South Shore Select FC
South Shore Select FC
Background
South Shore Select FC (Select) is located in Hingham, Mass and founded in 1998. Select has more than 200 players (~ 11 teams) in U11 – U18 playing in the Northeast Soccer League (NSL); and about 100 players in their academy.
This is a girls club; the boys club is Select FC. Not sure why it appears as though they are two different clubs. Can be quite confusing if you are not familiar with Select.
Leadership of the club has come under fire from critics as focus more on the money model; most agree that programs for younger kids is OK but as they get older the club cannot offer them the skills and development in later years.
Camps/Clinics
The club has a year round program called the Select Jr Academy Program and this is for boys and girls ages 5-11; this is to improve players’ knowledge of the game, player positioning and overall skills. Clinics focus on dribbling, passing, shooting and other technical skills.
Facilities
South Shore Select’s home field in Abington High School
- Abington High School (1 and 2)
201 Gliniewicz Way, Abington, MA 02351 - Hingham Middle School
1103 Main St, Hingham, MA 02043 - Lower Reed St., Rockland
- Massasoit Community College
One Massasoit Blvd., Brockton, MA 02302 - Notre Dame Academy, Hingham
1073 Main St., Hingham, MA 02043 - South Shore Sports Center
55 Recreation Park Dr., Hingham, MA 02043
Website
- Their website(s?) are informative at best if you know about the club and what your looking for.
- Can be very confusing switching between clubs (boys / girls), in and out of tryout pages and clinics.
- Couple of links just lead nowhere.
- Might be best to give them a call in order to minimize your frustration.
Our daughters are in their second year with select and we’re very happy with the club. When we started looking at clubs we looked to see which ones were consistently in the top 10 state wide and we found that select was the most consistent, and even had top teams nationally.
Our girls tried out and were placed on the lowest level team. This didn’t discourage us since we were very impressed with the staff and their commitment to developing the players. Our girls have since moved up a level and we hope to move up another level this year to a more competitive team. My daughters work very hard and it has paid off, you get out of it what you put into it. Just because your child plays on a club doesn’t make them a superstar, they need to work hard.
I should note that we drive from Bourne to Hingham to play on Select, yes…… we might be crazy driving that far and past numerous other clubs to get there but in my opinion the the drive is worth it to have the best.
Response to previous comments:
Is it intense? The upper level teams are intense while the lower levels are more laid back.
Do the owners, Liz & Driton play favorites? …. Call it what you want…..They play the best players…bottom line! Their lively hood is this club, for it to be successful, they need to win and you win by working hard, producing great players and playing your best players in the upper level teams. Guess what, if your kid didn’t make the upper level teams, they probably didn’t meet the standard……nor have mine, but I’m okay with that and so aren’t they.
Is the indoor facility old? Yes, it might be old, but it does the trick…what percentage of clubs have their own facility? Exactly, better old than to not have one at all.
Do you have to kiss up to the owners or coaches? Absolutely not!. I don’t kiss up to anyone! If you pulled your kid bc you thought you had to kiss up then either your kid really wasn’t that good and you’re making excuses or you can’t read people.
Just my opinion on some earlier comments, we love select and they have done an amazing job coaching my girls.
Select is pricy, but you get a lot for the money. 1. Your own indoor facility so practices are rarely cancelled for poor weather. Yes, the facility is old, but there’s a bar to grab a drink and watch practice and the turf is fine so we like it. Feels like a 2nd home. 2. Lots of winter indoor practice and tons of winter league play. 3. Good outdoor fields, Notre Dame putting in a new turf field, Legion Field in Weymouth is great and Weymouth High is nice too.
All good facilities. 4. We love the coaches. Steve M is the best coach of younger kids you’ll ever have. 5. Lots of great team building, parties, tournaments, etc. 6. Lots of optional summer play.
We’ve tried 4 different clubs between my 4 kids. Select is our favorite. I do wish they gave the boys as much love as the girls though. My girls had a little better experience. The website for girls is updated more, more twitter and facebook updates, etc. Boys are sort of the black sheep.
Two of my kids played on select. One elite and one pre elite. We did not have a positive experience. I know others have. If you feel like kissing up to the Limas and the coaches you will have a great experience with Select. There are no discussions with the coaches about your player’s development. The Limas know who they want and what they want that is their prerogative. My prerogative was to pull my girls and send them to another club with better coaching and more fair playing time. We made the correct decision to leave this club.
South Shore Select is the biggest racket out there. Don’t be fooled by the manual outlining the payments, the $1,500 is just the beginning. Be prepared to pay another $1,000-$1,500 in club fees. Every time you turn around you will be paying for another shirt, coaches fee, mandatory camps, parties, etc. The coaches are a mix match. Some are good, some are great soccer players, but don’t know how to coach. Most of them are kind and nice to the children. The head of the organization is threatening to children and plays favorites. She is especially a poor role model to young girls. The focus is on the Elite teams and if your child does not have the skills to play elite, you are just cash flow to the organization. Also, do not expect to partner with the coaches or leadership. Their philosophy is to agree with everything they say and if not, find another club. The club has taken a hit this season due to some new competition. The facilty is old w/ huge pot holes, and poor ventilation. Six Elite players have left in the past six months due to the leadership. What does that say?
