Youth Sports.........

[CRCy]

I don't know why this bugs me so much but it does.

Youth Sports are a $15 BILLION business in this country. That's Billion with a B

Great article about the rise of costs and how being a kid and having fun playing sports with your friends has now turned into a big business with ******* coaches and parents don't realize they are doing more harm than good for their kids, on top of bankrupting themselves trying to keep up with the Jones'.

http://time.com/4913687/how-kids-sports-became-15-billion-industry/


And a quote from a guy that won a CWS title with Miami pretty much makes me want to puke-

Bombers coach Lale Esquivel, who won the College World Series at the University of Miami in 1999, makes no apologies for running his team like a professional outfit. "I can see talent at a young age," Esquivel says. "My son is special. I want to surround him with the best kids from across the country. In return, playing on my team is going to help your son. Do we win? Of course we win. If I'm going to be investing all this time and money, we might as well win."

And that idiot looks exactly how I would expect him to look-

You know because winning a 10U baseball tourney is so important......

 

[3TrueFans]

Watch Trophy Kids on Netflix, good/horrifying documentary about youth sports and the lengths parents will go to in terms of pushing or preparing their kids.

 

[mustangcy]

Be careful not to paint with too wide a brush. Both my kids travel in multiple sports. Yeah, we spend money but our kids love it and so do we. We also are more small town travel so it's basically our community teams. I can see some of the big "money teams", we call them, maybe not being as fun.

When you are paying for coaches and paying out of pocket for tournaments (as opposed to old fashion fundraising) I can see it getting out of hand.

 

[mywayorcyway]

One of my friends was convinced to invest in a youth flag football league in Arizona. Says it was the best investment he ever made.

 

[heitclone]

That's a ridiculous amount of money to be spent but some kids, even at age 10 want exactly what that coach wants. As a youngster, I would have hated not keeping score or winning not mattering, I would have lost interest. I get not every kid is cut out for intense competition but some are. It's a disturbing trend that by trying to include everyone and in a sense, lowering the bar, we ignore the kids who are competitive, who want to work hard, who don't want to alter the games so no one gets their feelings hurt. It's great to be inclusive to everyone but the motivated kids who take sports serious, shouldn't be ignored or told how they treat sports is wrong.

It's just more the hypocrisy that pretends to be inclusive, yet actually tries to get us to all have the same opinion.

 

[Cyclonepride]

What I find ridiculous are all the AAU club teams, and the schedules that they have. I know a few parents that are constantly running back and forth across the state for various events. I suppose that's fine if their kids really enjoy playing, but I sometimes wonder if they do.

 

[coolerifyoudid]

It's really a coaching thing more than anything.

Around here, a lot of the rec leagues are kids wanting to have fun with their friends and maybe learn some basic fundamentals. Perfect, right? The problem is that since their investment is minimal, you get a lot of parents that drop their kids off and use it as more of a babysitter. As a result, you get kids that are practically forced to be there and really show that they don't want to be there. You end up with a mix of kids that want to have fun and be competitive, some that are learning the game, some that clearly don't want to be there, and then usually one or two over-the-top competitive kids/parents that don't understand why everyone isn't working as hard as them.

For premier leagues, once you realize that every single organization is after your money first and foremost, you'll be better off. That way you can focus on finding the right one that has coaches that you like. The coach is truly the most important aspect when looking at any club. They are the ones interacting with your kid and making it fun or miserable.

My main gripe with youth sports is parents overextending their kids. I'll constantly see kids that are in 4-5 different activities. If that child happens be your child's teammate, and if that particular activity is low on their priority list, you end up with kids that miss all the practices and a lot of games, essentially short-changing their teammates. This certainly isn't exclusive to rec leagues of course, but the cost of premier leagues gives a little extra incentive to attend practices and games.

 

[VeloClone]

Yeah, just like anything else, people can make it about everything but the kids. I know my daughter tried a lot of sports before she decided the one she really liked and wanted to excel at. She still plays basketball for her school and has tried softball and track at school but soccer is the only one in which she plays on a traveling team as well as playing for her school. We have pushed for a paid coach for her traveling team partly because we think a C1 team of teenagers should have better coaching than what most parents will give them, but mainly because we are trying to avoid a lot of the infighting, favoritism and other issues among the parents and between parents and coaches we have witnessed in the past.

