Best young talent

[Elmer]

Station Camp has an exceptional sophomore class. Ensworth finished State Runner-up and had a young team. I have never seen the year that Franklin didn't have extremely talented young players. However, the fact that these players made the coaches all-state team only proves one thing- that their coaches were members of NSCAA. We really need to find a better way to select all-state. I fear that the creditability of the honor will soon become too diluted and too biased to be of any relevance.

 

 

Please inform us of your idea on how to make the all state selection a more credible process...

[Impactdad22]

I guess not many girls from the school Tuffnut supports made the All State team.  That must be a tough nut to swallow!! 

[Playerscoach]

I guess not many girls from the school Tuffnut supports made the All State team. That must be a tough nut to swallow!!

Congrats on your daughter making all state. Sorry she's not tuffnut approved. 😂

[1925Kee]

Don't take it personally. I doubt that was Tuffnut's point. I'd say his point has to do with the requirement of NSCAA membership in order to vote. 

[BigG]

Don't take it personally. I doubt that was Tuffnut's point. I'd say his point has to do with the requirement of NSCAA membership in order to vote. 

 

 

Actually he is incorrect.

 

You have to be a member of the Tennessee High School Soccer Coaches Association to vote.  At a WHOPPING $20 per year.

 

Players are nominated from all schools.  Coaches are contacted if their players get nominations.  They are given the option to join in order to vote for their players.  Some coaches choose not to join thus their players do not get votes.

 

Don't know how this makes any list less legitimate.

 

The NSCAA is only a requirement for All American ballots.

[Tuffnut]

You did miss my point. The three girls that did make the team are quite qualified and deserving of nomination. The point is that as a member of both organizations, as I am, I can nominate as many  girls as I want to be voted on for the All-State team. The problem is the only actual vote is not for All-State: it is for All-American. In my experience over the years, every single player that I have nominated from our team or others has made the All-State team. I haven't even looked at the final list, but I know that the girls that I nominated are there, all of them.

 

My point is that if you have fifty All-State players or a hundred or two hundred, at some point this prestigious award simply becomes a participation award. I don't really have a solution. When voting on All-American, I didn't know more than two-thirds of the players, and knowing where we have traveled, I probably knew more than most. I didn't feel very confident or competent in choosing the top players. Picking a team would be much more difficult. The list probably should be screened or voted on by a committee, like the Senior All-Star Match. Otherwise,I think that the list of All-State players will continue to grow each year until it simply becomes an honorable mention.

[EnsworthSoccer]

You did miss my point. The three girls that did make the team are quite qualified and deserving of nomination. The point is that as a member of both organizations, as I am, I can nominate as many girls as I want to be voted on for the All-State team. The problem is the only actual vote is not for All-State: it is for All-American. In my experience over the years, every single player that I have nominated from our team or others has made the All-State team. I haven't even looked at the final list, but I know that the girls that I nominated are there, all of them.

 

My point is that if you have fifty All-State players or a hundred or two hundred, at some point this prestigious award simply becomes a participation award. I don't really have a solution. When voting on All-American, I didn't know more than two-thirds of the players, and knowing where we have traveled, I probably knew more than most. I didn't feel very confident or competent in choosing the top players. Picking a team would be much more difficult. The list probably should be screened or voted on by a committee, like the Senior All-Star Match. Otherwise,I think that the list of All-State players will continue to grow each year until it simply becomes an honorable mention.

The list is pretty small, except for in D1 AAA, where it is relatively large. In D2-AA, the smallest classification by number of schools, we get 15 from 11 schools. Both D1 AA/A and D2-A each get 15. In my opinion, that is a reasonable number. I believe that 45 girls from D1 AAA make all-state. I don't know if that is too many or not, but it is 3x the number of any other classification.

 

By comparison, in North Carolina's public 4A classification (the largest in the state, with probably a much larger overall number of students enrolled than are in TN's D1 AAA) only 31 boys made all-state this fall.

 

I am not a D1 AAA coach, so I have no dog in this fight, but I think the number we are afforded in our classification is reasonable - and given the number of high quality players we have - appropriate.

[BigG]

I can only speak to the A/AA list.

 

With approximately 150 girls soccer teams in the state with an average of 15 girls on the rosters, and allowing for 22 spots to be given for the honor of all state, this works out to be .98% of the girls receive the honor.

 

So less than 1%.

 

If you are in the top 1% of the players in your division, I believe this is justified to get the all state spot.

[Tuffnut]

I agree that 15, 18 or even 22 are numbers that represent what team means in soccer. Forty-five is not one of those numbers. If there are truly 45 quality girls in AAA, and I don't know of a single girl on the list who is not worthy of nomination, then a first team and a second team seem to be the idea. News papers and college conferences do exactly that. I realize that who decides on the first team will always be the concern.  I simply hate to see the honor (in AAA) cheapened.

