<p>A good friend of mine is a travel soccer mother and she vents to me about some of the negatives of the sport. At least at the middle school level, many parents have the idea that their kid is going to earn a big scholarship for their efforts. Toward that end, there is significant pressure to pay for private coaching. The families who can least afford the coaching are the ones who dream of the scholarships the most, imagine the kid caught in the middle of that pressure. The team cost for the year is $1000, plus expensive uniforms, special fees, hotel rooms, etc. Don't forget the cost of family time too, especially if more that one child is involved in travel sports.</p>
<p>It seems that any EC gets very expensive at the top levels. There are always those kids at the highest levels who home school just to be available for athletic and arts events. I know of one kid who goes to a pricey private school to allow his high level involvement in snowboarding...wow. Even my own, who didn't do athletics at all, had lots of fees and hotel bills, etc, for various activities. How would lower income kids handle that expense? How refreshing that the guy from Harvard seems to understand that.</p>
<p>Thanks for the explanation that ODP means "Olympic Development Program," and for the descriptions of that. Yes, the time commitment can be immense. I have a local friend whose son is a Junior Olympics skier, and I would see a lot more of her but for the fact that she is always out of town. </p>
<p>I don't expect an NCAA-regulated athletic scholarship for any of my children--I'm not sure we have the body sizes for that in any sport--but it would be good to be devoted to an activity that involves teamwork and personal development and show persistence in that. I've received some interesting private messages about this subject, and in reply to one I mentioned that my wife, a piano teacher, wouldn't mind a bit if one of our children developed a huge interest in musical performance like hers. That hasn't happened yet, even though all our children appear to have lots of "natural" talent in music (which I am not competent to judge), but we try to support our children's activities according to their interests. Yeah, the soccer coach here is such a great role model as an encouraging man that as long as he is our son's coach, we will keep our son involved. It will be interesting to see what the inevitable next coach is like.</p>
<p>Around here there are 4 options for soccer ...
* local recreation leagues
* "town travel" teams
* "club travel" teams
* ODP</p>
<p>The quality of play and level of competition increases as a player moves up the chain. Town travel tends to be a lot less expensive and can be a very good or a not so good experience depending on the coach and on your child's cohort group. Club travel tends to be very expensive and can also be a very good or a not so good depending on the coach, the philosophy of the club (does everyone get to play ... are practices focused on long-term skill development or tactics to win the next game ... do the coaches teach during the game or coach hard to win). </p>
<p>The top 3-4 club teams in the Boston area are really excellent although they are too expensive and a little too next game focused for my taste ... but a player on those teams is definately getting superior coaching and competition than on a town travel program. As a player drops onto lower club travel teams, for me, I do not see the cost/benefit ratio working ... the club teams cost a ton more than the a town teams and I don't see the incremental advantage past those top few teams. I just don't think 98+% of kids need to travel a lot to find soccer competative enough to help them develop. </p>
<p>Or as one critic of travel/club soccer said ... one choice is to drive an hour so your son can play 1/2 of a game and then drive an hour home ... or they can play 3 hours of pick-up soccer. To me, for the vast majority of players it is not clear that the travel/club option is superior. Ultimately the question I ask ... what is the field on which this player will have fun, play a lot, develop, and contribute to his team each game? For each player this may play out at the rec level, town travel, club travel, or ODP level. Personally I would tend to guide my kids to the least intense of these levels that provides sufficient challenge until they get to be 15-16 and pick their focus sports.</p>
<p>Thanks, 3togo, for the explanation of the distinction beween "town travel" and "club travel." By that definition, my son is in "town travel" because our soccer club mostly draws players just from our own school district (which includes about a dozen municipalities, and only parts of some of those). My oldest son's team from last year lost a GREAT goalie to the neighboring town's program this year. So, yes, when kids get to be about high school age they start shopping around for clubs a lot more.</p>
<p>Forgot to mention that there was an initial cost associated with becoming licensed to be a ref: the course and the uniform.</p>
<p>mafool</p>