There is has been extensive concern and fragmented conversation about what will happen with the Sunday soccer leagues with the addition of the need to pay a $30 per person insurance fee in the fall to cover the coming year. Below is my (Ted's) proposal to make two leagues, this fall, with highly contrasting prices and styles of play.
For background info see Tad's announcement:
http://www.athenssocceracademy.com/adultleague
A couple comments in the google group discussion:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/adultteam-athenssocceracademy/iR9XjpnFmNI
Create two leagues this fall:
- A non competitive, friendly community league that is co-ed. This league would be low cost and it would be self officiated. The captains of the team would arrange for time keeping, and the teams would call fouls in the same "spirit of the game" way that is done in ultimate frisbee. The emphasis would be on cultivating high quality games. Games would be held on the medium or smaller fields, and the teams could decide on # of players to field on a game by game basis. The league would be open to players of all ability levels, from beginners to professionals. The key element is not ability, but attitude. We have had great success with establishing a norm of considerate soccer in our pick-up games and family soccer.
- All players would pay the $30 insurance, plus a minimal league fee of $10 per person.
- Rosters would have 8 at least players.
- Players would be welcome play in the women's rec league as well as the competitive league also.
- Players could also pay to play in more than one community league team by paying the $10 league fee in each of those teams.
- All teams would be required to have men and women on their roster and on the field. Exact #s would depend on the size of team fielded and teams decision at game time.
- The scheduling of the community league matches would be determined by team captains through an online spreadsheet.
- Games could be potentially of same or shorter duration than the 22 min halves option that is standard.
- A competitive, league open to men and women. The games would be officiated by the best 3 ref team available on that day. This league would have normal ~$400 per team fee, and players would be responsible to pay their annual insurance ($30 each). Games would take place on the largest field (currently upriver). Teams would field 9v9 or 10v10 on the larger field, and depending on # of teams, could consider longer game times.
- Team rosters could only include players with paid insurance, and could be specified to have a "first team (11 or 12)" but also a list of "reserves (up to 5)". Only players on these rosters would be allowed to play.
- Teams would work out how they wanted to price the designation of first team vrs reserve and how their team would balance play time. For instance, a team might have reserves who pay a lessor amount but are only available to play for 2 games in the season. etc. Exact plans would be left up to the team.
I made a version of this proposal in an email, and a good criticism was made, which I would paraphrase as: "If the community league would be so informal we may as well just play pick up and save our money". This is a good point, but I think the community league and the changes to the competitive league would offer some advantages. One is that I like the idea of their being a much bigger difference between the welcoming and cooperative "friendly" league and the "serious/competitive" league.
Here are the key differences between adding a community league to a competitive league as far as I can see them:
- A low cost league in the fall (community league) would allow new people to enter the player pool and those with limited budgets to stay involved during fall.
- Both types of players would be available in the spring and summer to play “on the cheap” because their insurance is already paid.
- This would make the size of the player pool and diversity of players much greater for the spring.
- Two leagues would allow people who want to play more to play in both leagues or on more than one team in the community league.
- This would include people like me. I would field a community league team, but I would also have the time and energy to join someone else’s competitive team in the fall.
- Alternatively, in the spring, I might chose to participate in 3 different community league teams, that way, I could get more playing time in with very little stress.
- A community league like I described (co-ed) would encourage more of the women (like my wife Laura) to also play in a mixed league (it would just be 10 bucks because they paid their insurance for the women’s league).
- Unless the league is officially defined as more friendly and less competitive I know that many of the women would prefer not to play in it. This is a real loss for the community because I think that we all benefit from playing with a wider range of players.
- The competitive league I described would field 9v9 or 10v10. This would be a change. Also, if there were fewer teams, there could longer games for that league. That would be fun, nearly full field, longer games would be a very different challenge.
- I would actually be fine with as few as 4 teams in such a league. It would be more like the champions league, with two games against the same opponent.
- The community league would be played on the medium or smaller fields, and could be more flexible. The teams in any one game could agree to play 6v6 ot 7v7 or 5v5. Whatever they prefer.
- Because of the low cost, people could experiment with different combinations of players, but do so over an extended period of time. It would shuffle up the people in the community and likely forge more friendships (like has happened this year with pickup)
Anyways-- it would be fun to have more flexibility in the teams and leagues than we have now.
