Lake Highlands QT

If a majority of a team leaves and another team has a chance to earn that spot during qualifying, how would that not belong to the players.

That's like saying that the White House belongs to the people.  Since I cannot sell my piece of the White House I don't really own any of it.  It still belongs to the government.

Byes are owned by teams.  The question is what constitutes a team when coaches and players come and go from year to year, and teams switch clubs.  This whole argument is really an argument on what defines a "team".

If the goal is to promote competition, then who can logically say that a "team" is a completely different group of girls and a different coach - who happen to wear the same uniforms.

Which is effectively what LH says now by giving the bye to the club.

In that case it does belongs to the players. If 75% of the players leave a team with a bye and go to another team, then those players keep the bye.

THAT, is a good policy. They earned it. Notice how it's not counter opposed to the objective?

And they should.

The issue is where the team blows up, players go their separate ways, and the club retains the bye for whatever team they want to palce in there.

onlythetruth wrote:If the goal is to promote competition, then who can logically say that a "team" is a completely different group of girls and a different coach - who happen to wear the same uniforms.

Which is effectively what LH says now by giving the bye to the club.

Everyone can do better than "logically say". Here's how.

A team is defined by a sheet of paper with a list of names written on the paper. Theses lists of names written on these sheets of paper, are the names of the players on that team. One team = one sheet of paper, with 14 player's names (that's the minimum) plus the Coach. LH actually has these sheets of paper for every single team in LH. They call these sheets of paper, "rosters". That's how everyone knows one team from another. Sometimes, at the soccer matches, the two teams playing against each other will be wearing different colored uniforms. That's another way to tell one team from the other.

And they should.

The issue is where the team blows up, players go their separate ways, and the club retains the bye for whatever team they want to palce in there.

The 33% rule would stop that.

In that case it does belongs to the players. If 75% of the players leave a team with a bye and go to another team, then those players keep the bye.

THAT, is a good policy. They earned it. Notice how it's not counter opposed to the objective?

My understanding is that this rule only applies if a team leaves their club. Having it 75% across the board would be insanity. Imagine having a D1 team where 5 girls leave to go play ECNL or something. Now the team looses their bye and a really good team is removed from competition. This does not help the objective at all.

Why wouldn't a 50% rule be fine, that would allow 8 players to leave. Trying to replace 8 quality players would be very difficult. You have a major breakdown if you lose that many, no way a team plays the same.

The idea is to promote the practice of having clubs put their top players on their top teams and their 2nd best players on the 2nd team, and so on without them loosing their well earned bye's. That increases the competitive level overall.

Imagine the scenario where your teams are going U14 into the ECNL age. So several teams in the club loose their top players. Now the club is left with a couple teams that they think would both really struggle as is in LH. So they decided to take the top remaining half of each team and put them on the D1 team, and the rest on a D2 team. There would be a decent chance that each team would end up having less than half their roster left at the end. But if you if you look at both teams combined, the overall roster would be 70% intact. Each girl has earned her place in LH, as have both teams. It would be BS for one or both to loose their byes in a consolidation that is meant to improve the overall competition level.

In that perfect scenario, yes that would be great, however in my opinion that's not how the rule is being used. Can you even show one example of that. How many times is it used that way?

FC Dallas was supposed to do that with their 98s, but the coach double crossed a big chunk of parents and a bunch of of the top girls left and both teams ended up getting getting relegated.  I can think of several examples like that where it should have happened, but it didn't.

It seems obvious to me that LH wants the competition to be between clubs not teams.  Sorta like how Barcelona competes against Real Madrid.  Those clubs have their top teams with Messi and Ronaldo, but they also have lower level teams too.  If there wasn't freedom to move players within those clubs, then the competition wouldn't be at the high level that it is.

I think that is why LH set the threshold to 0%.  That's what the professional clubs do.  But having it at 0% doesn't work well for youth soccer where you have most kids playing within their distinct age group.  There really isn't ONE top team per club, there is one per age group.   There aren't enough kids per age to pretend we are under the professional system.  In professional soccer, teams don't "blow up".  There are so many people vying for the roster that there are plenty of bodies to plug in to replace lost players.  In youth soccer, teams blow up all the time.  And it makes no sense to allowing us to plug in a whole new team since that new team will typically get crushed.

In the youth system, it blows that clubs can grab a REC team and put them in a D1 spot and collect $$$ for a year while they get destroyed.  That's why a 0% threshold is bad.  I think the threshold should be something like 33%.  That way clubs have the leeway to reorganize teams to keep girls playing at their appropriate ability level, but cannot hoard byes and replace entire teams.

