National Team Dreams Put Strain on School Ties

Soccer players Lindsay Greco and Kristen Moore are expected to catch a flight from Los Angeles to Phoenix this morning so they can play in the Olympic Development Program’s national championships, which begin Friday.

On Saturday afternoon, they will be back in Mission Viejo to play in Capistrano Valley’s first-round game in the Southern Section girls’ soccer playoffs. That night, they return to Phoenix to prepare for Sunday’s ODP finals.

Choosing between being true to your school and playing soccer in front of college scouts armed with scholarship offers and for a program that helps identify future national team players is a conflict unique to California’s top youth soccer players.

In most other states, high school soccer is played in the fall, when the colleges play. Because of California’s mild weather, its high schools play during the winter, and, for several years, the playoffs have run concurrently with ODP-scheduled events.

Valencia’s Rubi Sandoval also will play in the ODP championships this weekend, but she decided against returning for her high school team’s first-round game against Ocean View.

“It’s obviously a big opportunity for her,” Valencia Coach Dean Winther said. “And I would have never asked her to make a choice or try to come home.

“I totally endorse what [ODP] is doing, but they said they weren’t going to infringe on high school this year, and now they are doing it again. We want to build high school soccer, but how can we when kids have to make these choices? It’s telling the girls that high school soccer isn’t important.”

That sentiment is apparent when talking to ODP officials.

“For the most part we have bent over backward,” said Steve Sampson, ODP’s technical director. “I have personally worked very hard to work this out. But, in reality, it has to come to what is best for the players, and ODP is where they get exposure.”

Said ODP administrator Bela Bircsak: “I know some high school coaches are not happy campers, but if they think one or two players are going to make a difference in their team winning or losing, then they are dreaming.”

Tell that to Winther, who has to rearrange his lineup to replace Sandoval, his team’s sweeper.

Greco and Moore said there was never a choice for them, not after what happened last season.

During the first round of the 1999 playoffs, Moore and teammate Ashley Casas traveled to Florida to train with the ODP under-16 national team. Back at home, second-seeded Capistrano Valley was upset by Esperanza, 3-1.

“It’s my senior year and we want to win [a Southern Section title],” Greco said. “All three games are so important. But I knew in the end we wouldn’t have to make a choice.”

Greco, who already has signed with UCLA, doesn’t need the exposure ODP provides. Nor does Moore, a junior, who, barring injury, will be headed to a Division I soccer powerhouse. However, they continue to play for ODP in hopes of making the national team.

Many wonder why ODP couldn’t postpone its championships, but Bircsak says the scheduling is suggested by the U.S. Soccer Federation.

“The last thing we want to do is conflict with high school,” said Sampson, the former men’s national team coach. “We are the ones taking the greatest risk here. If it impacts anyone, it’s us and our ability to be prepared for the national championship on Sunday.”

Among the other county girls playing for ODP this weekend are Vicki Bloom (El Modena), Julie Peterson and Katie Rivera (Santa Margarita), Cassie Wittick (Trabuco Hills), Kim Devine and Stacy Lindstrom (Aliso Niguel), April Pettigrew (El Toro), Christine Johnson, Kacie Jewell and Ina Kain (Woodbridge), and Lindsey Huie and Kendall Billingsley (Mission Viejo).

Boys affected by the scheduling conflict are Woodbridge’s Roy Chingarian and Newport Harbor’s Tyson Wahl, who will play for the under-16 title in Phoenix.