“. Honestly, I don’t think USA youth soccer has gone in the right direction - too many groups doing different things fighting for turf and players”
Agree!
“I think students should play for their high schools. They do in most other sports I can think of.”
Totally Agree!
My kids BS will only allow club soccer in spring/winter. Especially if you are a soccer recruite. The major club teams try and push back on this giving ultimatums, but you can get around it if you are good enough. Know what you are getting into. If you want club soccer more than BS, stay home and go to public or private day school so you can easily get out of high school soccer requirements
The reality is, though, that it is hard to be recrutied with playing on an elite team. Not impossible, of course, but the coaches have a hard time getting out to see players and want to see how they play with “peers”. Hence the value of elite level tournaments. A spectacular player can be noticed at an ID camp, but it’s harder if that player wasn’t there with an invitation.
And it is true that at many selective schools – such as NESCAC, being recruited can be the difference between being admitted and not for even the most excellent student.
OP, if you are at the beginning of your BS search, make a point of having this conversation with coaches when you go to visit. You may find some have good workarounds, including their own relationships with college coaches, while others may tell you upfront that it’s the school team and some other sport in the spring or bust. I would also ask where recent grads are playing now. There are lots of BS kids on D3 rosters - all sports, including soccer, – so it may also behoove you to look at those college rosters and see what those kids’ backgrounds were. Imo, best to know what you are dealing with up front.
As skieurope states, we have experience with pursuing a club sport at BS…fencing, not soccer. As others have hinted at, it CAN be done, but there is a lot of additional hassle/logistics associated with it. Checking with the schools in question is critical…I’m going to go ahead and say that any school with Saturday classes or mandatory weekend chapel is NOT going to work. Or at least not very well.
The school also has to be cool with the student missing a significant amount of time for the club sport…mostly for travel to/from regional, national, and international tournaments in our case. It was at least one long weekend a month, maybe 2. Also, check if the school requires the athlete to play for a school team, and if so, how many seasons in a given year/across his 4 year career. My daughter could get a waiver for some seasons, but did have to play a second sport her freshman year.
Having day student parents with kids in the same program could be very helpful, if they are willing to help get kid to/from practice. Note that, in our experience, going to club-based practices very often means missing school dinner…so there are costs and compromises associated with that.
Note that my daughter started at one BS mostly because we thought it afforded a better training opportunity (she took the train to an NYC club) and it also had a scholastic fencing team. However, some of the non-sport aspects of the school proved to be sub-optimal, so we eventually transferred her to a BS about 1 hour away. This had its own challenges, as my wife and I (mostly my wife) were again pressed into service as sports taxi drivers. So be careful in choosing which BS if you end up going this route…and keep in mind that he might burn out/get injured — so the school should be a good fit in the absence of sports.
I don’t know what the desired end-game is for your son (possible college recruitment?), but in the end our daughter was recruited by a few D1 schools (including one Ivy), and will be attending a selective D1 non-Ivy on a partial athletic scholarship in the Fall. So, it can be done. But it sure ain’t easy. I’d start with taking a very long and honest look at just how good your kid is/what his suitability for the college game BEFORE you invest time and money in making the BS/Club-sport path work.
@SevenDad - that is really insightful. Thanks. Unfortunately, my son’s BS has a mandatory Saturday class every week. It is good tonknow what to consider and what to expect.
One related question is - can boarding school have a car and drive once he is 16? If yes, I am thinking that they can then drive to practice and game themselves.
Someone might come up with the school that is the exception, but for all schools with which I am familiar, a boarding student cannot have a car on campus or have one garaged nearby at a place other than his/her parents.
My son is a soccer player and while he didn’t play club this year, there are kids on his varsity BS team and at surrounding BSs that do, facilitated by proximity. My understanding was that the DAs don’t permit playing on school teams, but other elite programs do. I think it varies widely by sport, and it seems with soccer there tend to be fewer kids playing with outside elite clubs, but it probably depends where you are and on logistics. Saturday classes do make outside sports commitments difficult. Feel free to PM me if I can help.
@BDevilNC, I agree with most everything said here except Saturday classes. My DD is in a BS with Sat classes and has managed to play a club sport for the past 2 years. It’s hard, expensive, complicated, and requires advanced planning on part of the student/family and a level of willingness on part of the school, but it’s possible. Good luck!
@GoatMama: Glad to hear that it’s worked out for you…my comment above was based on discussion with only one school, so it’s good to have another data point for the OP. Though I’m glad you concur that it ain’t the easiest route!
Agree, @SevenDad, not the easiest route - neither the smartest one if the primary goal is to play in college. In full disclosure, BS has been detrimental to DD’s athletic development. While ALL her teammates at home are being recruited to top D1 programs, she would be lucky to play in any collegiate program. It’s hard to remain competitive if you don’t put in the hours year-round. On the other hand, BS has been a boon for her personal and intellectual growth. Our experience has been that you just can’t have it all. Something’s gotta give, and what that something is is a personal - and preferably well-informed - choice.
