Schock's Under-17 squad takes at least three out-of-state trips to tournaments each year. Depending on where — the Rush have traveled from as close as Cedar City to as distant as Florida — the trips can range from as little as $250 to $1,000. Then there are uniforms, bags, ball, cleats and warm-ups, not to mention the cost of getting to and from practice and games. With today's gas prices, that in itself could match the gross national product of a small country. One year on the Rush has the potential to run into the thousands of dollars.

What do the parents, who are the ones usually taking the burden of the cost, and players get from the high cost of playing competitive club soccer? In the case of the Utah Rush, besides simply putting that smile on the parents face to watch their child play, it resulted in collegiate opportunities.

"We had 14 girls on our U-17 team last year, and every one of them went somewhere on scholarship to play soccer," Schock said.

That type of success is not the norm. Simply putting a player on a premiere-league club team will not automatically earn a scholarship, but in the case of the Rush, the results speak for themselves. Schock said that his philosophy is that you get what you pay for, and he doesn't mean only on the field.

"We stress to our girls that they have to keep their grades up as well," he said. "It is so much easier for a coach to offer somebody a scholarship if they see that the academics are not going to be a problem. Of that group of 14 last season, they had a cumulative GPA of 3.9.

"Also, we try to stress that there are always life lessons to learn from being on the team," added Schock. "They can learn social interactions as well as how hard work can pay off, and there are a million other little things they can learn from both success and failure."

With today's sports, just because the little bundle brought to you is dressed in pink doesn't mean that a tutu is in the near future. There are more teams, more sports, more athletes and more overall opportunities. But along with all of the bigger and better chances for a female athlete, there may also be a smaller and drained savings account.

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E-mail: mblack@desnews.com