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Old 08-22-2016, 09:09 AM   #51
Warhammer
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Following up on this, I was at my younger son's game on Saturday. One of the head refs (he handles both rec and select games) was walking by and saw me. He sat down and we talked for the whole second half. I picked his brain and found that the driving force locally is money, and then politics. He mentioned that many of the kids that play select should not be playing select, and the politics hoses some of the other talented kids (which select team they play on, if they do not play select, etc.).

We started sharing coaching stories, and shortly after my oldest son walks up. The ref asks my son how practice is going. My son said he only had one practice so far. The ref asked if he shouldn't have had more, and my son said he was playing minors, not for the HS team because he did not make the squad. I got a quizzical look from him, and told him that was why I asked the questions earlier. The ref's mood completely changed, and the coaching/parent hat came out. "You have on job for me this year. Keep working. Next year, make them have to come up with a reason to tell you no!"

I'm not as ticked off as I was previously. However, it hacks me off that we are moving from a meritocracy to cronyism. I understand that who you know may give you an opportunity, but that ability would always trump connections. I always looked at sports as the last bastion of its not who you know, its how good you are at what you do. I would point out to my kids that if you wanted to play more, you had to work harder, do what your coaches asked of you, etc. If you did not want to, you could slack off, but do not expect to play more than the minimum amount of time.

Regarding managing the team, I managed to play my way back onto my HS team managing. I would help out during the practices, and supply an extra body, or someone to show what the coach was trying to demonstrate so the rest of the team could watch. Was offered a spot to dress midway through the season and came down with a case of martyr syndrome.

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Old 05-30-2017, 12:12 PM   #52
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There was an offseason program. He was able to attend the weightlifting/fitness portion since it fit in with my wife's work schedule. The offseason soccer sessions he did not attend. They were in the middle of the day, my wife could not swing it with work, and I travel.

I hope things are working out for your son.

My son made the jv team this year as a freshman and started behind the plate. He was told by the jv coach he's in line to make varsity as a sophomore next year and compared him favorably to the sophomore starter this year.

I think the highlight of his year was when the 8th grade coach that cut him last year showed up to watch the jv team and saw him starting behind the plate.
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Old 09-28-2017, 01:02 PM   #53
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I figure I should update this instead of starting or posting in another thread. So updating first to follow up on this, and then second my little rant based upon parents.

This year, my son made the JV-B team (Freshman and Sophmore team). He attended all the offseason sessions. He played defense in most of the sessions until the last week. One of the forwards was out, and the JV coach moved him to forward. After the session the coach remarked how well he played there, my son replied, "You never asked what my position was before." From then on, he has played target forward.

He has been the stud on his team. The team has scored 11 goals, he has scored 5, only playing 45-50% of the time. He has scored the first team goal in all but one of the games in which they have scored this year. Ironically enough, according to my wife, his best game was one they won 2-0, but he did not score in the game. He was called up to the JV-A team for one game (due to injury), but did not get in. After the game, the coach came up to him and apologized to him for not playing him during the game.

The interesting part from my perspective, when he is in the game, you can feel the energy level from the parents in the stands go up exponentially. The team does noticeably better when he is in, but the play style is similar to having Randy Moss at WR with Daunte Culpepper at QB. Get it in his area and hope he does something with it, rather than a controlled attack (which he can do as well).

So last night, we go to their game. They wind up losing to a good local team. As we are leaving my wife starts talking to one of the other kid's parents. She starts asking why our son is not playing more because he is the one player the opposing defense has to account for. In particular, if he comes out with 29 minutes left due to bleeding from a tackle, why did the coach not put him back in?

Here's the kicker, three games ago, the coach began allotting playing time based upon performance at practice and during the game. Apparently, a number of parents complained because "they paid to play." At our school the school does not provide uniforms or equipment for the soccer program. There is a charge after tryouts which covers units, balls, netting, etc., etc. They were pissed that little Jonny, Eddie, Frankie, etc., did not get as much playing time as the other kids. So after the game prior to last night, after the game parents (mainly mothers) were commenting how everyone had a chance to play, etc.