@SevenDad@GoatMama thanks for sharing your experience. Can someone share their thoughts on pros and cons on pursuing club sports while attending boarding schools? It may be just your passion - but then boarding school may not be the best option for you? It is a huge commitment - take up a lot of time. You are going to sacrifice many other activities at school. At the end, You may not get to play for D1. It may not help your college admission . You may be able to get into a selective school anyway.
You basically listed them all. As @GoatMama said, and said very well, in the end, something will give, so the decision is a personal one - your kid (with your support) needs to decide what is most important.
I started writing something — twice. But think skieurope’s post best summarizes things. It is an entirely individual decision…tough to generalize.
In my daughter’s case, while her fencing training (and consequently, her results) did suffer a bit, I think that was offset by the academic prep and opportunities she received by attending BS (vs. LPS). For selective colleges, even athletes have to meet a certain standard…and I think going to a relatively rigorous BS helped her meet that standard.
My DD is not a soccer player or a fencer, but her sport is one that requires near year round training and she has taken a hit in terms of performance because of being away at school. Some schools, and I think the larger ones, are more easily able to field teams and the requirements to play a sport multiple seasons are less than DD’s school. I know this coming junior year is going to be a challenge no doubt to get her to enough meets to make a difference. We knew this going in and DD was never aiming for high D1 schools (a la college job) so we believe the trade off is worth it.
My daughter was nationally ranked (top 3 in her division) in competitive rock climbing, when she went to boarding school. Prior to BS, she trained 40 hrs a week year round and meets take an entire day (sometimes 2) so we knew when she applied that a choice would have to be made. While a few BSs do compete in this sport, and we investigated having her train at a few of those, she made the very tough decision to give up climbing in order to attend the school she really loved. Once there, she found gymnasts, figure skaters, and dancers who had all made the same choice. Some of her climber peers who stayed the course are now training for the Olympics and I am excited to see them compete in this sport for the first time in 2020.
I agree 100% that you can’t have it all. I think the most important thing is to gather all the information now, and then have honest conversations with the coaches, and then with your son this summer so you are all on the same page and he starts the school year knowing what is expected and he is involved in the decision to play club or not. It is pretty hard to leave your BS on the weekend when the socializing happens after you have put in a very hard week in the classroom, plus most kids need at least some of those weekend afternoon hours for homework. It is difficult to do homework when you are physically spent after a long day at a tournament.
It was also hard for me to initially accept that my daughter had left her sport behind. She adjusted more readily than I did. I kept trying to find a way for her to train until at least the first Christmas, but it was obvious to her from the start that it would not be doable. Looking back, I don’t see how my daughter could have continued her sport (if logistics had made it doable) without significantly compromising her overall experience at BS.
Hey all…DD also chose to give up her main athletic endeavor when she went to BS, but she is on the team at school and having a great experience within the context of classes, study halls etc., and she is managing to find the time to get everything done. She had a friend who graduated two years ago who chose to continue to compete outside of school and while DD was jealous that her friend was able to continue with her old with her crew, her friend was not entirely plugged into boarding school, was gone on weekends and some afternoons during the year and probably did not have the BS experience she could have if she had chosen to dial it back. It took DD a bit of time to adjust during her first year, but now she is pleased with her choice and is fully integrated with all aspects of her school.
Thank you all for sharing your personal experience. It helps to know that I am not the only one to deal with these types of dilemma. My son School has Saturday class and requires one sport for each of trimester. I would certainly agree that attending club sports would significantly compromise his boarding school experience, limiting his participating many other school activities, which seems to Undermine the original purposes of boarding school.
It’s tough. It will require skill and co-ordination. Sometimes something has to give. That said the club coach always tells the kids that academics are priority #1. You can have a career ending injury and you’ll still have an education. For my kiddo, it wasn’t the club sport (playing in college is just a maybe) but another passion which drove the BS decisions. Many of these kids do it as day students at boarding schools. This allows the parents to drive them to club practices which are often on weekends and bring them back to BS. LOL. Still, it’s complicated. The one thing is, if the kid can balance all of these things in high school, you know they are going to do well at college.
“You can have a career ending injury and you’ll still have an education.” I learned this lesson the hard way, when I tore a ligament in my knee senior year in college, mid-season. Team was ranked #5 in D1 at the time. No post season Honors, and had to complete my thesis in the infirmary. That’s when I realized academics should have been more of a focus.
Some sports, like club lacrosse, lend themselves to attending BS because they compete primarily in the summer. Girl’s Club Lacrosse is more of a conduit for college programs than school teams, and is a factor for boys.