A scholarship? Yeah, get real. We have no delusions. We are supporting it because she enjoys it and we think there is value in her working at something to be the best she can be at it. I'm sure there will come a day when she doesn't want to do it anymore and we don't want her to feel like she has to keep plugging away at it for someone other than herself.

She is in one of the more reasonable cost clubs and we don't spend a bunch on individual training, but it is more than what I had as a kid..

 

[CRCy]

Can't say that I am shocked by some of the responses in this thread. I just have seen the winning some meaningless 9U tournament become far too important to some people. It's a fine line that I think gets crossed over far too many times where the disease of winning over takes parents and instead of letting kids be kids and have fun it becomes more about the parents trying to relive their sports careers through their own kids.

And that's coming from a guy that played in college.

Burn out, injuries are all real and something I think a lot of parents don't think about because they let a coach of a team dictate their kids schedule and what other sports they can and can't play because of it.

I know "All Star" 10U kids that can't throw the ball because they blew out their arms at 15 because of the years of tournaments with little or no break and no other sports being played.

Or the parents that spent $20K in travel teams when their kid got to HS quit because he didn't want to play soccer anymore

Finding the happy medium is key and a lot of parents fail to see that when as adults they are the ones that should be looking out for their kids.

 

[SCyclone]

It's really a coaching thing more than anything.

Around here, a lot of the rec leagues are kids wanting to have fun with their friends and maybe learn some basic fundamentals. Perfect, right? The problem is that since their investment is minimal, you get a lot of parents that drop their kids off and use it as more of a babysitter. As a result, you get kids that are practically forced to be there and really show that they don't want to be there. You end up with a mix of kids that want to have fun and be competitive, some that are learning the game, some that clearly don't want to be there, and then usually one or two over-the-top competitive kids/parents that don't understand why everyone isn't working as hard as them.

For premier leagues, once you realize that every single organization is after your money first and foremost, you'll be better off. That way you can focus on finding the right one that has coaches that you like. The coach is truly the most important aspect when looking at any club. They are the ones interacting with your kid and making it fun or miserable.

My main gripe with youth sports is parents overextending their kids. I'll constantly see kids that are in 4-5 different activities. If that child happens be your child's teammate, and if that particular activity is low on their priority list, you end up with kids that miss all the practices and a lot of games, essentially short-changing their teammates. This certainly isn't exclusive to rec leagues of course, but the cost of premier leagues gives a little extra incentive to attend practices and games.

To take this a step further, what's really troubling are the parents who are obviously living vicariously through the kids. This becomes apparent at the upper levels, particularly with a kid who is quite a bit more talented than the rest.

It seems to me that until kids are really ready for intense coaching and real competition, it might be best for the adults to stay out of it. When I was a kid (oh boy, here we go!) we played all summer at the park, either teams or workup, depending on how many we had. Arguments were few, fun was had, no grownups yelling at us. And we eventually evolved into players who were coachable and could compete.

 

[dualthreat]

It's really a coaching thing more than anything.

Around here, a lot of the rec leagues are kids wanting to have fun with their friends and maybe learn some basic fundamentals. Perfect, right? The problem is that since their investment is minimal, you get a lot of parents that drop their kids off and use it as more of a babysitter. As a result, you get kids that are practically forced to be there and really show that they don't want to be there. You end up with a mix of kids that want to have fun and be competitive, some that are learning the game, some that clearly don't want to be there, and then usually one or two over-the-top competitive kids/parents that don't understand why everyone isn't working as hard as them.

For premier leagues, once you realize that every single organization is after your money first and foremost, you'll be better off. That way you can focus on finding the right one that has coaches that you like. The coach is truly the most important aspect when looking at any club. They are the ones interacting with your kid and making it fun or miserable.