So when the lady asked me why my son did not go back in, I nearly lost it. On one hand, the parents do not understand why the team is playing like crap (they lost 2-0 last night, it should have been 8-0, our keeper was standing on his head), why the players are not listening to the coach, but the one time the coach starts using his stick to enforce positive behavior, the parents complain! Then they want to know why the team's primary scoring threat is sitting on the bench after he more or less played his allotted time. Seriously? Not that it would have mattered anyway, we could not get the ball over the to my son, and our mids were unable to get the ball to midfield, much less into their end. Not only that, one of the coach's two kids back up my son.

I understand I started this thread last year complaining about things, but it was how to explain to your kid why he didn't make the team when he was a better player than several of the kids on it. For the record, one of the kids I mentioned last year is on the same team this year, and while he is one of the better players, it is more an indictment of the state of the freshman that came in than anything else. The others I mentioned are no longer in the program.

I say all this for several reasons:

1). It blows my mind how parents want to be able to have their cake and eat it too. The mentality that their child should be on a winning team, everyone should have equal playing time, but we should always have the best players in so we can win. 1+1+1 does not equal 10 folks...

2). As I mentioned last year, I view sports as a great meritocracy, but things have certainly changed for the worse in the last 25 years. The politics involved blow my mind. I would never dream of calling or sending a note to a coach regarding playing time of my kid. That is his decision. My kid needs to get his butt in gear and do what is required to get on the field, any further issue is between him and the coach, I should not be involved.

3). The lack of respect for authority in this country blows my mind. I understand there is a time to push back, but does anyone take time to think about what their kids are learning from their actions?

4). The coach needs to figure out if he wants to coach or not. If you say one thing in practice, but cave to parental pressure regarding playing time, your credibility goes out the window. Those kids are not going to listen or do what you want them to on the field.

5). This ties into 3 above, but we need to give the refs a break. The vitriol and verbiage hurled at these guys is ridiculous. Again, what are we teaching our kids?

6). I am going to ruffle some feathers here, but select sports are not instilling the right values in these kids. Whether it is coming from the coaches or the players, there is a decided lack of enthusiasm and passion from the kids.

Regarding the question that kicked off the thread, my son has learned the value of hard work? He always asks to be dropped off at practice early to get extra work in. When he is not in the game (for the most part), he is focused on the game and pointing out things to other players on the bench. The improvement in his game has been tremendous, before he was a good player, he has turned into a great player for his age. While he still has normal issues at home, he has matured quite a bit, and has learned how to be a team player and fiction as part of the whole, even while wanting to wring their necks for not having the same degree of passion for the game.
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Old 09-28-2017, 01:15 PM   #54
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Is this a high school? Parents are directly talking to the coach about playing time?

At our school, there is a no tolerance policy on that sort of thing. Players can talk directly to coaches about why they aren't playing or what they need to do, etc., but no parents. If it gets escalated to the AD or principal, a parent is allowed to sit in, but at that point it's likely an issue beyond simply playing time that the parent can discuss (lazy, bad grades, etc.). If a parent insists on discussing playing time, the kid is off the team.
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Old 09-28-2017, 01:18 PM   #55
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6). I am going to ruffle some feathers here, but select sports are not instilling the right values in these kids. Whether it is coming from the coaches or the players, there is a decided lack of enthusiasm and passion from the kids.

Select is essentially training for the future, best I can tell. I don't know any kid playing select anything (aside from softball I guess) who isn't doing so with an eye toward how it might impact their college opportunities.

Not sure that every future doctor is gung-ho in every class they attend, not sure it's reasonable to expect select-caliber players to be bursting with enthusiasm at all times either. Certainly none of the select baseball guys I know have been, the grind of it isn't easy.

That said, I don't know one off-hand that was being forced to do it either. They've all wanted the opportunity it provides, but like anything, the grind wears.
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Old 09-28-2017, 01:31 PM   #56
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Aside from softball? I've lived that world for the past 8 years and if anything, it's only gotten worse from when Caitlin started. It used to be there were several travel teams and a small group of kids who played rec and the two stayed separate. Now, the rec leagues are dead as the parents collect the "best of the rest" onto travel teams and pollute tournaments with teams that can't play and routinely get run-ruled. All because they see kids who can actually play being scouted and committing to colleges and they want in on that gravy train.

