Many things:
Attendance: If the college soccer coaches think that their institutions are taking them seriously, then they are delusional. Why is attendance (an average of fewer than 2,000 fans per game) so bad even during the marquee playoff games prior to the "Final 4"? Where is the hype about getting some students out to watch their teams? This should be a no brainer and with some judicious articles in student dailies, these crowds should be 3-5 times as large.
Skills: In December, I watched the Indiana - Bowling Green match live, then watched on tape the Atletico National - River Plate game on Univision. Talk about a long way to go. Both MLS and even the A-League are miles ahead of the college game. If it weren't for the three Ukrainians that Yeagley scooped up for the IU squad, there would have been a pitiful display of talent out there. Furthermore, there was only one hispanic name for both of the college squads. College soccer in its present state is simply not the answer for the serious development of pro talent. This is not to say that we can expect the college kids to play at the level of top South Americans. This is not the real point of comparison at all, but when one compares the skill level of the college game to the A-League and USISL and still find it wanting, then the college game is not prepared to produce the skilled players that the sport needs to flourish.
The Educational Deficit Argument: Some adherents of the college game rail away at programs like Project 40 because it supposedly prevents "student athletes" from getting a good education. This is a bogus point because the Project 40 program specifically addresses this issue. Very simply, soccer and higher education are two separate issues. As a professional educator, I happen to think extremely highly of both, but the problem is that they are really inappropriate to combine at the college level and get much in the way of excellence out of either at this point.
In theory, college soccer COULD play a positive role in the development of player skills. But it can't because of: some incredibly short-sighted and myopic positions by the NCAA and the college soccer coaches and their ADs. Among them are:
Too Few games. Why, for example, can college baseball play from January to June, then sponsor amateur summer leagues while the college soccer season runs from September to November (except the playoff teams) and college soccer players can't play for club teams until school lets out in the Spring? Apparently this could change if a relatively small number of college coaches would persuade their Athletic Directors to modify this rule. But rather than actually doing this, many college coaches prefer to simply bitch at MLS' Sunil Gulati for "raiding their college players". Meanwhile, the Project 40 group can get both a good education and a professional soccer apprenticeship.
Latinos. Why are the big time soccer programs not finding the latino talent that is clearly out there? One has merely to drive around any large city on a weekend afternoon -- or weeknight -- and see the talent that is clearly out there. Does anyone actually believe that none of these people are capable of playing college soccer?
Muddling with the Rules. The NCAA's "free" substitution policy is atrocious, the time outs halfway through each half are ridiculous and the clock-handling issue has been talked about enough on the North American Soccer list. And why is the NCAA allowed to deface the pitch with it's logo in clear violation of FIFA rulings? It simply can't be helpful if college soccer is playing by a virtually different rule structure than the rest of the world -- and even the rest of US pro and amateur soccer.
The NCAA's Financial Incompetence, Hypocrisy and Lack of Soccer Promotion. While college soccer charges admission for the playoffs while most teams don't for the regular season, but why does the NCAA allow advertising signboards during the regular season but ban them for the playoffs? If they could use signboards in the playoffs as they do for the rest of the season, maybe they wouldn't have to charge admission and we'd see crowds of over 10,000 for these games like we should. As long as college soccer supporters are in a position speak with coaches, ADs, or the NCAA, they have a unique opportunity to raise these issues with the college coaches, ADs, and the NCAA itself. If such individuals refuse to challenge the ADs and the NCAA and even have a discussion, then college soccer will never be able to attain the goals of which its adherents claim it's capable of achieving.
If these problem examples are truly widespread -- which they are
-- then why are any of us wasting our time expecting that high school
and college soccer will produce the kind of foundation for pro soccer that
gridball and basketball do?
The big stumbling block is the the NCAA and the legacies of "sham-ateurism" that permeate the relationships between education and sports all the way down to the high school level. Of course, the recruiting scandals that plague college gridball and basketball are only symptomatic of the foolish attempts to pretend that these athletes are amateurs.
What this means for the "non-revenue" sports like soccer is that they will never be allowed to flourish in this environment.
Does this mean that advocating the development of youth/reserve teams by the pro soccer clubs is "anti-education" as some on the North American Soccer list have asserted? Far from it. Higher education and high quality soccer are two different things, and the sooner we recognize that each needs different things, the better that both endeavors will be.
This is why the idea of Project 40 -- which needs to be MUCH more fully developed and move toward a Project 400 -- will eventually reduce college and high school soccer to the recreational and intramural activities they should be and thereby more appropriate to physical education as part of a general education.
Then there's the matter of the "Olympic Development Program" which is supposed to take the best college and high school players and "develop" them for higher level play. While this is a noble aspiration, it's plagued with some of the same hypocrisy that burdens the NCAA. Just the mere fact that the elite level national youth program is called the "Olympic Development Program", tells us that the priorities for youth soccer development are completely screwed up.
OK, part of the reason for calling it this is due to the Amateur Sports
Act which gives the USSF the governing authority for the
sport, but the idea that the Olympics are the stated aspiration for
this player development shows the institutional blockage and
myopia that the sport of soccer has to deal with.
Project 40 is a welcome first step, but to be really effective it should
be Project 400, and the clubs -- ideally with the blessing of the USSF
-- should be controlling this.
While watching the University of Virginia - St. Louis University semifinal during the "Final 4" in December, St. Louis won a penalty on a somewhat dicey call against Jason Moore. As the SLU shooter went to the spot a bunch of guys dressed in orange, who had been sitting/standing in a small group behind the goal at Richmond started jumping up and down, screaming and yelling at the SLU PK taker. I thought, "great, these guys have been watching MLS and international soccer and are trying to give their team an edge." Hell, this practice is done universally in college basketball games when visitors are shooting free throws.
When, what to my surprise, SLU coach Bob Warming starts screaming at referee Rich Grady, "What are those frigging guys doing distracting my shooter?
EARTH TO BOB WARMING...
WHAT PLANET ARE YOU TRANSMITTING FROM?
This little vignette once again confirms how inadequate college soccer is for preparing players -- and coaches -- for the big time.
It also gets to the heart of the issue, namely the professional vs amateur dichotomy which the NCAA does its best to muck up horribly.
Ever wonder why in sports like the big 4 plus soccer, crowds are allowed to yell and heckle opposing players but in sports like golf and tennis this behavior is forbidden?
Basically, it's social class. Golf and tennis established their presence on the sports scene as country club sports of the upper class played by "amateurs" who were rich enough not to have to worry about a real job. As tennis went professional about 25 years ago, this fan behavior has started to change despite the protestations of tennis officials that yelling is not appropriate.
The mass-based team sports, particularly those that were professionalized early, had no such prohibition since the players were pros, the fans paid good money, and the events weren't held at genteel country clubs.
The problem for college soccer, and the Bob Warmings of the world is they can't figure out what exactly college soccer is or is supposed to be. Is it an amateur sport -- as the NCAA maintains -- or is it the springboard to the pros for the best players -- as Dave Johnson pointed out. If we listen to Dave Johnson proudly pointing out that that the 1st NCAA college championship was played before 400 people and there were 20,000 at the final at Richmond. Since the NCAA was listed as the co-producer of the event, it's clear that the NCAA would like to see this trend continue (of course it would help if they would actually promote the sport aside from one weekend a year).
But with mass audiences come the kind of behavior that one expects at a large scale sports event where people pay to get in, namely fans supporting their teams.
Hey Bob Warming, get used to it!
College soccer has either got to step up several notches, big time, or just get out of the way and let a serious professional soccer developmental system be run by the pro teams in a Project 400 environment.