Soccer club looks to change club soccer's philosophy

For many parents, who spent their childhoods playing sports, they were often coached by a mom or dad of one of the top players on the team. Often times, that parent played the sport at a high level in high school or college, or perhaps had a cup of coffee in the professional ranks. Without that parental involvement, the coaching duties would have likely fallen to someone with less knowledge of the sport, someone who was learning more about the sport, while teaching the youths around them.

Often times, the most knowledgeable parents move on after their children do, leaving a wake of ready-to-learn players behind them.

"(We're) mainly trying to give a home to anybody who plays soccer in town, that if they want to, they can get the training they need to take soccer where they want to and it's not such a hit and miss with a parent being into it and their kid decides, 'Hey, I'm playing football,' said Max Jones, president of Capital S.C. "Then there goes 15 kids without a home to play on. So what we're trying to do is give a structure, no matter what happens coaching-wise, we've got a home for players."

Capital SC in Carson City is hoping to keep those players in its system by exposing them longer to the best players in their peer group. Club officials hope that the strategy will make a larger group of players better and help children in the sport longer.

Despite its obscurity in the United States - soccer is the No. 1 sport in the world - the sport has increased in popularity among youths ages 6-17. Of the 17.7 million estimated soccer players in the country, about 70 percent fall in that age range, while another 25 percent are ages 18-44, according to a 2003 survey done by the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association.

Capital SC's director of coaching, Brian Slusser, believes part of the reason for the burnout is because players get pushed into a competitive environment too early. Slusser said, he thinks the solution might have been found by one of the most prestigious soccer clubs in the world.

"The community is small enough to where it could almost be like a small English town team, playing in the EPL or something like that," Slusser said. "Because there's maybe 800-1,000 players, which most of the big clubs around the nation are that size. So you're almost taking a small club and you could have your own little system from ground to top, from 5 years old to semi-professional, right here in this town...It's kind of like Manchester United where they take their players out to help out the organization."

Manchester United, who plays in the English Premier League, is recognized as the most successful soccer club in the world. Its roots, though, began in the borough of Trafford where it still resides.

While goals of building a world soccer power may be far off, Slusser, Jones and Eric Masters, Capital SC's assistant director, rattle off their goals with unwavering confidence.

They say that their plan is to keep their players together, especially early on, rather than split the more advanced players away from the bulk of the players. The player organization is believed to help the group as a whole grow better, from players to coaches. It would also allow the club to build teams based on need. For example, it could build a more balanced team for league play or have a top tier team for travel. But no matter what team the players play on, they would still compete against all levels in their age group.

"In the end, it always seems like you get a group of soccer coaches who want to take it in the right direction, but then you have a group of people who are in the system, who are not about club and player development, but they're really interested in their teams," Slusser said. "So they get really committed to their teams and they forget about all the other players...So what we're trying to do is shift the paradigm where people start thinking, 'Let's coach all the players and see what comes out of that.'"

The club had about 300 players last spring and they're hoping to expand on that number. As part of that, they are associated with all three major youth soccer organizations - American Youth Soccer Organization, US Youth Soccer and US Club Soccer - in order to cater to players from the recreational level on up. Their program also allows coaches in all three levels to learn from highly licensed coaches. Slusser holds the highest United States license available, a United States Soccer Federation "A" license, and Masters was the first assistant at Division I Fordham University, where he was in charge of goalkeepers for the men's team.

With the change in the club's organization, Jones is hoping that it could keep top-flight players like Carson High School-graduate Brandi Vega. The Washington State-commit came up through the program, which has been around for about 20 years, before she moved onto a more competitive club in Sacramento.

"With the amount of players we have here, we could have top quality teams," Jones said. "Everyone thinks L.A. and Southern California is all the hotbed of players, but they're scattered through all those teams. So, yeah, if they had one superstar team then they could."