Meadville soccer coach wants rules change to help save sport

Meadville boys soccer head coach Jim Miller thinks Pennsylvania high school soccer is at a precipice.

“I don’t think soccer can go another two years [in the current system],” Miller said.

Miller has a head full of ideas on how to fix high school soccer, but a European tradition sticks out above the rest.

“Relegation has to happen to save soccer,” Miller said

That’s right, Miller wants to implement a promotion/relegation system in high school soccer. Under such a setup, teams would move up and down among the district’s divisions based on the team’s performance over a season.

The reason behind this is simple: Miller wants to improve competitive balance and increase morale.

Miller has seen his team be on both sides of lopsided scores this season. In Region 5 play, Meadville put up 20 goals on Franklin over the course of two games, while Franklin scored just one. On the other side, Meadville gave up 14 goals over two games to General McLane, while the Lancers only allowed Meadville to score three.

Miller isn’t the first to think of this idea. The North Jersey Interscholastic Conference implemented the system for the 2025-2026 school year for soccer, volleyball, basketball and softball.

“We were getting lopsided scores between our upper-tier teams in the conference and lower-tier teams,” Stan Fryczynski, NJIC Conference Executive Director said. “The discrepancy in the scores, mercy rules started going into effect. ... Mercy rules ended up being a lose-lose.

”The athletes on the losing team knew that the game was being sped up and the other team was backing off. There weren’t any skills taking place in the game any more.”

So far, the system has been working for the NJIC.

“[Early in the season] we aren’t getting a lot of mercy rules kicking in and the competition has been much closer,” Fryczynski said.

Miller was ecstatic to see something he has dreamt of seeing in Pennsylvania work elsewhere.

“I’ve never clapped for something in New Jersey before, but for this I will,” Miller said.

So, why does Miller believe that a promotion/relegation system would help improve Pennsylvania soccer?

“You have [a really strong] team with so many [travel] players. Because of population, [that team] gets to go through a Double-A bracket and they really aren’t facing the toughest competition they deserve to,” Miller said.

Miller’s biggest issue with the current system is population. Some teams in areas with higher populations might not be able to field a big team, whether it is due to players leaving to play travel, or lack of interest. Inversely, teams with in lower-populated areas might be able to field a consistently competitive team. Population does not play into a school’s ability to field a competitive team.

“You can’t do regions based on population,” Miller said. “Players are seeing their teams with a weak group and saying, I’ll go somewhere else to play.

“[The PIAA] needs to understand that population is meaningless when describing your talent pool.”

With this, weaker teams are losing morale.

“These weaker schools are constantly being beat, with no chance to advance in state playoffs,” Miller said. “What is that going to do to your morale? It’s going to kill it.

“Teams in our district are in the realm of morale dropping.”

Miller wants to increase the morale of players on losing teams, and he hopes that soccer will begin to grow again with more competition.

Miller says “the growth of the game is not taking care of itself.”

He has his reasonings, but the question is how does he see the system being implemented?

“We look at the previous year’s record, with all players registered we can keep track of who is with what [travel team] and what level [team],” Miller said.

Miller wants to factor in outside play into determining proposed regions. Each player would be assigned a point value based on their registration that would track what travel team they play and what level that team is.

Also contributing to determine a team’s status would be each team’s previous record and head-to-head matchups.

“We have to accept that there is going to be some overlap. Teams are going to get caught [too high or too low], it’s not going to be perfect,” Miller said.

Perfection would not be expected from a new system, but to combat early issues, Miller wants to see promotion/relegation happen every year, rather than the current realignment that happens every two years.

Miller’s idea would see the top team moving up in a conference and the last-place team having the choice to move down. Miller thinks that the team having the choice to not move down, would stop strong teams that had a down year due to injuries or other circumstances being placed lower than they should be, creating the competitive imbalance he is trying to fix. The NJIC also gives a team the option to decline relegation.

Despite the NJIC’s system only being implemented in the beginning of the 25-26 school year so far, Miller looks to its early success as evidence to backup his argument.

“Coaches have said that despite losses they think the competition has been better,” Fryczynski said.

Outside of promotion/relegation, Miller has a list of ideas to improve the state of high school soccer, but he focused on two of his main ideas.

Miller would like to see a third referee added to regular-season games and not just the playoffs.

“In soccer, there’s too much going on. Having refs only on the side … you can’t catch everything,” Miller said.

Like his promotion/relegation idea, Miller acknowledges the challenges that come with implementing a third referee.

“Refs don’t see it as worth it anymore,” Miller said in regards to the referee shortage plaguing youth sports.

“We have to make it worth the refs’ while to do these games ... the community has to support the refs,” Miller said.

Miller also sees sportsmanship issues, which could be helped with a third referee.

Miller’s other idea is giving gym credit to high school athletes.

“Every player who participates in a high school sport should receive gym credit,” Miller said. “If you waive the gym credit for athletes, you would increase the number of athletes.”

Miller does not know how feasible this idea would be, but nonetheless, he thinks it should be a consideration.

At the heart of all this is Miller’s love and passion for the game of soccer and a coach who wants to promote the game as much as he can.

“Our goal [as coaches] is to keep soccer going and promoting it,” Miller said.

Miller wants to propose his ideas to the PIAA and hopes to do so in the future.