I'm copying a post on the community feed from another parent in the hope it gets more responses here. Curious to hear what parents of girls on Upper House teams think about this...
I am a parent (and assistant coach) for my daughter's 3rd grade team. We are contemplating moving to a more competitive flight next fall, and are looking into SFYS's upper house vs Norcal's competitive league. A few friends have told me Norcal provides a progression of tiers for player improvement (teams can move from bronze to silver to gold, etc) and guest play in higher tiers, but at the same time it's much more expensive and then there's the travel what sounds like every weekend! I'd appreciate hearing from parents on current upper house club teams what they think about this trade-off, and why you've stayed or why you expect to leave.
Out of curiosity, I looked at how an older group of teams (2010 girls) fared when making that same move (upper house to Norcal bronze tier) following the fall 2021 season. One year later, in the fall of 2022, these teams were still in bronze and all finished in the bottom half of their bracket. And in the spring of 2023, they're still in bronze except for one team that dropped to copper. I realize that's just one cohort of teams, but I have to wonder if they had just stayed in upper house, would their experience have been better (lower cost, less travel, better results on the field)?
Comments from parents on other upper house teams would be appreciated!
I'm copying a post on the community feed from another parent in the hope it gets more responses here. Curious to hear what parents of girls on Upper House teams think about this...
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am a parent (and assistant coach) for my daughter's 3rd grade team. We are contemplating moving to a more competitive flight next fall, and are looking into SFYS's upper house vs Norcal's competitive league. A few friends have told me Norcal provides a progression of tiers for player improvement (teams can move from bronze to silver to gold, etc) and guest play in higher tiers, but at the same time it's much more expensive and then there's the travel what sounds like every weekend! I'd appreciate hearing from parents on current upper house club teams what they think about this trade-off, and why you've stayed or why you expect to leave.
Out of curiosity, I looked at how an older group of teams (2010 girls) fared when making that same move (upper house to Norcal bronze tier) following the fall 2021 season. One year later, in the fall of 2022, these teams were still in bronze and all finished in the bottom half of their bracket. And in the spring of 2023, they're still in bronze except for one team that dropped to copper. I realize that's just one cohort of teams, but I have to wonder if they had just stayed in upper house, would their experience have been better (lower cost, less travel, better results on the field)?
Comments from parents on other upper house teams would be appreciated!