It should be 50%. And yes The LH Mobsters (the board) made up big clubs will always look to protect themselves first. Keep moving up teams from D3 and lower levels to stuff into a bye slot that they "own". And continue to force feed everyone the BS that its what right and best for the league. You know why because we will continue to pay and play in LH because their is no other good alternative. It's a monopoly in NTX run by crooks and hypocrites supported by bigger crooks and hypocrites that dilute the intergrity of competition plugging in teams that haven't earned a promotion. They were GIVEN a promotion

A&M- the bye should never belong to the club with less than 50% of the players returning. If they field a team with less than 50% they should have to requalify. It isn't fair to teams that have stuck together thru out the years, working hard to promote but because they don't have the right jersey on their not considered. It is favortisim.

Your idea of clubs moving the best 16 to their top team in LH and the next best 16 on their second best team is wishful thinking. It will never happen. Teams should earn their bye not be given a bye

"FC Dallas was supposed to do that with their 98s, but the coach double crossed a big chunk of parents and a bunch of of the top girls left and both teams ended up getting getting relegated. I can think of several examples like that where it should have happened, but it didn't."

So in response to "Wired" you can't point out one example where this has happened. There is nothing to prevent the clubs from doing this today, but apparently they never do. So why do we need a rule to protect this ability? Especially when you have so many real.examples of clubs abusing the rule?

By the way the analogy to professional soccer probably doesn't work. In professional soccer clubs pay players and their customers are the fans. In youth soccer the clubs customers are really the parents(thay are the ones the write the checks). Why aren't clubs constantly moving players between teams, because my guess their customers would be uncomfortable belonging to a club that does that.

scoregazam wrote:It should be 50%. And yes The LH Mobsters (the board) made up big clubs will always look to protect themselves first. Keep moving up teams from D3 and lower levels to stuff into a bye slot that they "own". And continue to force feed everyone the BS that its what right and best for the league. You know why because we will continue to pay and play in LH because their is no other good alternative. It's a monopoly in NTX run by crooks and hypocrites supported by bigger crooks and hypocrites that dilute the intergrity of competition plugging in teams that haven't earned a promotion. They were GIVEN a promotion

A&M- the bye should never belong to the club with less than 50% of the players returning. If they field a team with less than 50% they should have to requalify. It isn't fair to teams that have stuck together thru out the years, working hard to promote but because they don't have the right jersey on their not considered. It is favortisim.  

Your idea of clubs moving the best 16 to their top team in LH and the next best 16 on their second best team is wishful thinking. It will never happen. Teams should earn their bye not be given a bye

Here's a hint for you: If you are right and the board is a bunch of "mobsters" then complaining on this forum will get you nowhere. And if you are wrong, and they are simply doing what they think is best, then calling them mobsters is going to make them consider you an idiot and ignore you. In your post you call them mobsters and say they it should be 50% just cuz. No real argument behind it. Just declarations of how you thinks should be. It may make you feel better, but it's nothing more than a tantrum.

9876 wrote:"FC Dallas was supposed to do that with their 98s, but the coach double crossed a big chunk of parents and a bunch of of the top girls left and both teams ended up getting getting relegated.  I can think of several examples like that where it should have happened, but it didn't."

So in response to "Wired" you can't point out one example where this has happened.  There is nothing to prevent the clubs from doing this today, but  apparently they never do.   So why do we need a rule to protect this ability?   Especially when you have so many real.examples of clubs abusing the rule?

By the way the analogy to professional soccer probably doesn't work.  In professional soccer clubs pay players and their customers are the fans.   In youth soccer the clubs customers are really the parents(thay are the ones the write the checks).  Why aren't clubs constantly moving players between teams, because my guess their customers would be uncomfortable belonging to a club that does that.

My theory is that when they made it 0%, they hoped that clubs would move players around a lot more, but it didn't happen. So they enacted club pass, and now players moved around a bunch because of it after only one spring season.  I think they hope that club pass will blur the line between teams and that eventually it evolves into a more professional like system.

While it is true that professionals get paid and amateurs pay, I don't think that is hugely relevant.  The only way it is relevant is that professional clubs have no qualm about cutting somebody who isn't good enough because they are paying them.  Youth coaches are getting paid by the players so they have a more incentive to not cut people willy nilly, but they do still cut people quite a bit.  I think the reason why a professional model (not talking pay here.. just the moving players around part) won't work is because many kids are into it for fun.  Not everybody is itching to get on the top team.  They have friends on their team and don't want to leave them.  That is why I think the line between teams will never be completely blurred no matter what LH tries.  That LH can find a happy medium between team and club that works better for everybody and best satisfies the goal of putting the best teams possible out there and winning as many NC's as possible.  Clearly it wasn't 50%, which is why they changed the rule.  And clearly it's not 0% otherwise you wouldn't have everybody complaining.  That's why I think it should be somewhere in between.

