[Chiefspants]

My wife played soccer her entire life. Played for one of the best public high schools in Kansas, and placed in state each year.

The issue for her (and her teammates) was that in order to compete at a high level and climb the ladder in the sport, you needed to commit to a traveling league and commit to playing year round - something her parents (and the parents at the public school) were typically unable to do because of geographical and cost barriers -- a problem even more pronounced for rural kids playing the game.

My wife, for fun, participated in an event in high school with other aspiring players who wanted to play in college. She said the gap between her and the students who played in year-long, traveling leagues, felt like the gap between her (a sophomore who played all her life) and a 5th grader. The year-round kids were in an entire other stratosphere. This was a really alienating process for a lot of her teammates and a few of her teammates actually lost interest in the game (when it was supposed to do the opposite) and many students ended up focusing on sports that had more upward mobility through the resources they had available at the high school. For soccer, universities really only had interest in the year-round players - and that barrier was obvious to anyone at that event.

My wife still played in club soccer all of college and her club team did well -- but the gap between club and the University Soccer Team was always that pronounced, and club, unlike the University teams (where students got scholarships), rarely got that support.