Where I live our town rec leagues go into the late teens, and we also have town travel soccer until players graduate high school. My older son became a serious tennis player, but continued to play town travel soccer with his buddies until college.
My youngest is a totally different story. By high school he had specialized completely and only played for his club soccer team. He never played a minute for his high school team because his club/league forbids it. He trains 5 nights a week and plays matches on the weekends. The travel is extensive and expensive. The club basically owns him for 10+ months per year. Iām ready to hop off the merry-go-round, but he wouldnāt have it any other way.
why would the club forbid he play for his HS?
(Some colleges actually check to see whether the student is involved both in the HS and outsideā¦)
@emi722 : beside Girls with bright futures (for you only), you and your child might enjoy watching The Mighty Ducks 2021, where the new team (the Donāt Bothers, I think) is made of kids who donāt want to compete seriously.
In our area club (academy) soccer players arenāt allowed to play for their HS teams for the most part. Lacrosse players all play for both HS and Club teams.
Not sure why but it has been that way for some time.
This is how it works these days for some sports like volleyball, soccer, some lacrosse. Club teams want the kids (and $) year round. In terms of recruiting, students from club teams often do have an advantage, and as such, better outcomes.
@MYOS1634 What @Mwfan1921 said is 100% correct. We sign a contract that covers mid-August through June. He plays both a fall and spring schedule of games with a league showcase in December, and an end of season playoff in late June. He gets about 4 weeks in the winter and 6 weeks in the summer to himself. Playing for your high school is prohibited unless admission to a private school is contingent upon the player participating in a sport. In that case the player would need to apply for a waiver.
As for an advantage, it does make a difference in outcomes. Every 2021 graduating player from his team went on to play in college this fall. There are at least 4-8 coaches at every club game during the fall, and even more at spring games. This past weekend their were 20 coaches at his games.
Agree there is A LOT of bad behavior surrounding kidsā sports. I live in a competitive area where a healthy number of students do parlay their sport into Ivy recruitment so you can imagine the frenzy. Also did the horse show circuit and it would be hard to describe the money people will throw at that to get their kid noticed!
Hereās the good news - at some point, H & I rocked back and discussed what we wanted our kids to get out of the sport, and started to use some of the egregious behavior as a learning experience. We discussed sportsmanship, setting limits, realistic budgets, etc. Not saying there were no bad experiences, but overall my now adult kids learned a lot about life. (And both still enjoy participating in the same sports they played as kids)
Letās face it - youāll encounter jerks at all points of life so learning how to navigate them can be a real asset!
You think lax is bad, try hockey. My friend moved to Minnesota with his 5 and 7 year olds, and they were 4 years behind! I know for the 7 year old they dropped him down one level but said heād have to catch up by the next year as 8 year olds definitely couldnāt play with 7 year olds. They were kind of miserable but ended up moving again before the next year (divorce).
and if you have time, the new Mighty Ducks is just about the issue of competitive parents in middle school sports
and Girls with Bright Futures is mainly about three families (upper middle class envious of the upper class, cut-throat upperclass, and assistant/maid to the upperclass one).
My D worked as a receptionist at a school for kids who are training to be Olympic/elite athletes, concert pianists, etc. Basically, these kids (and parents)want to focus on their craft, so they want a school with flexible hours and curriculum. My D said some of the parents could be intense
I donāt know where to put this story, but it was certainly an educational experience for me. My son loves basketball but he was a late bloomer for height so most of his middle school experience was on āBā teams or being one of the worst players on the āAā team. The B teams were usually a lot more fun. Some of my best memories with my son were during and after some of his B team games and practices.
He played on one AAU team during middle school that was the āB teamā within that program that had 1 kid who was really good, 3 kids (including my son) that were OK, and then 4-5 kids who basically couldnāt play basketball. Most of the parents expected this team to get killed when the season started. The coach was nuts in both a good and bad way, and probably not a perfect role model, having gotten tossed from two games by officials. But that team had so much fun, and just clicked. They didnāt win a tournament that spring, but won about half their games and made 3 tournament finals. I canāt even count the number of times I would be watching a game that was close in the last 3 minutes and be wondering why our team wasnāt getting killed because the opponent was so much better. It was a great experience for my son, and he would never have had it without basketball.
We have three kids that all, at one point, competed on āeliteā teams. Our oldest was a gymnast, diver, runner, and finally settled on track in high school. She is very competitive and loves to trainā¦ we drove her everywhere to pursue her passionā¦ and she ended up at a D1 school competing for four years. Our other two also pursued their respective sports competitively. But really did not have the passion or self-drive to get to the next level. All good in my opinion. Competitive sports require time-management, prioritizing, and the ability to work with others. At the end of the day all of the skills served each of my kids well. Could they have developed those skills in recreational or non-competitive sports? maybeā¦ but there is something about surrounding yourself with like-minded, focused individuals. There will ALWAYS be crazy parents/coaches/teams and as a parent you have to make sure your kid is in a supportive environment.
A few weeks ago my oldest(daughter)and I had a conversation about her gymnastics career of ten years. She switched gyms a couple of times because of the environment and coaching issues, and at the end of 8th grade decided she was done. Super hard decision, but because of her 10 years and work ethic allowed her to move into other sports easily. Even during the hard bits she said āI absolutely have no regrets about any of the time I spent competing.ā
In high school it is definitely more difficult to party too much when the cross-country wake-up time is 5:00 a.m.
Youth sports have gotten out of control for the most part. I was relieved when my kids stepped back from their sports. It was just so time consuming.
Most kids donāt have the physical traits to play D1. Then even if you do make it and get some or all of college paid for then you have yourself a 20-25 hour a week job in college. Then college is over and you are done.
My D19 ended up stepping away from swim and water polo her senior year in HS. She did swim lessons and private lessons. She made some serious coin doing that. Plus her academics got 95% of her tuition and fees paid in the way of an academic scholarship. The beauty of it is that she doesnāt have to work(play a sport) for her scholarship.
Lastly my bank account appreciates my kids not playing sports in the club/travel level any longer.
Just curious what you mean by this. When I see crazy sports parents, I assume their motivations are economic (i.e. canāt afford college without a sports scholarship), but Iām curious if you could talk more about this dynamic.
I probably have seen more ācrazyā parents of the type who are reliving their āglory daysā through their kids. The ones chasing money can be obsessive in terms of making sure their kid gets āseenā and often are stats crazy, but to add the element of being emotionally crazed to the point that their kidsā failure/perceived slights and unfair treatment becomes personal to the parent, it is often the parent(s) who were high school jocks. The worst ones tend to be former jocks chasing money.
Interesting. I can definitely see this happening. One could argue that this is a similar dynamic to well-educated, UMC parents pushing their kids to excel academically and get into an elite school.
