My son did it for 3 years. Although the program lists college coaches that were there the previous year I never noticed any. Never noticed any of the DAP coaches I know there either. Son did it just for fun as it gave him a chance to play a different position than he normally plays. Level of play is HS or lower, depending on your school.

did see a write-up of some games (boys) and some names are of kids from Central Mass (my district)...
http://cdn.trustedpartner.com/docs/l...%20results.pdf

Fun thing to do if you miss out on club regionals, etc. It can be a little better than HS at times. A lot of HS folks see you and it can help with All NE/All American voting. Very little college exposure though.

Anotehr opportunity to get injured - lots of hacking

High school age players with most having played club (often the better club teams). Also some ODP and DAP players. Very, very, very few college coaches attend though.

My son played for Central (who won) and thought it was fun. The brand of soccer is decent, but very physical (not surprising given that it also has it's share of strictly high school players).

hey , thanks for the feedback... at least this thread didn't go down the road of 'soap opera drama'...so, partially restored my 'faith' in the T-S blogosphere...

My son plays DAP and his coaches suggested he pass on playing.

"Suggested"? or "ordered"?

How does Baystate compare to District Select?

Different poster - DAP coach did not want kids to do Bay State prior to playoffs/showcase which precludes going to try outs, but if you can make it on the team without the tryout you are out of season and can play. Number of players seems to be way down. One region in boys division could not even field a team.

BSG vs Dist. Select is partially what the basis of my question was.

my Dist Select experience is mostly a 'mixed bag', bordering mostly on 'not worth the time of giving up several weekends'

only once had great coach, and talented group of all-skilled players. that's when it was good.

other times have had 'town rec level coach' and players with no business on being on any team called "select"...and ends up total waste of time.....granted cost is super-cheap, but 'cost to my summer' was far greater.

don't know what the total time commitment to BayStateGames involvement is...one week? two?

My son played District Select in the younger age groups - U12 and U13. At that time, Academy programs were only in their infancy and at that age, there was no high school play in those age groups - so back then, it was pretty good caliber of play overall considering there were very few practices prior to the matches (which are also conisdered practices in preparation for the tournament). He skipped a couple of years and tried out last year and the talent was horrible. Lower level club players and weak to average high school players - that's it. He went to a single tryout and didn't return. He was offered a spot and didn't accept it. Now, I don't know what it's like currently in the younger age groups, but at the older age groups the talent pool is poor. It's too bad actually because he had a pretty good experience in U12 and U13 DS. Coaching can be a mixed bag - first year he had a college coach who did a nice job, the second year he had a couple of town soccer coaches who sucked.

Bay State Games features kids who can all play. As I mentioned earlier, there are a lot of club players (mostly playing at the higher level sides), some ODP and a few Academy players as well. Most of these kids are standout players for their respective high school teams (Academy players aside of course). So I would say that the Bay State Games talent pool and quality of play is significantly higher overall than what you see in District Select at the older age levels. Whether the Bay State Games will continue to attract good talent remains to be seen. I will say that it's not attracting much in the way of college coaches (if it ever did).

No DAP players play. Stop it with that.

In DS?....yes they do....