<p>Just curious to hear what sports your kids are doing this fall...be they varsity, club or intramural? Mine is playing football which starts on Thursday.</p>
<p>My daughter is on the Cross Country team. She's been running all Summer (since track got done) but official practice starts Friday. She has the possibility of getting a Varsity letter. She already has a Varsity letter for track and for band, which even though it's not a sport is a good EC.</p>
<p>Oops, realized you probably meant Academy sports, not High School. Keep forgetting most people here now have students already at the Academies.</p>
<p>That's ok we like to learn about the prospective students as well...maybe we can recruit em..</p>
<p>Cougar,</p>
<p>They have a band at West Point. And the cadets get to run a lot. :)</p>
<p>USMA Cross Country team---got cell calls from our daughter sat and sunday from Gillis Field House---I guess the team was staying there those two nights while they practiced this weekend. Great to hear her voice---</p>
<p>Thanks momoftwins, but I saw those pictures of the Army cadets wading across the river right by a perfectly good boat. </p>
<p>All kidding aside, my daughter is pretty set on Navy, but smart enough to know "she don't know it all yet." She's going to put in for all the Summer Seminars next year and will hopefully gain some perspective.</p>
<p>And to get back to sports, the daughter runs but will never be world class so probably won't be a recruited athlete.</p>
<p>As a side note is anyone doing martial arts at the Academies? From what I've seen so far are they mostly club sports? My kids have competed in Taekwondo for several years and my daughter would like to be able to continue at the Academy.</p>
<p>Uh... I feel sure ya'll are gonna laugh.... Intramural Ultimate Frisbee..... I SEE YOU LAUGHING! STOP IT! Here's the problem. My kid was state champ in precision rifle, an olympic sport. His academy did away with their rifle program last year. Soooo, then he decided he wanted to Crew. I was thrilled! How cool is that! Then after Indoc, he tells me that his studies need to come first because he's realized how hard he is going to have to work. In addition to the regimental duties, he has been made a Plebe Representative along with eight others. He explains it as kind of a liason from the Plebes to the higher up mucky-mucks. He's now taken on alot of extra work. Ultimate Frisbee? C'mon... My kid also competed in Taekwondo & got a gold medal in the Geogia Games. It is an intramural at USMMA so I had to ask myself why he didn't go that route. My eyebrow is still raised wondering about this choice here so stop all that snickering! 'Course I will say, I'd seen him play this crazy thing when he was here & boy was it rough. They kinda play it like football. People get taken down to the dirt and get bloody when they get bashed into a fence. But oh well. He's still my hero!</p>
<p>Hey I've seen it played by high school kids...it's a good sport and I think CGA has it too for intramurals...lots of good exercise and fun. And he's right the studies come first! He's already under way with that so he's got a leg up on the rest of our kids.</p>
<p>cougar,</p>
<p>My daughter may decide to continue with tae kwon do at WP. But she also wants to pursue several activities (lax, women's rugby, softball) so I think we'll have to wait and see. I understand that the martial arts club is a strong program at WP, but now sure of the other academies.</p>
<p>Well, since they don't have competitive Irish Dancing at USNA, my daughter is doing crew. :) So far she likes it a lot. This is new to her though, so we shall see. With the leg strength from the dancing though she might do ok.<br>
NAPS05mom</p>
<p>NAPS05mom: Let us know if she ever gets "crabbed." :) It happened to me just as I was asking about it at Summer Seminar (note to self: always pay attention). That's another thing I like about the academies--everyone has to do a sport, so you know there'll always be someone to workout with sometime. Plus, my school doesn't have a wide variety of sports, so rugby and lacross sound like so much fun.</p>
<p>My son, at USMMA, is doing sailing as his sport.</p>
<p>Here's the good news, the sailing coach at Kings Point prefers that they DO NOT have sailing experience. He stated that it takes too much time to un-teach them everything that they had learned before, which he claimed was usually wrong!</p>
<p>Therefore, this was perfect. My son had only been out in a small sail boat only a few time at Boy Scout Camp when he was younger.</p>
<p>Furthermore, while they are out in the boats, they are no longer treated as plebes....this aspect is most appreciated by my son!</p>