No I did the math.... 50% most of the time means 1/2. Which also means one less than the majority. If the majority of that TEAM leaves then that team should have to requalify. And since the there and few to none examples of teams actually moving the best players upto fill a void "bye" then the 33% number you gave in my mind makes as little sense to me as my 50% rule does to you. The only difference is that the 50% seems to be more favored.
It's not that I can't follow your math, it's that I don't agree that roughly 5.25 players off a 16 mam roster justifies that your TEAM from the previous year is intact. Now if you told me you had a majority of your team staying..... But as I said earlier the hypocrites in LH don't care as long as they can continue the status quo

We can just agree to disagree, because it won't matter. You prolly wont agree with my point of view and I more than likely will never agree that less than 50% is the majority and means that a team is intact. Maybe one day their will be someone who can find am answr that makes sense and is beneficial to all teams trying to reach the highest level of competition. I doubt it , But good luck to you and your daughters as LH muddles thru it

You are missing the point.  There are two separate arguments that you are confusing:

1) Is encouraging team consolidation a good idea
2) What turnover percentage is ideal

It is clear that LH thinks #1 is yes.  With that in mind, 50% makes no sense.  Having it at 50% would be counter to the goal of allowing team consolidation.  And the argument, "but it has rarely or never happened" is the exact thing that LH is working to change.  They don't like that it doesn't happen enough.  Which is why they got rid of the 50% rule and put it at 0%.  Now that it still hasn't happened very much, they are taking it even further by adding club pass.  The idea that they would now decide to put it back to 50% to satisfy complainers on a forum is ludicrous.

You seem to think that #1 is a bad idea.  That is a different argument.  You want LH to be a team first league and not a club first.  If that were the direction that LH wanted to go, then they might agree with your 50% or even make it higher.  However, they think (and it's a reasonable argument) that LH teams would fair better nationally if all the top players were on the top teams.  So they are setting the rules with that in mind. They are competing against ECNL. Their goal isn't to make LH a more competitive REC-esq league where pals play with pals for 16 years. They want LH to be the best league in the nation. Your goals are different from theirs, so argue that rather than blindly throw out names like "mobsters" and "hypocrites".

TmAg you are missing the point. 50% wasn't taken away so that teams could consolidate players, it was dropped to allow the big clubs to keep a bye. No way are you going to move 51% of a team up and the rest down to consolidate players, you aren't going to find that many players on a d3 team to move up and that many on a d1 to move down. You might find 1 or 2 on each team but that's it. I think everyone wants there DD to be on the best team possible or at least with the best coach. You have all ready said you can't find one example of that happening, so you have no basis to say what there goal is. That may be your goal, but not lake highlands.

aTmAg wrote:You are missing the point.  There are two separate arguments that you are confusing:

1) Is encouraging team consolidation a good idea
2) What turnover percentage is ideal

It is clear that LH thinks #1 is yes.  With that in mind, 50% makes no sense.  Having it at 50% would be counter to the goal of allowing team consolidation.  And the argument, "but it has rarely or never happened" is the exact thing that LH is working to change.  They don't like that it doesn't happen enough.  Which is why they got rid of the 50% rule and put it at 0%.  Now that it still hasn't happened very much, they are taking it even further by adding club pass.  The idea that they would now decide to put it back to 50% to satisfy complainers on a forum is ludicrous.

You seem to think that #1 is a bad idea.  That is a different argument.  You want LH to be a team first league and not a club first.  If that were the direction that LH wanted to go, then they might agree with your 50% or even make it higher.  However, they think (and it's a reasonable argument) that LH teams would fair better nationally if all the top players were on the top teams.  So they are setting the rules with that in mind.  They are competing against ECNL.  Their goal isn't to make LH a more competitive REC-esq league where pals play with pals for 16 years. They want LH to be the best league in the nation.  Your goals are different from theirs, so argue that rather than blindly throw out names like "mobsters" and "hypocrites".

Now that it still hasn't happened “very much” - can you establish a single time when it did happen?

to satisfy complainers on a forum is ludicrous. How about as a matter of fairness and encourage competitiveness, not nepotism

You want LH to be a team first league and not a club first – again, I would like LH to promote the best competitive environment.  It does not


1) Is encouraging team consolidation a good idea?

I would argue yes – but so is world peace.  And to my knowledge (and for which no one has been able to show an example) neither has happened.

The issue is one of TEAMS who do not DESERVE to be in LH.  The current system of leaving the bye with the club if the team disbands, allows the club to move an intact D3 team to D1, or from PPL, or Rec, or anywhere else they find a team willing to pay their club dues to get the LH slot.  Again – teams who do not DESERVE to be there (teams who have not earned anything – but just happen to wear the same jersey color of the previous team to hold that slot).

It is possible to have a system in place that both encourages consolidation and prohibits clubs from filling slots with undeserving teams.

Club pass, in theory, is a start – until clubs try to abuse it to manipulate results


2) What turnover percentage is ideal?