BOTH my daughters have played with Select for 10 or more years. Whomever left this coment is either nieve or just plain hateful. EVERY club there are additional fees outside of your actual training. One of my girls is an elite player and one is not (for over five years she played on the secondary team) and as far as I’m concerned ALL the coaching has been nothing but exceptional. NO club is perfect by any means..but it’s my understanding that other clubs do not give the time and energy to the girls like Select does (that comes from friends who play with other clubs) and yes, Select may be exspensive to some but you cannot beat the training and the amount of soccer you receive as well as the support from the entire staff and the Lima Family. As data as the “head of the organization” comment..yes she is tough, strong and supportive to ALL the girls! She is also, very much – loyal, strong, tough and supportive!! What else would you want in a coach or head of an organization may I ask? As far as some top players leaving — everyone thinks the grass is greener — but I know for a fact that everyone of this families would come back if they knew what they know now how the “grass” is so much better at Select — that is a fact. Oh and by the way — after five years of hard work, my daughter worked her way up to the elite team. That was on her, as always with the support of both her coaches!! Lastly, the facility has been there for over thirty years and Select has put so much time, effort and money into the building to the best of their ability..they didn’t build it..they just have been giving it the live it deserves for over the last many years that is financially possible..funny thing is..it’s packed on a daily basis–So what does that tell You??
My Daughter Has been playing with Select for the past 2 years.She loves everything about the club. From there practice facilities to there App.I know very little about soccer and to see her Excel in the sport is solely do to her effort and the support she gets from the coaching staff , I would recommend them to anyone !! Liz and the whole staff Have been Great !
If you are a parent trying to decide which club your kid should join, take everything you read here with a grain of salt — including my comments about Select, which are biased because my daughter is having a GREAT experience. She is on a competitive team (not Elite), with players she likes and professional coaches who know her character and understand how to develop her skills, and with plenty of opportunities to play against sides from the top clubs in New England. As a parent, what more do you really need/want?
If the player/parent experience is the most important consideration for you, then you need to understand that joining any club, including Select, comes with uncertainty — in the side your kid gets placed on, the chemisry between the coaches and your kid, the teammates she/he is surrounded with, and the pace at which your kid develops.
We tried several clubs before ending up at Select, so I speak from experience in saying that Liz Lima and her coaching staff are true professionals. They run a well structured program where the kids have fun, players of all ability have access to professional coaches who really work at getting to know your kids, and the kids (and parents) know what’s expected of them. I accept that our experience will never be the same from year to year, or even from Fall to Spring as players can and do switch clubs mid-season, but I trust the coaches will continue to develop our daughter’s skills and love of the game.
So in that spirit, let me offer a slightly alternative approach to the “STAR” system Peter has created. I give Peter TONS of credit for creating this site, but I’ve surveyed the comments/rankings across numerous club pages on this site, and I think the comments — and the STAR system on which they’re based — paint an inconsistent picture of the player/parent experience at most of these clubs, based on what I’ve observed these past few years.
AS I NOTED ABOVE, everything is completely subjective and uncertain when it comes to club soccer, so instead of trying to research soccer clubs on this site as you might choose a restaurant or hotel, put your computer away and do the following:
1. Go talk to the parents of the best players in your town and ask them about their club soccer experience. You know who they are, and you will get a true, unfiltered point of view about what they like, and don’t like, about the clubs in your area. The best kids in our town play on Select, and their parents are highly sophisticated about how to engage their kids in the sport, so that was a credible marker for us.
2. Try before you buy. Sign up for their camps or clinics that are often lead by club coaches. That way, you can see the coaches in action and whether your kid likes playing for them. Also, many if not all of the clubs will allow you to train with them a few practices prior to making a commitment. This is a great way to see if you kids likes the practice setting and focus, which is really important since games represent a small minority of the time your kid is actually engaging the club. Also, you can see if they connect socially with some of the kids, which is no small consideration. Liz was terrific in giving us a chance to try Select this way, and it opened our eyes quite a bit to what we were getting into.
Bottom line: you have to be practical about your decision, but don’t overrule going on a gut instinct. No decision is perfect, and nothing is written in stone. If you don’t like the experience, try another club. But keep an open mind, and remember that things change. If you kid isn’t developing and thriving, then it’s time to move on. We will be a Select for a LONG time to come (or at least as long as my daughter’s love of the game continues), but that’s not going to be the case for everyone.
Good Luck!
Thanks so much, Stewart, for this review of Select; I appreciate the time and thoughfulness that went into it. Whether others agree or not, you at the very least provided a in-depth review and 1st hand acoount of the club – thanks so much!
Peter