{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Chasing the Game - Youth Soccer in America","title":"Soccer vs. School: Why Should Kids Have to Choose?","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":2737,"description":"Soccer vs. School: Why Should Kids Have to Choose?\nSoccer and school should support the same kid. Why does pursuing one sometimes make the other harder?\nAt YSC Academy, an independent school partnered with the Philadelphia Union, Mark Franek teaches students whose school day is built around soccer. Elsewhere, parents are trying to make training, travel and a regular school schedule work together. Mark, an English teacher and author of American Soccer Nation, explains what he values about the Philadelphia Union environment. Liron and Matt press him on the families who don't have that option.\nMark makes the case for in-person teaching while acknowledging the difficult choices families face. He also refuses to treat college as a failed professional dream. His perspective comes from inside this environment, as both a teacher and a soccer dad.\nThe conversation stretches beyond school: the car ride home, what kids hear when parents dismiss MLS, and the American soccer communities Mark writes about.\nIn this episode:\nWhy Mark left law when he was missing his son's games\nHow he describes a school day built around Philadelphia Union training\nHis approach to the car ride home, and why he says parents must know their own kid\nWhy he treats college and professional soccer as worthwhile paths\nWhat he thinks a strong coach alone cannot provide\nHis concerns about online schooling, and the limited choices some families face\nWhy he wants club owners to invest in education alongside soccer\nWhat the early American Soccer League and its communities mean to the players he teaches\nMark's book, American Soccer Nation, is out now on Amazon and wherever books are sold: https://a.co/d/0hmHzDRX\nBonus book content and advice for elite young soccer players live on Mark's book site: https://americansoccernation.com/\nChasing the Game is a weekly show for parents trying to navigate youth soccer in America: the money, the leagues, the pressure, and what actually develops a player.","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/Pf68ZmEGGzhD_L4GqN2MPEzSyl3kwuk7GVB4PlA2yzk/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9kZWVh/ODMyNzJlMTg1NDQ3/NWZmZjlhOTAwOWEy/ZGJmYy5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}