Of course, it doesn't help that you have 8th graders committing to college, so what these people see is actually happening. It's just not going to happen for their kid. NCAA recently adopted a revised recruiting calendar for softball that's in effect now that severely restricts fall recruiting. It's going to hit a lot of these travel tournaments and camps hard because coaches can only observe players on weekends from mid-October through Thanksgiving. They are trying to do things like this to save coaches from themselves.
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Old 09-28-2017, 01:37 PM   #57
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The other thing, regarding enthusiasm/passion, is that many coaches are critical of recruiting tournaments for creating this environment where the kid is just playing for him/herself and there's really no competition or sense of teamwork. These tournaments are set up where you just go and play 5 or 6 games at set times - games don't matter, they are drop dead in the middle of an AB, and they even relax rules (such as, you can pinch-run a girl multiple times and even insert girls into the lineup to hit multiple times).

The reason for this is simple - they wanted to give coaches a set-in-stone schedule so they could plan their scouting. Suzy plays at 1pm on field 1, Jessie at 3pm on field 6, etc. But along the way, it basically turned into a glorified scrimmage/workout, and coaches complained. So now many of them will do a split pool/bracket tournament so that there's a competitive piece to it. But overall, many of these teams exist solely to seek out recruiting tournaments and don't actually play many competitive schedules.
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Old 09-28-2017, 01:50 PM   #58
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My kids are in karate in part because I want them to learn physical skills and discipline and to push themselves and I don't have to deal with all the bullshit discussed in this thread.
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Old 09-28-2017, 01:53 PM   #59
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It's definitely a way to pay for school for some kids. But it should never be the primary reason a kid is playing any sport. Or the reason they are doing anything, sports or not, for that matter.
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Old 09-28-2017, 02:28 PM   #60
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Is this a high school? Parents are directly talking to the coach about playing time?

At our school, there is a no tolerance policy on that sort of thing. Players can talk directly to coaches about why they aren't playing or what they need to do, etc., but no parents. If it gets escalated to the AD or principal, a parent is allowed to sit in, but at that point it's likely an issue beyond simply playing time that the parent can discuss (lazy, bad grades, etc.). If a parent insists on discussing playing time, the kid is off the team.

Yes. The coach for the next level up will address the parents after each game (going based off what my wife told me, I was not there). Which I think is brilliant, you can manage the message.

I think it is up to the player to address any concerns with the coach. It teaches them valuable skills for later in life. One of the more important ones at that as well, how to take criticism and build from it.
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Old 09-28-2017, 03:13 PM   #61
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My kids are in karate in part because I want them to learn physical skills and discipline and to push themselves and I don't have to deal with all the bullshit discussed in this thread.

Stories like these do make me a little happy my kids aren't athletically inclined.
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Old 09-28-2017, 03:57 PM   #62
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Aside from softball?

I've heard those stories, I simply haven't met a single one of those girls. That's why I made that exclusion, it was meant to refer to my personal experiences, not to say that it doesn't happen in softball too.

Most of the higher-end softball players I've known first (or at least second) hand seem more interested in beating people's asses between the lines than anything else honestly. Possibly skewed simply by virtue of the locations of where I've known 'em, places that are still ... umm ... quite rural. I doubt half those girls I'm thinking of will ever attend anything above the vo-tech level ... but they'll be playing softball competitively somewhere when they're grandmothers.
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Old 09-28-2017, 04:06 PM   #63
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Yeah, I see the same thing starting with my oldest son who started playing soccer this year. One of the parents told me at his last game that she likes our coach better than the coach of another sport because all that coach did was yell at the players. Ok, I'm with her there somewhat, though when I played, yelling was a coaching tool. Then she said the coach was telling them to play harder and telling them where to be on the field. And all I could think was, "That's not yelling, that's coaching loud enough for the players to hear."

Then, at practice on Monday, the soccer coach started coaching loudly and making the players run for not paying attention and messing up in drills. I'm surprised it took him this long to do it, but I wonder what the parent thought of that change of events.

From being a coach of an AAU team and being a parent of 2 soccer players, I'll say this: Some parents want things to be fair to their child. And by fair, I mean on the field as much as possible and on a winning team. Whether that player objectively deserves to be on the field over other players doesn't matter. They feel that if the team lost by 5 points, their kid would've made the difference. In actuality, their kid most likely would've made the losing margin more like 20 points.

And yes, your son should know be able to go to the coach and discuss what he needs to do to get better and get more playing time. And the coach really should stick to what he says, no matter what the parents say. He's responsible for playing time by whatever rules he deems are appropriate. How else will these kids learn they have to earn their right to do things?
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Old 09-28-2017, 04:08 PM   #64
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It's definitely a way to pay for school for some kids. But it should never be the primary reason a kid is playing any sport. Or the reason they are doing anything, sports or not, for that matter.