A team is made of players.  Those players have earned their LH position – not the club, and not some other group of girls.

I believe that 50%+ is an appropriate (and fair) amount of retention required to automatically keep the bye.  If a lineup of 15 girls has 8 leave, there has been a sufficient turnover to question whether the team should retain it’s LH bye.

THEN – if the team feels that, through combination or otherwise, that they should retain their LH bye, give them the opportunity to petition the board.  Give the board some basic standards to review – like team composition (at what level did the players previously play?  Any tournament results with the current team competition?).  

This solution would promote competition and combination.

The goal is to allow the 10 most competitive teams place in D1 – not to allow some club to abuse the system to move its last place D3 or PPL team into a D1 slot so the club can look good.

They want LH to be the best league in the nation.  They never will be in the direction they are headed now – because they put club over competition

 

Wired wrote:TmAg you are missing the point. 50% wasn't taken away so that teams could consolidate players, it was dropped to allow the big clubs to keep a bye. No way are you going to move 51% of a team up and the rest down to consolidate players, you aren't going to find that many players on a d3 team to move up and that many on a d1 to move down. You might find 1 or 2 on each team but that's it. I think everyone wants there DD to be on the best team possible or at least with the best coach. You have all ready said you can't find one example of that happening, so you have no basis to say what there goal is. That may be your goal, but not lake highlands.

"One time, I heard from a nice woman I met at Kroger, that her daughter's friend once played rec soccer and heard from her friend on that team that they were going to consolidate 2 teams" doesn't qualify as "doesn't happen very much"

AMEN!!!! It is two separate issues, you are right but both have the same root problems.
If you want to consolidate teams or keep a bye, 50% of the original roster must be kept. If it cant maintain 50% the team looses that spot. I agree, that it is sad for the 49% of the team that stayed but those 7 player that stayed out of 16 will have do not represent a majority. And it does not promote the best competitive environment, as Onlythetruth stated.
You say that LH promotes consolidation.... You don't know....That's your assumption, cause it hasn't been happening. I agree that "mobsters" might have been over the top when I said it, but hypocrites is right on point. LH says "Fair Play" and "Competitive Enviroment" is a MUST!!!! Then they look at see that their "objectives" cant be met with "Fair Play" and the "Competitive Enviroment"

I don't care what the # or % is really..... just make it fair and do the right thing

TmAg you are missing the point. 50% wasn't taken away so that teams could consolidate players, it was dropped to allow the big clubs to keep a bye.

I know that is the claim, but small clubs keep the bye too. A club with only 2 teams could completely replace one team with the other if they wanted.

You have all ready said you can't find one example of that happening, so you have no basis to say what there goal is. That may be your goal, but not lake highlands.

Nobody has ever had to use nuclear missiles to protect themselves, but that doesn't mean that's not what they are for. Results != intent.

The issue is one of TEAMS who do not DESERVE to be in LH. The current system of leaving the bye with the club if the team disbands, allows the club to move an intact D3 team to D1, or from PPL, or Rec, or anywhere else they find a team willing to pay their club dues to get the LH slot. Again – teams who do not DESERVE to be there (teams who have not earned anything – but just happen to wear the same jersey color of the previous team to hold that slot).

I agree. That's why I think 0% is bogus. But 50% is also bogus. I think 33% is a happy medium. You can't bring in a REC team, but at the same time clubs can freely move players around within their club without problems.

The issue is one of TEAMS who do not DESERVE to be in LH. The current system of leaving the bye with the club if the team disbands, allows the club to move an intact D3 team to D1, or from PPL, or Rec, or anywhere else they find a team willing to pay their club dues to get the LH slot. Again – teams who do not DESERVE to be there (teams who have not earned anything – but just happen to wear the same jersey color of the previous team to hold that slot).

If these guys are scoundrels and hypocrites, why would you want to put these sorts of decisions in their hands?

The goal is to allow the 10 most competitive teams place in D1 – not to allow some club to abuse the system to move its last place D3 or PPL team into a D1 slot so the club can look good.

They want LH to be the best league in the nation. They never will be in the direction they are headed now – because they put club over competition

Agreed. The main issue is moving PPL teams up. 33% should solve that. You won't find any 33% of a team who willingly joins a PPL team just so they can keep their bye. Those 33% will find some team that will not get killed. So the bye will go away, and the next most deserving team in the standings will take their place.

You know... I think you guys have convinced me. In the spirit of compromise, I'll bump up my threshold to 34%.

A&m You keep saying the same thing, and it continues to make sense, seem legit, and fair to you. And I applaud that. Just not to everyone else. The only thing I agree with is that 33%is better than 0%. Which all that means is that both were probably taught the same math fundamentals.

I do like all your nuke, missels, and owning the White House comparisons. And you were bashing my mobsters and hypocrites reference.

I went up to 34%. So I assume we are all good now.