may or may not ad interest, viewers, and revenue.

And I think all of this applies to the NCAA and USATF, the latter of whom mostly needs to make Nike happy and to look for other ways to market the high level of the sport in hopes of more viewers and sponsor's revenue. As long as we have enough potential medal winners to attract sponsors I think USATF isn't going to be interested in making big changes and I cannot imagine they'd be interested is spending money on paying for athletes' college fees to prioritize development of US athletes when that happens anyway with the schools footing the bills. I will also say that I believe the presence of really good foreign competitors in the NCAA actually does more to develop Americans in that sport than it does to inhibit that, but that's just an opinion.

In West Virginia (and many other states) there are no opportunities for advanced training in soccer. Everything is set up for football. Appalachian State doesn't even have a soccer team. West Virginia and Marshall have over 50% of their soccer roster as international athletes.

Nobody is entitled to anything, but it's reasonable to hope that an American university provides opportunities to American students.

If 75% of the engineering students at your state school were international students, you'd be pretty pissed off. And if the school districts in your area suck and can't teach calculus, then your children have a zero percent chance of being engineers even if it's their dream.

spade detector wrote:

This is outdated. Academy programs are not always the pay-to-play model that existed in past years. There are many, many more opportunities for talented but financially hindered youths to be recognized and developed now in the United States. Sure, it should (and will) continue to improve but it's not as bad as you paint it.

I've heard this being mentioned a few times, but can't seem to locate any real world examples of the pay-to-play model being outdated.

The Clown Show wrote:

spade detector wrote:

This is outdated. Academy programs are not always the pay-to-play model that existed in past years. There are many, many more opportunities for talented but financially hindered youths to be recognized and developed now in the United States. Sure, it should (and will) continue to improve but it's not as bad as you paint it.

I've heard this being mentioned a few times, but can't seem to locate any real world examples of the pay-to-play model being outdated.

Google "MLS academies free" and you'll get a reddit post from 2017 showing that 24 out of 26 MLS academies were free. I believe I saw something more recent saying that all 30 current MLS academies were free. One of the two MLS clubs that had still been pay to play became free last year:

Here's a list of the 94 boys clubs that will form the elite national league that is replacing the US Soccer Developmental Academy.

Go to the website of any of the non-MLS clubs and you'll find that most if not all offer a scholarship or financial hardship program for lower income people. This is from the PDA website:

The PDA offers a scholarship fund to players in need of financial aid for participation on the Soccer Club teams. This fund has been generously donated by individuals and businesses.

I wouldn't say that pay to play is outdated, but it is on its way out. The U.S. is a big country, and 30+ free academies is not enough. There are large areas in this country that are hours away from the nearest MLS academy. But in any age group, there are at least 600 boys who are getting the best training in a professional environment, and they don't pay for it so no player who is good enough is excluded due to finances.

You might get pissed off if 75% of the engineering students at a US university are foreign and you may hope that a US school will provide opportunities for American kids. But it's not the school's job to do that. It's job is to stay in business and if it believes having 75% of its engineering students be foreigners is in its best interests it gets to do that and it is providing opportunities for American kids. It's just providing more of them for foreign kids.

leo2 wrote:

In West Virginia (and many other states) there are no opportunities for advanced training in soccer. Everything is set up for football. Appalachian State doesn't even have a soccer team. West Virginia and Marshall have over 50% of their soccer roster as international athletes.

Nobody is entitled to anything, but it's reasonable to hope that an American university provides opportunities to American students.

If 75% of the engineering students at your state school were international students, you'd be pretty pissed off. And if the school districts in your area suck and can't teach calculus, then your children have a zero percent chance of being engineers even if it's their dream.

If you look at the article I linked above, which has a map of where the 94 elite clubs are located, there are none in WV. It doesn't mean there aren't good clubs in WV, just no "elite" level clubs. Depending on where in WV you are, there are clubs in Ohio and VA that might be doable if you're willing to drive your son a pretty good distance for practice and games. People near me drove their kids about 2 hours each way, 2-3 weeknights a week, for practices at a USSDA club, and I live in an area where there are other pretty good clubs that were closer. Clint Dempsey did it 20 years ago when he was growing up in East Texas and played youth soccer I think in Dallas.

But honestly, you're talking about things that are more cultural than anything else. Soccer's just not that big in WV, which is unfortunate if you live there and your kid plays and wants to play at a high level. It creates challenges for you that people in other parts of the country don't have.

But in terms of college rosters, Marshall has 25 international players on a 47 player roster. So they are giving opportunity to 22 American players. And Marshall is maybe an outlier; a mid-major D1 school near me (my alma mater) has 26 players on the roster; 19 Americans and 7 foreigners.