[Playerscoach]

I agree that 15, 18 or even 22 are numbers that represent what team means in soccer. Forty-five is not one of those numbers. If there are truly 45 quality girls in AAA, and I don't know of a single girl on the list who is not worthy of nomination, then a first team and a second team seem to be the idea. News papers and college conferences do exactly that. I realize that who decides on the first team will always be the concern. I simply hate to see the honor (in AAA) cheapened.

Why are the other divisions selections so much smaller?

[Playerscoach]

http://www.topdrawersoccer.com/club-soccer-articles/u18-wnt-heads-to-usoc-training-center_aid39860?utm_source=TopDrawerSoccer+Newsletter&utm_campaign=9ba7126a1f-General_9_2_16&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8340315a79-9ba7126a1f-31247805

Top Drawer rankings seem crazy to me. I give them very little credibility because there are high level D1 players being recruited with no stars. How can it have merit?

[MoonDogRex]

Top Drawer rankings seem crazy to me. I give them very little credibility because there are high level D1 players being recruited with no stars. How can it have merit?

The rankings are different from the recruiting. Players have to register with TDS and pay $ to get stars. As far as the school team rankings, they are pretty exhaustive at the top (SIMA 50). All about the quality of players in those teams and the results those teams are having against other top teams. 

 

From their latest weekly rankings newsletter: 

 

February 8, 2016 - When the FAB 50 debuted in 1999, the impetus was to publish weekly high school soccer rankings, which was unheard of at the time, and provide the detail on those ranked teams to create context and understanding, thus educating the high school soccer fan.

While leagues have changed and dynasties have come and gone over the nearly 20 years of FAB 50 rankings, one thing has remained amazingly the same -- the strength of East Bay Athletic League girls soccer. In a week with very little movement among the SIMA FAB 50 elite, it is a good time to shed some light on the EBAL, a Northern California league that has five teams ranked in the SIMA FAB 50 Top 25.

The EBAL is a 10-team league where several of the teams play a home-and-home series to fill out a 13-match league schedule. With so many head-to-head games among these quality programs, it is easy to understand why some EBAL teams don't have the gaudy records often turned in by quality programs that play in inferior leagues, inferior states, or worse yet, avoid stepping up to play quaility competition when the talent level warrants it. 

Some leagues around the country are judged solely by the accomplishments of the top teams. Others claim to have quality of depth in a league. Some focus on the quality college destinations of its top players. But any way you look at it, the EBAL has no equal -- at least not this year. 

To truly appreciate the quality of the EBAL, it's best to focus on the nonleague contests played by those 10 schools, and the numbers are simply staggering. EBAL teams are a combined 59-5-2 against non-EBAL opponents. Six teams are undefeated in nonleague games. Some key accomplishments for EBAL programs this year include Carondelet (Concord, Calif.) traveling to the National Elite Prep Showcase in Texas where it went 4-0 and Monte Vista (Danville, Calif.) going perfect at the Tri-Valley Classic, which included a 2-0 win over longtime Florida powerhouse St. Thomas Aquinas (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.). And neither Carondelet nor Monte Vista is in first place in the league. Flip it to the other end of the EBAL and Dougherty Valley (San Ramon, Calif.) is 0-10-1 in the league, yet a perfect 8-0 outside the league. Everywhere you look, there's quality.

The final week for EBAL league play takes place this week, and the regular season title is still up for grabs. The next chance EBAL teams get to show off their quality will be the section playoffs, and it would not be a surprise to see three, perhaps even all four, section semifinalists hailing from the EBAL.

BIG MOVERS: BOYS: Doral Academy (Doral, Fla.). Doral has been up and down in the rankings, and this week's 11-spot jump to No. 36 makes it the biggest mover in the rankings. ... GIRLS: Quartz Hill (Calif.). Quartz Hill moves from No. 47 to No. 33 this week, the largest jump aming the ranked teams. Quartz Hill is still undefeated, although its tie was actually a shootout loss. 

NEWCOMERS: BOYS: No. 44 Tolleson Union (Tolleson, Ariz.), No. 45 Hueneme (Oxnard, Calif.), No. 46 Coronado (Calif.), No. 47 McClatchy (Sacramento, Calif.) and No. 50 Trinity Christian Academy (Addison, Texas). ... GIRLS: No. 37 Chaminade (West Hills, Calif.), No. 42 Monterey (Lubbock, Texas), No. 49 Lewisville (Texas) and No. 50 Klein Oak (Spring, Texas).

 

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Contact: Sara Baeuchler

O: 562-513-372

sbaeuchler@adsportsmedia.com