The Promise vs. the Reality of Oregon Surf Soccer

A few months ago I wrote about my experience as an Oregon Surf soccer coach for the U9 Developmental league and referenced another story related to my other son who was playing his first year of Competitive soccer, U11, at Surf. I figured the best way to start this story was by examining the promise Oregon Surf proudly places on their website:

Oregon Surf SC will provide the best youth soccer experience for players and their families in the state of Oregon.

That’s a pretty bold statement—and I’m sorry to spoil the ending here, but this is a very empty promise. What our family learned about Surf is that the organization is only focused on winning and will work towards that goal at the expense of their club members, team dynamics, and player development. Unfortunately, it turns out they’re not even that good at winning and you’re better off taking your money elsewhere.

Before you roll your eyes and think “Oh geez, another story from jilted soccer parent who believes their kid is the next captain of the United States national team,” let’s get a couple things out of the way:

• I am under no illusion that my kid is playing soccer at any kind of elite level, nor do I have aspirations for him to get there. This is absolutely not a “Surf sucks because my kid is great and they don’t see it” complaint. He’s a tier-2 or tier-3 player, only playing club soccer because rec leagues weren’t an appropriate challenge.
• His “coach” at Oregon Surf (I’m going to continue using coach in quotes to refer to this individual, because there was absolutely no coaching happening, advancement in player abilities, or team development that occurred under his watch) was a 19-year-old college student who was saddled with coaching five different Surf teams at the time.
• He actually started playing with Oregon Surf the year before it rebranded, when it was still called Northwest Elite. After tryouts in May of 2024 he was offered a spot on Surf’s “White” team, which was their second-tier squad out of four at the U11 age. The team was mostly made up of the same players from the previous year and they did a few summer tournaments together before the fall season officially started. His team started the season with a roster of 12 kids, and at his age level (U11) they play 9v9 games, meaning in a worst-case scenario you had 3 kids on the bench.

New players—even when joining in the middle of the season—are the priority at Surf

The story picks up three weeks into the season where, with zero communication from the staff or “coach,” the team suddenly had a few new players show up at practice. When everyone arrived at the next game we had 15 players (!!!) on the sideline, for a 9v9 game. That didn’t seem ideal, but on the bright side it looked like we’d have a lot of subs available to rotate the kids and keep fresh legs out there, right?

Guess who started the game on the field in place of long-time players? The new kids¹, the ones who had been at practice for one week. Most of the players who didn’t start the game—players who had been with Northwest Elite and Surf for years now—remained on the bench for the entire first half. Almost all of those, including my kid, remained on the bench until there were only about ten minutes left in the game. Another received about five minutes of playing time, and one poor kid never even set foot on the field.

I’m not saying everyone should have equal minutes, but this was not a “minutes matter” approach as Surf also states they believe in on their website—it was anything but that. Honestly, it was an example of absolutely shameful coaching and support from someone who is supposed to be helping these kids develop as soccer players. The kid who didn’t play was 10-year-old whose parents ponied up thousands of dollars to join the club, hauled the kid to practices, showed up on time for the game, and then went home without playing a single minute. Again, this was 2nd-tier U11 soccer team, not the United States youth national team in training.

Many of the “coaches” are not equipped with the skills to work with kids

After the game, my son was told that some players, including him, needed to move to a different team to prioritize playing time for these new players who just joined the club mid-season. He was given the choice to move to the third-tier team in his own age group or move to the third-tier team in the next older age group (U12), both of which were run by the same “coach.” He was crushed by the news and the idea of not playing with his friends, but we talked it over with him, hyping up the idea of getting more playing time, and he agreed to give the older group a shot since they had a match the following day.

We drove out to the game with the whole family along to support him and he got the chance to play some good minutes in the first half, but spent most of the second half sitting on the bench again. This was not the confidence boost he needed and he again walked off the field completely gutted for the second day in a row. His “coach” never even introduced him to the new team and couldn’t even be bothered to give a high-five, a fist bump, or any kind of encouragement before, during, or after the game. The fact that he even showed up as a player looking to contribute to a new team wasn’t even acknowledged. As soon as we got in the car to head home he told us he wanted to quit playing soccer completely.

The club will double down on their intent to win at all costs

At this point we knew he was done playing there, but asked for a meeting with some of the club leadership, not to complain, but to suggest some ideas to prevent this type of thing from happening to another kid in the future. We sent a note to the club’s President, Executive Director, and Director of Coaching (DOC) for Younger Boys, requesting a few minutes of their time for a quick call together.  I was still an active coach with the club at the time, yet we received no response from the President or Executive Director. To his credit, the DOC said he could hop on a call, although we stated we felt the conversation was better suited for the other leaders. 

