There have been many articles posted about whether club soccer players should also play high school soccer. There are pros and cons to players that do play both. As someone who has coached both high school and club soccer, I can offer some opinions on this subject. I don't know that I necessarily promote one over the other, but rather share some of my experiences.
In club soccer, you can pick your players no matter where they live. If a player has limited skills, or even a poor attitude, you don't have to select them for your team. In high school, you generally only get the players in your district unless you're an organization like a private school with no boundaries. If kids have limited skills or poor attitudes, you don't have a lot of options other than to take them. Most schools don't have enough players participating, so cutting players isn't always an option. The one thing that we always struggled with at the high school level is that you get a lot of kids that play who are not as serious about improving their game as those playing at the club level. This makes it very difficult to develop a training program that pushes the players that play at the club level, but is not overwhelming for the non-elite players. When you have players on your high school roster that don't have good basic skills, training that benefits all players becomes a real challenge. We struggled with this even on the varsity team where you have your top players in the high school.
In club soccer, we generally have two or three intense training sessions a week, along with high quality games over the weekend. The high quality games are the result of being grouped with teams at roughly the same competitive level. At the high school level, you have moderate training sessions two or three times a week with games of mixed quality the other two days of the week. As I said above, each high school is generally restricted to the players within your district, so a team is only as good as the number of quality players in a given district. The level of competition can vary from year to year and/or district to district depending on what players live in which districts. The difference in the training regimen and quality of competition can be a concern for club coaches.
At the high school level, training and playing five days in a row for anywhere between eight and sixteen weeks is a lot for any player, especially if the quality of the training is not as high as it can be. Even if a player is playing club soccer year round, the training is not as frequent, the quality of the training is quite high, and coaches are often well trained in methods for conducting training that will reduce a player's risk for injuries. Therefore, the risk of injury during a high school season can be high for these reasons and others I will mention below.
My biggest complaint has to do with the physicalilty of the high school game versus club games. At the high school level, the play was a lot more physical and the refereeing was generally of a lower quality. So, the high school game was a lot more physical than a club game at any level. We lost several of our elite players during the high school season because they were the victim of continuous rough fouls in a high school game that are generally not allowed in a club game. Most of these injuries were knee and ankle injuries caused by tackles from behind or other sorts of rough play. Also, many of the non-elite players that only played high school never learned to properly control their bodies in a game, so they would often run through players accidentally and cause injury. We had a varsity player in high school, who's primary sport was ice hockey. He had a tough time when it came to accidentally fouling and sometimes injuring players. In hockey, it's ok to check the opposing player. In soccer, it is not. One year, we lost a player to a patella tendon injury that may have jeopardized his college career as a player. It's hard to say if the injury was the result of high school soccer, but he was often the recipient of hard fouls.
The high school experience does give the elite players a chance to step up as leaders on their high school team even if they are not a leader on their elite team. Learning to help your teammates raise the level of their game is a difficult challenge I think all players should experience at some point. Many elite players can't handle the challenge. In Oregon, at the high school, we had some elite players that were very good at this and others that never really understood how to motivate teammates. This, even though some of those players played varsity soccer for four years. The players that understood the importance of good leadership and helping teammates had a valuable learning experience.
Being part of the high school program does help players connect with their fellow classmates, which can help them in the overall high school experience. Also, there are many rules for high school players when it comes to classroom conduct and grades. Players can have their ability to play high school soccer suspended or revoked for any violation of rules. All schools are bound by the same rules, so they are equally applied to all high school programs. It helps the players understand that being a soccer star doesn't mean that you can slack off on the other parts of your life. In club, there are very few rules about personal conduct or performance in school that have an impact on a player's ability to play soccer. It's up to the parents and coach to determine the best course of action. However, there is no central body to enforce a standard set of rules across all of the clubs.
The bottom line is that we had several club coaches that didn't want their players playing at the high school level. Being on both sides of things, I could see both sides of the argument. I do like the standards that high schools must follow in order for players to be able to participate in high school soccer. However, I am concerned about the physicality of the high school game, and the risk it can have with player safety.