My main gripe with youth sports is parents overextending their kids. I'll constantly see kids that are in 4-5 different activities. If that child happens be your child's teammate, and if that particular activity is low on their priority list, you end up with kids that miss all the practices and a lot of games, essentially short-changing their teammates. This certainly isn't exclusive to rec leagues of course, but the cost of premier leagues gives a little extra incentive to attend practices and games.

Agree with a lot of this. One thing I'll counter with, though, if there's ever a time in a kid/person's life when they should be "over reaching" it's when they're young.

Why narrow a 12 year olds focus to just a couple things? They should be spread pretty thin at that age. Let them choose what to isolate when they're 16+

Just something to consider

 

[coolerifyoudid]

To take this a step further, what's really troubling are the parents who are obviously living vicariously through the kids. This becomes apparent at the upper levels, particularly with a kid who is quite a bit more talented than the rest.

It seems to me that until kids are really ready for intense coaching and real competition, it might be best for the adults to stay out of it. When I was a kid (oh boy, here we go!) we played all summer at the park, either teams or workup, depending on how many we had. Arguments were few, fun was had, no grownups yelling at us. And we eventually evolved into players who were coachable and could compete.

I'm guilty of being very competitive and I started being one of those too-intense parents in the beginning. Seeing the impact it had on my daughter snapped me back to reality quickly though. Now, I'll still get into the games, but the first thing I ask after every game is "Did you have fun?" I tell her she can still have fun, regardless of the score and the minute she stops thinking it's fun, we'll reevaluate how to go forward.

It may be different in smaller communities, but pick-up games just don't happen near me. It's sad, because so many valuable lessons are missed out on by not having them. Kids resolve conflicts themselves. They work out solutions to problems (ghost runners when there aren't enough people, pieces of wood or a pile of coats acting as bases or goals, discussions about the rules when there is a dispute).

Plus, it fosters communication with their teammates because they aren't being micro-coached at every step. Just give kids a ball and some space and they'll figure it out.

 

[coolerifyoudid]

Agree with a lot of this. One thing I'll counter with, though, if there's ever a time in a kid/person's life when they should be "over reaching" it's when they're young.

Why narrow a 12 year olds focus to just a couple things? They should be spread pretty thin at that age. Let them choose what to isolate when they're 16+

Just something to consider

We're on the same page. I definitely think kids need to not specialize too early. I just mean we had some kids on our team that were spread way too thin. These girls would be going to 2 different practices every single weeknight. I shudder to think of how hectic their households were. Then, when there were conflicts on the weekends, they would miss a team event (soccer, volleyball, etc) to make their swimming/dance/gymnastics meets.

I just think there should be a certain amount of commitment to a team, especially when their absence is a detriment to the other teammates. For example, my daughter had a couple soccer games in 90 degree weather without any subs because her teammates were at other events. I know conflicts are going to happen from time to time, but some of that got really old.

 

[cycloner29]

This thread is about all the Lavar Ball types in this world. Being a coach with parents constantly coaching from the stands and shelling out big bucks to "ensure" their kid plays, I played the kids that put the work in and came to practices. I didn't care who the parents were. At the end of the day I could always live by the decisions I made.

 

[cyclone13]

I think parents need to think first: what is the goal? And the thought process should be extensive. For me, I know that both of my wife and I don't have sports genes so we know our son is not going to be a world class athlete. However, since he was small for his age and we were worried sbout bullying we know that he needs to be able to defend himself. Thus, we enrolled him in karate. 6 years later, he's a black belt and he is very confident and can defend himself.

He is doing swimming lesson (once a week) and piano (once a week) but doesn't do other sports. I see friends and colleagues sending their kids to swim team where they train 2-3 hours a day 5-6 days a week or baseball when they have weekend tournaments (Friday pm - Sunday pm). To each of its own but I know I rather have my son focused on academics or other skills rather than spending that amount of time practicing unless he has the TALENT (with uppercases).

The other problem I see is a lot of kids playing sports actually don't understand sportsmanship because the focus has changed to just win things (we can talk about this but this probably require different thread).

 

[Dopey]

Loved sports growing up. Nearly dreading my son getting to that age. I want him to have the experience I had, which is playing everything when it was in season.

