Once upon a time...

Once upon a time there existed a national sports organization that was the governing body for its participants all over the US. Most of the participants were adult participants, many in leagues and clubs anchored by foreign visitors and/or immigrants that brought the sport with them to the US. This organization had rocked along very comfortably for many years with the same ideas and approach to managing its sport.

One day a group of these folks decided to introduce the sport to a younger audience in their community. The kids loved it. It started as a high school club sport with the kids playing on that back lot of the school that none of the varsity teams wanted to use. The national association was very excited and watched as the movement spread. Slowing the sport began to establish some credibility in the community and was no longer just the sport that those guys played in the park outside of town on Saturday & Sunday afternoon. Younger kids wanted to play so teams and leagues were formed in community parks and neighborhoods across the more heavily populated areas of the country. The national association continued in its oblivious excitement, watched as the movement spread and their membership numbers swelled - all the time just assuming these organizations would naturally fall in line behind the national governing body.

Mom and Dad loved the sport and got involved at the grassroots level. Some began to ask why they sent money to a national organization that provided little, if any, service to their local efforts. Organizations began to contemplate the value of sending money to an organization that wasn’t structured to lead this growth nor capable of meeting the needs by providing support at the grassroots level. The national governing organization was built to deal with a constituency formatted as a group of 20 to 30 folks banded together to play. Now, they were being asked questions by organizations representing hundreds and even thousands of participants and they simply didn’t have acceptable answers. Sadly, this national organization had done nothing more than watch the youth movement become the 1000 lb gorilla, and now, it was too late. The movement splintered into several different special interests… High schools were slowly absorbed into state athletic organizations and local school districts. Mom and dad took the younger kids out on their own to form their own organization.

You know this group as the AYSO, arguably one of the most powerful sporting organizations in the country today (and still an independent organization). Surely you recognized this little story… US Soccer got caught watching. Their failure to react, provide leadership and value, put the organization back 20 years. Just in the past 10 years or so have they seen a return to prominence as the national governing body and that’s mainly due to the creation and growth of community based competitive youth teams. Many of us in the youth rugby movement can see some real similarities.