When Terry Michler speaks, people listen.

Michler is the ostensible dean of high school coaching in the American soccer history books. Since taking over at Christian Brothers College High School in St. Louis in 1971, Michler’s amassed 884 wins, nearly 100 more than anyone else in high school soccer history. For comparison’s sake, Anson Dorrance at UNC is sitting on 719. Michler is also still coaching at 67.

I recently spoke with Michler for an upcoming feature series encapsulating some of the most impressive records in high school soccer history, and one answer of his piqued my interest. I asked him whether he felt as though the American soccer player between the ages of 14 and 18 – his specialty – had changed at all in the last 43 years. I found his answer fascinating.

While admitting there’s been a sea change in the way we approach development, he claimed that it may not all be for the best. Probably his most coherent point toes the street ball line and acknowledges that the for-profit club model has strangled a lot of the spontaneity out of our soccer. I’d disagree that fewer age groups is for the better, though. While a smaller bottleneck to the top does help foster fierce competition, it narrows your ability to ID a wider swath of players. It also limits your ability to institute a playing style from a younger age. If you don’t get them until the U16 level, that’s probably an issue.

You may agree or disagree with parts (or the entire thing), but here are Michler’s words on the topic. Check back on TDS soon for the full feature.

“I’m not 100 percent sure it’s changed so much for the better,” Michler said. “For the longest time, the competition that we had for the youth were Under-19 and Under-16. You had to be pretty special if you were in between those age groups to play in those teams. Most recently, every age group has its own competition now. Before, if you were young and good, you really had to be good, but it really paid off because you were playing way up over your own age against more experienced players.

“I don’t know that we didn’t have better players back then. Now I think the players are more physical. Again, look at all the personalized training they get. I don’t know that they really – and this is just from my own experience – understand and appreciate the game as much as the players in the past did. These kids are all products of club soccer from age eight on. They’re not street soccer products. They don’t play the unstructured pickup games that we all played back in the day. And they’ve all grown up playing age level, so they really haven’t been pressed to play above and beyond.

“I thought back in the day, the players we were producing were pretty good. Today, you’ve got to look at how they’re being produced, the systems involved, where the kids are coming from. There’s been a lot of evolution in the game over the years, no doubt, and with all the pay-to-play stuff I don’t know how much that’s really improved the quality of the game. I think before, kids used to just play for the love of the game. Now there’s money involved and there’s more pressure because somebody’s paying for them to play and they’ve got to play now. It’s just different.”