<p>Plus, they have a really great waterfront club at USMMA, which one is entitled to use if you belong to one of the waterfront sports groups. Just a little perk!!</p>
<p>He had done cross-country and track during high school; however, he did not want to continue with those.</p>
<p>Dictatoranna:
Ok, I give...what is getting crabbed? I just have to know.<br>
NAPS05mom (Tricia)</p>
<p>The official term is "catching a crab". One oar gets out of synch, catching the water in the wrong time/place. The oar acts as an emergency brake, stopping the shell dead in its tracks. For that particular oarsman, though, the forward momentum of the shell gives the oar a life of it's own - often slamming him/her in the chest, sometimes hurling them out of the shell into the water.</p>
<p>Doesn't happen often (and usually to novices), but it can take a team from winning a race to losing by a lot in the blink of an eye.</p>
<p>Jamzmom and Naps05mom:<br>
crew is a wonderful sport....we were fortunate to have a crew program at our HS and our daughter has been rowing since 9th grade....recruited and on an athletic scholarship, she is now entering her senior year at college rowing D-1 in a varsity boat....what a thrilling ride this has been......and what a relaxing way for a parent-spectator to spend the day! </p>
<p>Jamzomom: the USMMA has a great crew program...and by far their "uni's" are amongst the best on the water....</p>
<p>Naps05mom....the Navy women's program is great....we have met many mids on the team over the (now going on) 8 years of competetions....</p>
<p>having lived through many sports with our kids, all I can say is that there is no other sport that is as demanding-barr none- or that will get you as physically fit...but the demands are high, especially in D-1 programs....our daughter is on the water 6 days a week from 5:30am-9am (March-Nov)....christmas, spring and summer breaks all involve training and rowing.....add in weight training 5 days/week, second practices in-season, ergothons, running (5 days/wk), time for the athletic trainer (crabs CAN and DO knock you out of the boat...they can also knock out teeth- thankfully not our daughters!)...</p>
<p>so the balance between rowing and academics can be challenging....but very doable (she is a physics major and will graduate at the end of her 4th year with a BS in physics, a minor in math, and a minor in psychology)....</p>
<p>will miss it when it is all over, but then again her HS coach is STILL rowing at 78....looks 51.....and still competes COMPETETIVELY at Head of the Charles every year with his 81 year old teammate and coach of another HS.....they finished THIRD last year in their division.....go figure!</p>
<p>as for son, was recruited for lacrosse will be playing lax at foundation school ...he is really looking foward to Navy lacrosse....definately no crew for him (he hates the erg!!!)</p>
<p>best of luck to all~ and NEVER even THINK about the word C---....bad omen!!</p>
<p>Thanks, Navy 2010. Being from Omaha, no crew was offered around here. LOL Not much water around. My brother rowed in high school and was recruited by some nice Ivy colleges but decided that he didn't want to row anymroe. (ugh!!!) Anyway, it appears it is a whole new language. Hopefully DD will like it and stick with it; even if only on the intermural level. The exercise has to be great. And, at least you can't get hazed on the water! Thanks for the explanations.
NAPS05mom (Tricia)</p>
<p>Tricia: would you believe the U-Arizona built a multi-million dollar waterway/lake/complex in the middle of the desert for their rowing program? Never loose faith!</p>
<p>Momoftwins wrote that her daughter "also wants to pursue several activities (lax, women's rugby, softball)"</p>
<p>Women's Army Rugby, which in its first year of official competition won the regional title and now in its third (or fourth?) year is expected to contest nationally, is known by one of the great, appropriate acronyms in sports: W.A.R.</p>
<p>Cool Acronym. Thanks for sharing laxdad.</p>
<p>My daughter runs long distance, but usually isn't the fastest on the team. She's what I consider fairly small at 16, 5' 7" and less than 140 lbs. With her endurance and leg strength from years of Taekwondo I wonder if she'd be good at crew? There really isn't anything like that around here for high school students.</p>
<p>Jamzmom, you said your son got Gold at the Georgia games. Was that the Junior Olympics they had last year in Atlanta or Georgia's state games? My two youngest went to the J.O.s for TKD in 2002 in Minneapolis and 2003 in Orlando. No medals, but a pile of memories. My daughter was also the Idaho state champ in Poomse for three years in her belt category. She might just stay with club martial arts at the Academy if that works.</p>