Youth Sports
Posted: July 3rd, 2019, 9:31 am
[font=Calibri]We are in the “off-season” for bleachercoaches so to save us from ourselves and arguing about part-time athletic director hires, facility deficiencies, and teenagers transferring to new schools, I figured I would start a thread to get some thoughts and opinions on traveling sports, AAU circuits, pay-for-evaluation camps, 7-on-7 camps, and young athlete training programs.[/font]
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[font=Calibri]I coach a rec-level 13-15 year old baseball team in a town in northeast Maryland. We do participate in a few local tournaments a year which are within 25 miles of our home fields. But a huge part of the local baseball council’s program is travel baseball. This drives me absolutely crazy. It starts with 8U and goes through 18U with the local council compiling multiple teams at each age group all while having to combine with other local programs to have enough “rec” (non-travel) teams to form a league for the kids to play in locally.[/font]
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[font=Calibri]The entire program is catered to the travel programs. Everything from making the decision to leave the sanctioned Little League program, to rules for tee-ball (like no longer allow you to use pitching machines so we can have our 8U program ready to see live arms), to equipment rules, to scheduling rules for players that are trying to make local JV teams. It is absolutely out of control crazy. [/font]
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[font=Calibri]I had a parent of kid on my team this year telling me they were paying upwards of $500 a month for personalized training for their 14 year old by a group of retired “professional” players. This is a family that $500 a month has to sting the budget.[/font]
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[font=Calibri]I have had other players pay hundreds for evaluations by scouting services and while falling behind on their school work (due to baseball schedules) to the point of almost expulsion. I know of kids being put on athletic based diets and workout plans at 10 years old. I even know of a few parents that are electively giving their kids UCL replacement (Tommy John) surgery in their early teens with the hope of eventually getting another 2 mph out of their fastball.[/font]
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[font=Calibri]Now let’s discuss kids as young as 6 and 7 traveling every weekend out of state to play baseball games. Yes, 6 and 7 year olds are now playing not only travel baseball but they have them on a friggin’ circuit. This blows my mind. What are these parents sinking financially into these adventures? How are they keeping up with their school work when the season stretches from mid-April to mid-October? Again these kids are 7 years old. [/font]
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[font=Calibri]Even though I question it, I can understand the idea of 14, 15, 16 year olds traveling a few hours away to get to play against some higher quality competition or maybe be more accessible to some scouting services. But this should only be for the highest end athletes that are head and shoulders above their peer group in skill set. It also doesn’t require dozens of continuous weekends of travel out of the state or hours away from their home. The average entry fee alone for a tournament is $700 per team which is about $80 per kid, per weekend, before traveling expenses. A few semi-local (a few hours from home) tournaments a year along with maybe one out of state trip would be a perfect summer for a high-end athlete showcasing their skills for evaluators.[/font]
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[font=Calibri]Why are we as a society allowing children’s lives to revolve around athletics? Why do so many parents and coaches think that their players are going to reach a level of sports that justifies tens of thousands of dollars through their youth to get them there?[/font]
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[font=Calibri]A know a big problem almost every sport has had over the last several years is participation numbers. As always, the adults want to blame the kids (video games, laziness, too short of attention spans). Well it’s time to stop blaming them and start blaming the adults. We allow this to continuously go on. Maybe the reason previous generations played sports at much greater numbers was their parents weren’t forcing them to devote their entire lives to the game in order to “play competitively.” They could simply go out for the little league team, play 2 games a week for 8 weeks, and then not have to play again until the next spring. Today, we have 7 year olds at the indoor facility in early February to get them ready to play competitive travel tournaments by mid-April. [/font]
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[font=Calibri]Lastly, athletics were always a societal equalizer. It didn’t matter if you were rich or poor, from uptown or downtown, religious or atheist. At the end of the day, if you were athletically gifted you could go compete in sports and maybe someday find your way into a college education or professional ball with that athleticism. Well, we have ruined that. Our youth are now being told if you want that D1 scholarship or if you want to make it pro, you have to spend tens of thousands in traveling and training to get there. The AAU circuit has killed high school basketball. Multi-sport athletes now have to put all of their “eggs in-one basket.” Kids feel the need to transfer into other schools for an edge. I even heard recently a young parent tell me they got their child baptized into the Catholic Church in case they need to get them into a Catholic high school for athletics. He said it would be cheaper if they are baptized and confirmed Catholic. Maybe video games are a better choice.[/font]