It's not the "why they're playing" so often as "why they're playing where/with whom they're playing".

You described the tier-structure of talent pretty well in your softball post. It happens with pretty much every k-12 sport I can think of (with football being the least affected on a percentage basis probably).

I'm thinking of all the sports where I know of prospective college athletes playing on a team(s)/competing in a certain structure solely for exposure purposes. Tennis, swimming, equestrian, gymnastics, all for sure. Soccer too.

Baseball gets a partial pass for HS teams for at least lower level prospect I think, school seasons now run so early they don't interfere with "exposure leagues" as much here as they might elsewhere.

I've only known a couple of volleyball prospects & they were very much homebodies/play-at-school types but I think it might happen with it as well, just not that I've seen first hand.


Most would likely be playing for somebody somewhere, a few might want the competition upgrade but a lot have made their choices based on the exposure.
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Old 09-28-2017, 04:11 PM   #65
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My daughter is playing for exposure.
She is on an AAU team. She is 6'1" going on 6'2".
SHe loves to play, and this is her ticket to free or inexpensive college.
She is planning on being a PT at this point. That is a lot of school. If she can get at least 4 years paid, great.
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Old 09-28-2017, 04:14 PM   #66
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It blows my mind how parents want to be able to have their cake and eat it too. The mentality that their child should be on a winning team, everyone should have equal playing time, but we should always have the best players in so we can win. 1+1+1 does not equal 10 folks...

Heh, I'm reminded of a specific incident I saw a few years back.

Long story short, football team got it's clocked absolutely cleaned by a pretty heavily recruited opponent. One of the worst physically mismatches I've seen in my life, like little kids against grown men disparity. When over a dozen new starters show up somewhere at the same time, teams sure can improve fast.

One of our parents was pretty much irate, his emotional rant was basically "if we gonna play these bastards, we better start recruiting ourselves or somebody is gonna get killed". The irony was that if we had done so, his son would have never seen the field (first year football player in 10th grade, with only speed as an asset).

Now in his case, I know the parent, he knew the ramifications & would have been fine with that (he'd have told his kid to work harder & get better) ... but most parents fall into what you described: they'd want 10 studs + little Johnny = winning.
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Old 09-28-2017, 04:22 PM   #67
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My daughter is playing for exposure.

And I'm not criticizing it by any means (in case that wasn't clear).

I don't see it being much different than all the stuff my academics-are-his-primary-skill son did in order to make sure he checked off certain boxes for college applications. You do them because they're a factor if you have certain goals you're trying to reach.

Mock-trial was 1-2 days of fun with weeks of misery beforehand. He hated every minute of prep, he enjoyed at least some of the actual competition days ... but knew it was something else to add to his resume.

Same thing in reverse with sitting on the board of a local "junior foundation". He actually loved it, but the majority of the members were bored stiff, simply filling in a checkbox for their own applications.

It's essentially the same thing: doing stuff in a way you wouldn't otherwise do it in order to push a larger peanut a little farther along.
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Old 09-28-2017, 04:40 PM   #68
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It's definitely a way to pay for school for some kids. But it should never be the primary reason a kid is playing any sport. Or the reason they are doing anything, sports or not, for that matter.

I don't know. How is it different than having the kid work a job over the summer to pay for school?
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Old 09-28-2017, 05:02 PM   #69
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I don't know. How is it different than having the kid work a job over the summer to pay for school?

A lot of parents don't realize the limited number of athletic scholarship opportunities available. I know a lot of parents that spent many, many thousands of dollars for their kids to play on very expensive travel baseball teams to end up playing DIII. They were good high school players but not D1 level.

My nephew played a ton of travel league baseball but he probably won't make his high school team this year. He loves the game (and he's my brother's only kid) so it was worth the money and time but many parents have unrealistic expectations when it comes to scholarships.
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Old 09-28-2017, 05:15 PM   #70
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A lot of parents don't realize the limited number of athletic scholarship opportunities available. I know a lot of parents that spent many, many thousands of dollars for their kids to play on very expensive travel baseball teams to end up playing DIII. They were good high school players but not D1 level.

Then again, some DIII schools cost more to attend than some higher classification schools. (I don't know all DIII schools so I won't try to guess a percentage).

