If you have an interest in forming a team for Spring ’25 or the following 2025-2026 season, please reach out and let’s discuss. Can be for any age group, boys or girls.
If interested, it is IMPORTANT that you contact me well-before February as that is the deadline for submitting field requests to the City of Loveland.
Please contact Scott Wheeler @ the number found at the top of this page or through the Registration contact form.
A QUICK NOTE REGARDING ELIGIBILITY:
- RESIDENCY – Your player needs to reside within the Loveland City School District (LCSD) to be eligible to play for RB Loveland. This requirement ensures compliance with the City of Loveland field-use policy of primarily serving residents of Loveland. While LCSD extends outside of the city limit, we believe this requirement reasonably includes the broader Loveland community while honoring the field-use policy.
Register Here:
RB Loveland is founded with a dual-purpose mission:
Organizationally – To create a performance-based organization that drives cost from competitive soccer and provides greater access to higher-level instruction.
Developmentally – To teach your daughters/sons to play a smart, skilled, and assertive game of soccer and have a great time doing it.
To accomplish this, RB Loveland operates upon the following tenets:
All Volunteer Coaching – Consistent with European grassroots organizations, training will be volunteered by parents invested in their child’s development or by other community members intrinsically motivated to teach the game. There will never be any paid positions within the club, full-time, part-time, contract, or otherwise.
Organizational Design – Consistent with best-practices of European grassroots organizations, RB Loveland will evolve and operate in a democratic manner that promotes team self-governance and organizational autonomy.
Commitment to Real Player Development – Player development is more than simply promoting a more skillful or athletic player to a higher-level team. Long Term Player Development (LTDP) starts with a real plan for comprehensive development to ensure players don’t reach middle U-levels without such fundamental skills as passing effectively with both feet and receiving a ball out of the air. RB Loveland is also committed to providing equal playing time for all players… the ultimate development tool that allows players to apply what they have learned in training. It is our belief that arranging equally matched games is critical to maximizing player development and every effort will be made to ensure that this happens.
Empowerment of Coaches – The coach is the shepherd of her/his team and decides who is added or removed from the roster. Whenever possible, new coaches will be offered guidance with full-season training plans and suggested resources so that they can be immediately productive. Coaches are not required to have a license, but are highly encouraged to pursue one.
Team Formation – RB Loveland will field multiple teams in each age group and movement between teams is strictly voluntary. Coaches must ‘sell’ their ‘product’ to all potential players, internal and external. Most importantly, this approach allows for continuity in team development. As coaches develop their style/system of play with their team, forced player-movements under the guise of ‘player development’ are disruptive to instructing team-based tactics moving into upper U-levels. This approach maintains continuity and keeps everyone focused in the forward direction.
Empowerment of Parents – Though they pay no training fees, parents are recognized as ‘The Customer’ of the Volunteer Coach. If at any point in the season the parents disagree with the style or behavior of the coach, she/he can be removed with 2/3rds approval by the team. Coaches are elected to their positions and re-elected at the end of each season by simple majority. Parents with soccer experience are encouraged to assist in training the team and parents are encouraged to actively observe/enjoy training sessions.
Clarity regarding Performance-based design vs. winning at-all-cost
At first, it might be easy to confuse these two concepts, but they couldn’t be more different. The first concept ensures that coaches and parents, and not just players, are held accountable for delivering their best effort for the team. The second concept is a destructive counter-behavior that works in opposition to the first. It is our belief that commitment to the stated tenets (performance-based) will result in success on the field and the best possible experience for all players.
Scott Wheeler has been a resident of Loveland since 2009. He and his wife have two daughters, ages 17 and 20, that have played soccer since U9, ultimately playing on high-school teams. Their elder daughter is in college studying to be a doctor and the younger aspires to be a Physicians Assistant. While he is proud of their soccer achievements, he is most proud of their academic accomplishments and personal character. It’s his belief that academic performance must take priority over sports participation and he promises to reinforce this with your child.
Scott holds a U.S. Soccer ‘E’ License since 2017 as well as a U.S. Soccer Referee License. He has held Assistant and Head Coaching positions with area competitive clubs and has served a volunteer coach with LYSA since 2016. Parents of his players would likely use adjectives like “fun, competitive, demanding, firm, and fair” to describe his coaching style. During the season canceled by the 2020 pandemic, he self-published his Fall U11 training plan on Amazon, which has been highly rated and reviewed. The content of this work provides useful insight into his comprehensive approach to training and development.
Why So Cheap?!
As a species, humans have an uncanny desire to ‘improve’ things and, as a general-consequence, make them more expensive. Soccer is no exception to this phenomenon…but it doesn’t have to be.
This has happened in our own community. Most recreational players that (might) aspire to play on their high-school team have no financially viable path to do so. The word ‘might’ is in parenthesis as most 8-9 year olds and their parents have no idea that they are walking into the ‘pay-to-play’ trap. If a young recreational player decides he/she wants to try competitive soccer, the total cost-to-play jumps by a factor of 8x-10x. To play club soccer locally, you can expect your total cost to participate to range between $1,500 to $2200 per year. These costs approach 4% of median net-income for households in our area…prohibitive for half of the youth in Loveland.
Here is how RB Loveland drives down costs for a game played on a patch of grass, with a simple ball, and in some countries, without shoes (Heaven forbid):
NO PAID POSITIONS – Other area clubs, even 501(c)(3)s, have multiple full-time paid positions, paid part-time positions, employ high-dollar contractors for training services, and pay coaches to varying degrees. This is largest contributing factor to the bloated cost of delivering competitive soccer today. RB Loveland is committed to all-volunteer coaching/training; completely eliminating the single largest cost to play the beautiful game. This operational approach also allows for growth opportunities for parents that seek to be more involved in their child’s development.
NO OVERNIGHT TRAVEL – The conventional competitive club travels to tournament destinations that require overnight stay. This has become one of the biggest scams in youth soccer and is referred to as ‘stay-to-play’. The way it works is, the hosting club ‘partners’ with local hotels and requires you to stay in a partner hotel at a designated room-rate. It doesn’t matter if you can get a cheaper rate at the hotel next door. Host clubs then receive some type of renumeration in return. Overnight expenses can be one of the greatest hidden costs for a family. RB Loveland is committed to playing in local tournaments and eliminating this cost entirely. The Cincinnati area is rich in competitive tournament opportunities that don’t necessitate overnight travel.
AFFORDABLE UNIFORMS – Rather than engage in ‘partnerships’ with makers of branded uniforms, RB Loveland takes the more reasonable approach of sourcing a high-performance shirt and affixing numbers and logos ourselves…drastically reducing costs. Instead of paying $400-$500 for uniforms, the cost can be reduced to around $62; You buy your own black shorts and socks that you prefer.
INAUGURAL SEASON GAMES – RB Loveland is presently seeking acceptance into the Cardinal Premier League for regular season games starting in the Fall. If the timing doesn’t work out for this season, non-league games will be sourced. There are enough grassroots community-based clubs in our area now to support 5-7 ‘friendly’ games at no cost as coaches and assistants can serve as referees.
Every decision made within RB Loveland will be made with the first objective being to keep costs at an absolute minimum.
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