Quote:
Originally Posted by flere-imsaho
The other thing that bugs me is that if your kids want to do well in a sport, they pretty much have to play it year-round now.
Take my 14-year-old. He really wanted to make the HS soccer team (and did). But the competition is tight enough that you really need to be playing club in the winter & spring, and do camps all summer.
I don't know about the rest of you, but when I was in HS, you did a different sport each season and that seemed better.
Now, excuse me for a sec as I go yell at some kids on my lawn.
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Not to go all Edward on you but define "do well".
I would say doing well in a sport at the HS level is making the JV team if you are a freshman or sophomore or the varsity team as a junior or senior. There are not going to be too many Patrick Mahomes level high school athletes out there. I am not saying this what you mean by doing well, just using him as an example.
I wonder if the kids need to play a sport year round to do well in it or if the kids (or their parents) prefer to do well in sports so the kids only play the sport year round that they do well in . I think a lot of kids could play multiple sports in HS without playing those sports year round but most are not going to be great at multiple sports so they choose to stay in the sport they are the best at.
One of the kids that plays with my son on the JV baseball team also made the JV football and basketball teams. His primary sport is baseball and yes he has played baseball (mostly not exclusively travel) year round since we have known him. But he has also played other sports as well in their respective seasons. I coached him in rec basketball for a couple seasons and he played Pop Warner football as well.
He made the JV football team as a receiver but played almost exclusively on special teams and may have had two receptions all year. He has played more on the JV basketball team as a backup forward but has not started any of the team's nine games so far. If the first two weeks of practice is any sort of indicator, he will be the JV team's starting third baseman in front of a sophomore who was on the team last year when they won the district and will be one of the kids that joins the varsity team at the end of the JV season IMO. He could have easily focused on fall JV baseball and not played those other sports because baseball is the sport he is the best at. He didn't and he ended up playing three sports at the JV level instead of just one.
Could he develop into someone who could make the varsity football and the varsity basketball teams when he is a junior or senior without playing those sports year round? Yeah I think he can. Will he be a starter? Less likely but not impossible. Will he be as good in those sports as he is in baseball? Only if he stops playing baseball tomorrow. He definitely would not be alone in that regard. I guarantee most of his teammates on the football and basketball teams would be in the same boat if they played baseball.