Just seems like like you fall behind quickly anymore if you don't play a sport all year round. I'm afraid that growing skill gap would frustrate a (normal) kid and just make them quit anyway.

 

[NWICY]

Loved sports growing up. Nearly dreading my son getting to that age. I want him to have the experience I had, which is playing everything when it was in season.

Just seems like like you fall behind quickly anymore if you don't play a sport all year round. I'm afraid that growing skill gap would frustrate a (normal) kid and just make them quit anyway.

I think part of it is where you live and how big of school they go to. The smaller the school the easier it is to go out for everything. If you are talking elite level yes I agree with you, unless your kid is elite level also. It seems many state championship type kids do it in a couple of sports. VB/BB or FB/track/BB.

 

[jkclone]

Loved sports growing up. Nearly dreading my son getting to that age. I want him to have the experience I had, which is playing everything when it was in season.

Just seems like like you fall behind quickly anymore if you don't play a sport all year round. I'm afraid that growing skill gap would frustrate a (normal) kid and just make them quit anyway.

This is a big problem that I experienced at the very beginnings of this mindset. When I was growing up most were still just doing the traditional way of youth sports but you were starting to see the gap specifically in baseball. That's going to be a big problem and probably already is.

 

[WoodCy]

It is really easy for the youth travel sports thing to get miguided. Some small communities do use travel sports as their youth sports league. The problem is, that doesn't mean that they still don't come off of the rail. The issue is always doing too much at too young of an age combined with the parents ruining things by getting carried away. Many studies and articles show that travel sports before age 12 are generally a waste of time and money. At those ages, all of your efforts should go into fundamentals and having fun, just playing to play. At all ages the teaching of fundamentals should be stressed over games. Sadly many coaches are not qualified and they do not know how to teach fundmentals properly. This is really evident in baseball and softball. Some of these coaches flat out do not know how to coach, period. Coaches shouldn't really ever need to yell at players unless there is a life/health/safety issue. Also, they should never yell at a ref or ump, ever. You see this in rec league and travel but it seems worse in travel. In travel ball, the coaches aren't talking to their neighbor who is the ump or ref, it is just some person in a town they don't live in. Also, usually the money invested in travel is much higher than rec league and that seems to have an effect on their actions. No one is saying don't play in tournaments or games in the articles I have read. What they do say is cut back. Play fewer. Make the game the prize for all of the practice and hard work.
Another issue is the size of the travel teams. Many are too small. They carry enough players to fill the field or court plus a couple subs. The issue here is that the child never learns to earn their spot or wait their turn to play. The kids know they are going to play because of the roster size. Many times this is again fueled by parents who can't stand that their kid isn't seeing the field. Many of these parents think their child deficates golden eggs. When their child doesn't play they leave the team and start their own team.
"Select" teams create another set of issues. These are the teams where the players are selected to play on teams due to their ability. These are almost like all-star teams where they only take the best of the best. The issue here is player development. The select team gets the opposite results as you would expect. Kids don't get the chance to develop their skills bcause they are surrounded by players of equal better skill sets. They don't have to get better or fine tune their skills. Also they miss out on a chance to be a leader. Many articles point out that had they stayed with their home based team, the player would have been forced to continually develop their skills and become a leader to make up for the shortcomings of their teammate. This idea was mentioned in many of the articles about US soccer phenom Christian Pulisic and how he was raised.
The worst part of pay to play are the showcases and recruiting services like Perfect Game. These have very few positives. Where they work is if the player has had contact with an NCAA D1 or D2 coach. Sometimes the showcase is the only opportunity the D1 or D2 coach has to see the player first hand. In many instances the partocipants are simply paying money to chase a dream that will not be fufilled. The D1 and D2 coaches know how to evaluate talent and will contact the player regardless of the showcase or recruiting service. Many times contacts from D1 and D2 coaches start with the high school or travel coach going above and beyond for the player and making contact on their behalf. The high school or travel coach has to have a keen eye and be able to identify truly unique talent.

 

[harimad]

You realize that for every travel organization, there are five or ten rec leagues, right?