Quote:
Originally Posted by Ksyrup
10 years ago I seriously wanted to pitch a reality show based on central KY travel softball. Really, it could be anywhere, but there was a perfect storm of talent, crazy parents, rivalries, etc. It would have been a train wreck of epic proportions to the point where MTV probably would have bid on it.
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This thread is amazing. I have just googled travel baseball and I now want this show made. It seems nuts.
We have nr 7 year old and an 8 yr old playing football (soccer) on Saturdays and Rugby on Sundays.
The football (soccer) has some of the traits that you describe with secret cabals of parent coaches who have streamed the 8 yr old kids from the village into 5 teams with innocent sounding names (Tigers, Sharks, Pumas etc). My 8 yr old has made the 3rd or 4th best of the 5 teams (you can sense how much I am worried about it) and is having a great time with other boys who all seem nice lads keen to play football as hard as they can. The top team is rife with talent, egos and bad attitudes. Some of the parents are not much chop either. Being British it does seem all a little bit more polite than what Flasch described with the baseball, but it is still there. One lad has been picked up by the Tottenham youth development squad programme which sounds somewhat like the travel ball in that it is a heavy investment in time and money for the parents and kids.
The rugby couldn't be more different. There are about 50 kids in the age group with a strict no streaming policy until they get a lot older. Contact rugby starts next season and that will naturally drop the numbers as kids decide they prefer football (soccer). The coaches are nearly all the dads (25 coaches for 50 kids) and we all get on well with a love of rugby and beer knitting us together. Totally different environment so far. It may change and probably will, but for now the hope is that it doesn't. And that the boys give up football (soccer) to focus on rugby. And fencing.