One I'm familiar with costs not-quite-triple what UGA costs for example.
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Old 09-28-2017, 05:23 PM   #71
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I don't know. How is it different than having the kid work a job over the summer to pay for school?

Because money guarantees you can pay for college, so presumably it's worth the time. Playing sports doesn't guarantee anything.
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Old 09-28-2017, 05:59 PM   #72
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My daughter is D2 level if not low end mid major. And there is always NAIA, which is a free for all.
We went to a NAIA school for a visit with my older daughter. She is a cross country runner. It is a private school. About $34k a year. Based on her times he offered her $17k. The school had other monies to get. It would have ended up to be about $8k for her to attend.

Needless to say, she runs socially now.Still fior her HS, but not competitively.

My point being, money is out there. You just got to find it.
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Old 09-28-2017, 06:03 PM   #73
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Based on her times he offered her $17k. The school had other monies to get. It would have ended up to be about $8k for her to attend.

Pretty typical with the schools below D1 afaik.

Lots of cobbling together of athletic, merit, and need based dollars to get things down to something manageable.

I even know a D1 kid who ended up getting a half athletic ride, 'cause he could qualify for the other half ride academically, thereby saving the athletic dollars to use toward someone else.
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Old 09-28-2017, 07:11 PM   #74
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With the DIII schools, the way it used to work was they would work hard to get incoming Freshmen as many grants and scholarships as possible to get them in the door. That money dried up quickly if the athlete didn't show immediate promise.

I had a few DIII schools that recruited me for basketball and they were able to get room and board close to public Universities. One of the schools was #1 in DIII that year but declined the invitation to the NCAA tournament because they emphasize academics. That was a pretty big reason why I chose to go to OSU instead.
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Old 09-28-2017, 09:38 PM   #75
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Pretty typical with the schools below D1 afaik.

Lots of cobbling together of athletic, merit, and need based dollars to get things down to something manageable.

I even know a D1 kid who ended up getting a half athletic ride, 'cause he could qualify for the other half ride academically, thereby saving the athletic dollars to use toward someone else.

That's pretty much the way all of the non-headcount sports work. Football, basketball, etc., when they offer scholarships, they are all full rides. The decision a kid is making is between schools/programs, not how much aid the player is being offered. For the rest of the sports, they have a max number of scholarships they can offer, depending on whether the school fully funds its programs. For softball, it's a max of 12 scholarships. There are usually 18-24 kids on a team, so they split that money up among most of the kids and then add a few walk-ons for depth.

Certain players are more likely to get a full ride or close to it, but most kids get partial athletic aid and coaches expect a combination of academics and in-state discounts to get kids pretty close to a reasonable cost for their parents. It really depends on the program and the kid. For an in-state kid going to a P5, the coach might be able to get them for 10-30% athletic scholarship because the kid wants to play there so badly.

For the next year or two, we'll be going through the cost/benefit analysis of travel ball with our younger daughter. She's 13 and just starting 14U softball. Her team has joined a top organization and costs and travel are about to jump big-time. Having seen this entire process play out with Caitlin, I'm just not sure Mackenzie has the talent or other factors that go into these things (position, size, speed) to pay off 4-5 years of spending that kind of money to make it worth it. If she loves playing, she can still play local travel ball. So, we'll see.

With Caitlin, she was a big, strong girl at 10 years old and became a dominant pitcher very quickly. She caught coaches' eyes because by Mack's age, they thought she was an upperclassman in high school, not a 7th/8th grader. And she pitched, which is where the most athletic money goes. So, I spent a ton of money on camps for her and playing on a team committed to recruiting (it was a local team, though, and we built it into a regional powerhouse that won a national championship). For a couple of winters, we spent 2 months straight on the road. Her sophomore year, I put 3000 miles on my car in a 3 weekend span. I did a ton of research for her and had her emailing 3 dozen coaches before and after every tournament and camp she went to.

But, it worked out great for her. She got seen by a lot of coaches, caught the eye of several schools, and committed in February of her sophomore year. She got a hefty chunk of athletic money and a small supplemental academic scholarship based on her ACT score, plus an out of state tuition waiver, and bottom line, I'm paying less than $2500 a year in tuition, housing and meals and she gets to play D1 softball at a mid-major. So, it can be worth it, but a lot of things have to fall into place. Even the most talented kids don't get seen and fall through the cracks.
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Old 09-29-2017, 06:31 AM   #76
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Ill just say and agree with this:

5). This ties into 3 above, but we need to give the refs a break. The vitriol and verbiage hurled at these guys is ridiculous. Again, what are we teaching our kids?