[font=Calibri] [/font]
[font=Calibri]I coach a rec-level 13-15 year old baseball team in a town in northeast Maryland. We do participate in a few local tournaments a year which are within 25 miles of our home fields. But a huge part of the local baseball council’s program is travel baseball. This drives me absolutely crazy. It starts with 8U and goes through 18U with the local council compiling multiple teams at each age group all while having to combine with other local programs to have enough “rec” (non-travel) teams to form a league for the kids to play in locally.[/font]
[font=Calibri] [/font]
[font=Calibri]The entire program is catered to the travel programs. Everything from making the decision to leave the sanctioned Little League program, to rules for tee-ball (like no longer allow you to use pitching machines so we can have our 8U program ready to see live arms), to equipment rules, to scheduling rules for players that are trying to make local JV teams. It is absolutely out of control crazy. [/font]
[font=Calibri] [/font]
[font=Calibri]I had a parent of kid on my team this year telling me they were paying upwards of $500 a month for personalized training for their 14 year old by a group of retired “professional” players. This is a family that $500 a month has to sting the budget.[/font]
[font=Calibri] [/font]
[font=Calibri]I have had other players pay hundreds for evaluations by scouting services and while falling behind on their school work (due to baseball schedules) to the point of almost expulsion. I know of kids being put on athletic based diets and workout plans at 10 years old. I even know of a few parents that are electively giving their kids UCL replacement (Tommy John) surgery in their early teens with the hope of eventually getting another 2 mph out of their fastball.[/font]
[font=Calibri] [/font]
[font=Calibri]Now let’s discuss kids as young as 6 and 7 traveling every weekend out of state to play baseball games. Yes, 6 and 7 year olds are now playing not only travel baseball but they have them on a friggin’ circuit. This blows my mind. What are these parents sinking financially into these adventures? How are they keeping up with their school work when the season stretches from mid-April to mid-October? Again these kids are 7 years old. [/font]
[font=Calibri] [/font]
[font=Calibri]Even though I question it, I can understand the idea of 14, 15, 16 year olds traveling a few hours away to get to play against some higher quality competition or maybe be more accessible to some scouting services. But this should only be for the highest end athletes that are head and shoulders above their peer group in skill set. It also doesn’t require dozens of continuous weekends of travel out of the state or hours away from their home. The average entry fee alone for a tournament is $700 per team which is about $80 per kid, per weekend, before traveling expenses. A few semi-local (a few hours from home) tournaments a year along with maybe one out of state trip would be a perfect summer for a high-end athlete showcasing their skills for evaluators.[/font]
[font=Calibri] [/font]
[font=Calibri]Why are we as a society allowing children’s lives to revolve around athletics? Why do so many parents and coaches think that their players are going to reach a level of sports that justifies tens of thousands of dollars through their youth to get them there?[/font]
[font=Calibri] [/font]
[font=Calibri]A know a big problem almost every sport has had over the last several years is participation numbers. As always, the adults want to blame the kids (video games, laziness, too short of attention spans). Well it’s time to stop blaming them and start blaming the adults. We allow this to continuously go on. Maybe the reason previous generations played sports at much greater numbers was their parents weren’t forcing them to devote their entire lives to the game in order to “play competitively.” They could simply go out for the little league team, play 2 games a week for 8 weeks, and then not have to play again until the next spring. Today, we have 7 year olds at the indoor facility in early February to get them ready to play competitive travel tournaments by mid-April. [/font]
[font=Calibri] [/font]
[font=Calibri]Lastly, athletics were always a societal equalizer. It didn’t matter if you were rich or poor, from uptown or downtown, religious or atheist. At the end of the day, if you were athletically gifted you could go compete in sports and maybe someday find your way into a college education or professional ball with that athleticism. Well, we have ruined that. Our youth are now being told if you want that D1 scholarship or if you want to make it pro, you have to spend tens of thousands in traveling and training to get there. The AAU circuit has killed high school basketball. Multi-sport athletes now have to put all of their “eggs in-one basket.” Kids feel the need to transfer into other schools for an edge. I even heard recently a young parent tell me they got their child baptized into the Catholic Church in case they need to get them into a Catholic high school for athletics. He said it would be cheaper if they are baptized and confirmed Catholic. Maybe video games are a better choice.[/font]