It was only a few minutes before kickoff at the girls state soccer quarterfinals two years ago, and Young coach Dave Clark was exchanging pregame pleasantries with Barrington coach Jeff Muhr (the name of Barrington High School girls soccer coach Jeff Muhr as published has been corrected here and in a subsequent reference in this text).
Muhr asked Clark when his team had arrived at the Naperville Central campus for the teams’ 12:15 p.m. showdown, and the answer revealed one of the glaring differences between the high-level suburban programs and the Public League.
Clark, who has turned Young into one of the Public League’s best girls soccer programs, told his counterpart that the Dolphins had just arrived from the city for the 12:15 p.m. game. And that the long bus ride came after his players had to be in school at 7 a.m. for mandatory testing that, Clark was told, could not be postponed.
His competition was a bit better rested: The Barrington coach was told by his athletic director, who wanted the Fillies rested and relaxed for the state finals, to “reserve a hotel and we’ll pick up the tab for it,” Clark said.
The eventual result of that Elite Eight matchup –Barrington breezed to a 10-0 victory — probably wouldn’t have changed if Young’s players had stayed at a four-star hotel and ridden by limousine to the game. But Clark’s anecdote does reveal the chasm that still exists between the best girls soccer programs in the suburbs and those in the city.
It’s a gap that has closed little since 1998, when the Public League received its first automatic berth in the state girls soccer quarterfinals. The city’s teams have been outscored 41-0 and only last year–in Mather’s 10-0 loss to Chatham Glenwood–did a Public League team register a shot on goal.
The Illinois High School Association unanimously approved this week a Public League proposal that eliminates the automatic berth in the Elite Eight that goes to the Public League champs in team sports like soccer, baseball, softball, volleyball and basketball.
The proposal allows Public League schools and athletes in all sports to feed into the IHSA’s sectional format with the exception of football, which already participates in the IHSA playoffs. Many coaches in these sports argued against eliminating the automatic berths. Only through playing the elite, the coaches say, can their athletes learn what it will take to become one of the elite.
Starting with the 2002-03 school year, Public League teams that once qualified into the final eight of many team sports won’t come close to making it that far again, not without significant improvement, and those state quarterfinal beatings in sports other than basketball will likely become historical curiosities.
Coaches like Clark and Amundsen’s Rich Straka see the more pressing issue: that Public League girls soccer simply must improve. Based on conversations with coaches and players from throughout the area, here are six steps the Public League must take to compete with the Libertyvilles, Naperville Centrals, St. Charles Easts and Evanstons of the world. They serve as a primer to other sports such as softball and volleyball that need similar plans if they are to compete at an elite level.
1. Establish a feeder system
“If we can get our girls playing from the time they’re 5, 6 or 7, then we’re not eight years behind the suburban schools,” said Straka, whose Vikings were the first Public League girls soccer team to benefit from an automatic berth in the Elite Eight. Unfortunately for Amundsen, its first-round opponent in 1998 was the most successful program in the state–St. Charles.
But, as Lincoln Park player Jessica Vaughn pointed out, establishing a feeder system in the city is a lot different from doing so in a suburb like Lake Zurich because of the large number of schools and neighborhoods and limited number of youth soccer clubs.
2. Play soccer all year
The opening in the city of a new indoor facility, Chitown Futbol at 2255 S. Throop St., is a step in the right direction. Public League girls had few options during the long, cold Chicago winters to work on their soccer skills. Gerardo Ayala and Jeff Welsh, both in the construction business, wanted to develop a place for children to play soccer in the winter. Chitown Futbol opened in January and Clark, who manages the facility, is working on scheduling camps, adult leagues and youth leagues.
“It does take some initiative from players in the off-season to say, `This is what I need to do to get better,'” said Vaughn, who with sister Sarah has helped Lincoln Park become one of the Public League’s top teams.
Straka says players need to commit themselves to playing and learning during the summer, too.
“Six-week camps, four hours a day–the girls who have gone in these programs have done pretty well,” said Straka, referring to the city’s current program. “I’d love to send some of our players to goalkeeping camp, but the parents don’t have the money. It would be wonderful for our kids to get that kind of training.”
He says scholarships to these skill-shaping camps would help.
3. Improved conditioning
Speed and stamina kill in soccer. Just ask St. Viator All-Stater Lori King, a soccer player who became such a good runner that she opted for a track scholarship at Notre Dame over offers to play with a ball in college.
“OK, I need to do something in the fall to stay in shape for soccer,” Vaughn recognized. “I tried to convince other teammates to join.”
Straka, a former baseball coach who has brought the Amundsen boys and girls to the Elite Eight in soccer, said fitness “is a big factor because a lot of times these girls were not athletes growing up. We still have girls coming in as freshmen who had never played before. They’re not necessarily fit. They haven’t developed all the muscles in the legs they need. That’s why we have so many knee injuries.”
Straka said that he’d like to do more conditioning work, “but if we kill them and run them to death, some of them will drop out. And I can’t have my girls do just conditioning. They need to learn technique with the ball.”
4. Better facilities
Suburban coaches are lucky. They have enough space and wide, grassy fields to hold a county fair–or practice soccer.
Vaughn, as do other Public League players, finds herself practicing on patchy grass fields with potholes. Young’s Clark said his Dolphins have “no place to practice,” and Straka points out “we don’t have a decent place to practice because our soccer field overlaps our baseball field. So how do we practice when the baseball team plays?”
5. More money
No discussion about this subject brings more comment and more controversy in a world where dollars for the classroom are difficult enough to find. Take a matter like pay for assistant coaches.
“We pay $750 a season to freshman coaches,” Clark said. “If they’re doing their job, it’s six days a week over approximately 10 weeks. They have to be around before and after practice, say, three hours a day. That’s 180 hours at a minimum–$4.16 an hour. That’s an insult.”
So much of an insult, Clark said, that he feels embarrassed offering the position to anyone.
As Straka points out, the freshman coach may be the most crucial position on the staff.
“That’s where the development goes on,” he said. “You need to train the kids at the basic level, especially since our girls haven’t played a lot of soccer in grade school and haven’t played club. You need your best coaches there.”
6. Change the culture of city soccer
“In the suburbs, parents are used to driving their kids 30 or 40 miles to play,” said Straka, a suburban father who lives in Skokie and has shuttled son Ricky to soccer and hockey games for years. “That’s the culture in the ‘burbs. In the city it’s not, and the parents don’t realize what it takes for a kid to develop to play at that level.”
Clark, expanding on that issue, said one thing he has learned as manager of Chitown Futbol is that some people “will pay for adults to play soccer. But they won’t invest in their kids to play.”
“Why is St. Ignatius so strong?” asked Clark, referring to the private city school that has a tradition of success in sports. “The suburban influence has come in and been matched with kids in the city. There are parents who invest a major amount of money and time in the program.
“There has to be a whole climate change.”
