I always thought that was a redwood not a birch

Schools had also previously used HS grades in combination with standardized testing, which they are no longer permitted to do. And with standardized testing, large scale grade inflation just served to embarrass the sending school more than anything else

… none of these guys are American

turns out it's hard to find a picture of Olajuwon playing soccer but I *did* find a video of him nutmegging Ahmad Rashad, which is fun

It’s not even 2026 yet this is premature

Ok, in that case I lumped your argument together with other, unrelated arguments. Sorry!

I do think greater participation would improve the pool somewhat just from a numbers perspective, but not that much, and I don’t think we’re losing due to lacking athletes.

Fair, let me condense it to this:

A lot of these arguments revolve around *specific* athletes (or in this case cohort of athletes), based on the assumption that current US soccer players are somehow second rate athletes compared to those theoretical others. But it just doesn’t work like that.

Meanwhile the physical requirements to be an elite player are significantly lower, in part because the technical requirements are so much higher

I agree with the premise that basketball and football have obvious physical requirements that, if you don’t meet, you should do a sober cost/benefit analysis to gauge whether or not you should dedicate your life to sport.

How do you know they could develop into the best soccer players? I mean, from a sheer numbers perspective some probably would but the rates would most likely be similar to the cohort that already participates in the sport at the youth levels

My more complete thoughts on this whole line of argument are here: www.americansocceranalysis.com/home/2022/12...

You’re right - I shouldn’t have engaged in the premise at all.

There’s no evidence that those random D2 combo guards would be our “best soccer athletes” regardless of coaching

I think the bigger issue is those athletes don’t get acquainted with soccer until they’re 10+ years old and at that point they are further behind technically than can ever be made up with athleticism

Soccer is hard because being good with your feet is basically unrelated to being good with your hands, and being good with one is no guarantee you’ll be good with the other.

Does it really make a difference as long as we have a broadly dispersed population and low quality coaching?

The USMNT isn’t hurting for athletes.