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eclipse-select-sc

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Eclipse Select SC

Tax status: unverified — club is privately owned per public reporting; no Illinois charitable filing located

Overview

Eclipse Select Soccer Club is a youth soccer organization founded in 1996 and headquartered in Arlington Heights, Illinois. Eclipse operates as a multi-site club across the Chicago metropolitan area with locations including Arlington Heights, Northbrook, Oak Brook, Darien, Naperville, and a recently added Itasca site. The club is best known nationally for its girls program, which has produced 73 national team players and 53 professional players according to current website figures.

Eclipse competes across both genders in elite leagues and is one of a handful of US clubs holding both ECNL Boys and ECNL Girls memberships — a structural advantage in scouting visibility.

Legal & Ownership Structure

Per public reporting in the Washington Post (November 2021, February 2022) and Wikipedia, Eclipse Select SC is privately owned by founder Rory Dames, who founded the club in 1996. No matching charitable entity is listed in the public US charity registries for “Eclipse Select” or “Eclipse Soccer” with an Illinois address, and no charitable-status verbiage appears on the club’s website. The legal entity has not been confirmed via Illinois Secretary of State filings; the most plausible structure given public reporting is a privately held LLC or closely held corporation owned by Dames.

In late 2021, Dames stepped down as president of the club following his resignation as coach of the Chicago Red Stars (NWSL) amid abuse allegations from former players. Mike Nesci replaced Dames as president of Eclipse Select, though it was not publicly confirmed that ownership transferred. In 2023, Dames was banned for life from the NWSL related to player-misconduct findings. The Washington Post investigation also referenced a 1998 police report involving a youth player Dames coached at Eclipse.

Tax status is therefore marked unverified rather than for-profit: the for-profit posture is highly likely given founder-ownership reporting, but the underlying Illinois corporate filing has not been directly cited in this article.

Financials

No public charity return is available — consistent with for-profit operation. Revenue is unpublished. Inferred scale (multi-site operation across 5–6 Chicago-area locations, dual-gender ECNL membership, ~600+ college commits over the club’s life) suggests a sizable independent club, but no public revenue figure has been verified.

Teams & Players

Programs span U8 through U19 across multiple competitive tiers. The club is multi-location across the Chicago suburbs, which structurally implies larger total team and player counts than a single-site club. Exact team and player counts are not published.

Recent achievements (per club website):

  • 73 US national team players developed
  • 53 professional players developed (including Korbin Albert, Casey Short, Amy LePeilbet — Olympic gold medalist 2012, and Alex Scott of England)
  • 634+ college commitments
  • 17+ state, regional, and national titles

League Affiliations

The dual ECNL Boys + Girls slot is rare nationally and effectively unmatched among other Illinois independent clubs.

Facilities

Eclipse operates as a “club-without-walls” model — leasing or renting field time across multiple suburban municipalities rather than anchoring at a single owned complex. Specific facility relationships have not been published.

Leadership

  • Rory Dames — Founder and owner (stepped down as president 2021; ongoing ownership status unconfirmed)
  • Mike Nesci — President (as of late 2021)

College Placement

634+ college commitments cited on the club’s homepage. Recent placements include Northwestern, University of Utah, Penn State. The girls’ college-placement track record is among the strongest in the Midwest and reflects Eclipse’s historical positioning as a feeder to the Chicago Red Stars (NWSL) and the US women’s national-team pipeline.

Expansion & Acquisition History

  • 2012: Expanded to Wisconsin (operation ended 2017–18)
  • 2021: Affiliated with Illinois Fire Juniors (relationship ended 2022)
  • 2024–2026: Added Itasca site location

Competitive Position

Eclipse Select is widely regarded as the strongest independent club brand in the Illinois market, particularly on the girls’ side. Its dual ECNL Boys + ECNL Girls platform position is structurally unique in Illinois and rare nationally — most clubs hold one or the other. The multi-site footprint across north, east, and west Chicago suburbs gives Eclipse a geographic catchment that single-site competitors cannot match.

Reputational headwinds from the 2021–2023 Dames scandal are well-documented in mainstream sports press and represent a material brand-management consideration for the club’s long-term trajectory. The leadership transition to Mike Nesci appears to be the club’s primary response, though public disclosure has been limited.

Industry Context

Eclipse Select sits at an interesting intersection of youth-soccer industry dynamics:

  • Founder-owned, scaled independent clubs are an increasingly rare structure in the elite tier. Most clubs at Eclipse’s competitive level are either (a) community-charity-status clubs, (b) MLS Next academies owned by professional teams, or (c) portfolio assets of 3Step, Pioneer, or similar PE-backed platforms. A privately held, founder-controlled multi-site club is a legacy structure that has become unusual.

  • The dual-gender ECNL slot is a structurally valuable asset. ECNL Boys and ECNL Girls operate as separate sanctioning oligopolies, and clubs typically hold one or neither — holding both is a 1990s-era artifact that is functionally impossible to replicate organically today given how saturated the league memberships have become in Chicago.

  • Founder-succession dynamics at Eclipse mirror similar transitions at other 1990s-vintage independent clubs across the country. Many of these clubs are now navigating either ownership transitions (sale, family succession) or governance reforms in response to youth-sports safeguarding scrutiny that intensified post-2017 Larry Nassar and post-2021 NWSL revelations.

Open Questions

  • Current ownership: does Rory Dames still hold equity in the club, or has there been a transfer?
  • Illinois corporate registration — LLC, Inc., or other structure?
  • Total player count and revenue?
  • Does Eclipse own or lease any training facilities, or operate entirely on rental fields?
  • Future of the ECNL Boys + ECNL Girls dual slot under new leadership
  • Mike Nesci’s tenure, mandate, and any governance-reform measures implemented post-2021

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