We still met with him, only to be told that this treatment was “to be expected” and that Surf “will do whatever it takes to win.” The callous response and lack of willingness to even consider feedback was appalling. As a coach in the Development Academy I didn’t report to or work with this DOC directly, but I knew that this person had run their own paid training sessions—outside of official Surf training—in the Portland area for a long time. As I dug in more, it came to light that the new kids who came to join Surf mid-season just happened to be kids from another club who happened to be in his personal training program. And suddenly they joined Surf in the middle of the season? What a wild coincidence!² 

Winning at all costs also includes hiring coaches previously suspended for assaulting youth players

When I looked closer, it came to light, and was confirmed by OYSA staff, that this DOC had actually been suspended from coaching by OYSA the previous year for an incident where he physically assaulted a youth player³ by putting his hands around the kid’s neck in a sideline brawl. 

This floored me because looking back at the spring of 2024, I was part of the coaching staff when Oregon Surf introduced this individual with open arms, hailing him as a great resource for the club. I’m sorry—he put his hands around a kid’s throat and this is the man you put in charge of the program?! What an absolute failure of leadership to celebrate having this individual on staff.

Our feedback was not only completely ignored, but club leadership lied to our faces

At that point we sent another email to the entire board detailing how disappointing the lack of any response was while simply looking for a constructive meeting. Our kiddo was definitely leaving the club, but I was still a coach of the 2016 boys, and we legitimately wanted to provide suggestions for how Oregon Surf could live the values they state. After hearing crickets in response so far, the Executive Director of the club finally agreed to meet with us. 

We explained the situation and pointed out that the decision had not only affected the morale of the team, but also undermined the efforts and progress made by the players who have been committed to Northwest Elite and Oregon Surf for years now. Youth soccer is not just about competition; it’s about teaching values to the kids like teamwork, perseverance, and respect. By prioritizing the new, uncommitted players over those who have been dedicated from the beginning, the organization was sending a disheartening message to the players and their families: that their efforts and loyalty were secondary to new arrivals’ talents. 

Look, it’s totally fair to expect these changes to happen at tryouts or even between the fall and spring seasons. Kids move up, move down, or are cut at these expected evaluation points and natural breaks. But making these moves in the middle of the season after other players have already accepted invitations to a specific team sends a very clear message that Oregon Surf has no commitment to existing families. If there’s fresh talent available, they’re going to make room at the expense of someone else, at any time.

We genuinely approached the conversation constructively and made two distinct suggestions to improve the player and parent experience at Oregon Surf:

1. Create and document club policies related to rosters, articulating items like team sizes, when new players can be added, and how or when rosters can change. Then share these policies with families so they know what to expect.
2. Reach out to the families of teams run by the “coach” for feedback and assign an adult mentor to help teach him how to appropriately interact with young soccer players.

When we brought up the concerns about “coach” and suggested his team load be reduced while being mentored, the person in charge of the club straight-up lied to our faces, saying that this was “the first he’s heard of any complaints about ‘coach.’” It’s a small community, and we know many families with players on other teams run by “coach” who had previously made their displeasure known to the club. 

This was an “a-ha” moment because it became super clear that the club’s culture was absolutely rotten from the very top, with the leader of the club lying to our faces. I had no shortage of other reasons for stepping away from coaching at Surf, but this was a big part of my decision.

I’m writing this in March of 2025 and in an entirely unsurprising turn of events, nothing has been done about either item since we met in October of 2024. Many of our friends who continued suffering through their sons playing for the “coach” confirmed there was never any survey nor feedback requested about “coach,” which is a shame for the players because they are not advancing or receiving the promised training these poor parents are paying a lot of money for.

I’m sure they’re not asking me for suggestions at this point, but I do think some edits to the Oregon Surf website are warranted. Let’s start with the statement I mentioned at the beginning:

Oregon Surf SC will provide the best a youth soccer experience for players and their families in the state of Oregon.

There, I fixed it. Another gem on the Oregon Surf website is how it states it has a relentless pursuit of the member experience, but it turns out the only thing it is actually relentless about is being a poorly-run organization with little respect for its customers.

If you’re considering Oregon Surf, do your research and ask the tough questions. If player development, coaching quality, and ethical leadership matter to you, there are better options.

1. We learned later that one of the players added was actually playing up a year from the correct age group. So instead of saying “Wow, we already have a deep roster here—full of of kids who have been around for awhile—so it would make more sense to play in your own age” for the last 5 weeks of the season, Surf chose to immediately push out kids who had been loyal teammates for multiple years. ^↩
   
2. Now I’m not saying there was recruiting happening, but I’m not not saying it either. ^↩
   
3. I’m terribly disappointed that the shit-talking soccer forums are the only public documentation of this supposed incident, but from what I understand in conversations with staff, the charges were dropped because of paperwork technicality and the OYSA rules have since been amended to allow these kinds of filings to become public in the future. And if you happen to be an individual with the video that exists from that match, please get in touch anonymously via Signal because I am more than happy to host it here. ^↩