Couldn't be more right. I reffed for about 5 years and the last year I couldnt wait for it to be over and never looked back. Not just the parents but the kids themselves in HS. Just awful in every way from yelling, to manipulative, to entitled... you name.
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Old 09-29-2017, 08:12 AM   #77
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Yeah, I agree. It's kind of a vicious cycle - it's a very tough job, low pay, and there are a lot of people that aren't very good at it, and then when you compound that with the abuse, you have fewer people willing to do it which means you have more unqualified people taking these jobs, which just makes the vitriol coming from the stands that much worse.

I rarely see it out of kids, but maybe that's because girls are less likely to act out than boys, I don't know. But I've seen parents thrown out or restrained or arrested, etc., almost every weekend. Some of it is parent-on-coach or parent-on-parent and not necessarily umpire-related, but it's still disturbing.

Funny thing is our local softball community has 2 cops and a sheriff as coaches or parents, so when these things happen, it's hilarious to see the looks on the faces of the out-of-control A-holes when they are confronted by someone who just happens to be law enforcement.
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Old 09-29-2017, 09:13 AM   #78
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Because money guarantees you can pay for college, so presumably it's worth the time. Playing sports doesn't guarantee anything.


This can be entirely situation dependent, I understand that.
But that is only half the equation.

A kid working a summer job is making what $250/week lets say maybe he makes $400.
Over 3 months that is roughly $5k.

After college when his earning potential is 4-5x that number he can pay back a student loan in that amount in a fraction of the time.

On the contrast, if the summer workout, camp, exposure pays off in a full ride We are now talking $100k plus.

I've talked pretty openly about my son on here before. He is 16, a junior, and unless something changes dramatically he will be going to college on a football scholarship. He has "offers" already has a 4.2 GPA and is a good citizen. He wanted to get a job this summer with a couple buddies at burger king. I talked him out of it. People criticized me, but he has his whole life to work. I never enjoyed HS or college because I worked through both. I dont want that for him. I paid for him to work with an elite trainer 3x a week. He isnt sitting on his butt instead of working...he is improving what has the potential to be his future.
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Old 09-29-2017, 09:37 AM   #79
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Yes. This is where we are CU.

My daughter is sophomore. 4.0 student. 6'1" and can shoot a college 3.

She wants to work. We are talking her out of it. Told her that her job is to focus on basketball.

I have told both my daughters, if you are playing sports you do not have to work. Sports takes up a lot of time. And if it gets them to college, then the work paid off.
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Old 09-29-2017, 09:44 AM   #80
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This can be entirely situation dependent, I understand that.
But that is only half the equation.

A kid working a summer job is making what $250/week lets say maybe he makes $400.
Over 3 months that is roughly $5k.

After college when his earning potential is 4-5x that number he can pay back a student loan in that amount in a fraction of the time.

On the contrast, if the summer workout, camp, exposure pays off in a full ride We are now talking $100k plus.

I've talked pretty openly about my son on here before. He is 16, a junior, and unless something changes dramatically he will be going to college on a football scholarship. He has "offers" already has a 4.2 GPA and is a good citizen. He wanted to get a job this summer with a couple buddies at burger king. I talked him out of it. People criticized me, but he has his whole life to work. I never enjoyed HS or college because I worked through both. I dont want that for him. I paid for him to work with an elite trainer 3x a week. He isnt sitting on his butt instead of working...he is improving what has the potential to be his future.

From everything you have posted here, you are far more realistic than most sports parents though. If your son is talented, go for it. My issue is the parents that cannot see past their child is special, because they it is their child.
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Old 09-29-2017, 09:48 AM   #81
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Told her that her job is to focus on basketball.

Told ours the same thing about academics (i.e. where his skill set was apparent). Investment paid off, but not sure I'd have any regrets about it even if it hadn't added up on the ledger, felt like a risk worth taking.

A caveat, perhaps, to that is that he'd been immersed in a work environment pretty much his whole life (due to me working primarily from home). He's known how to navigate that minefield -- both internally & externally -- better than most 25 year olds I see since he was in single digits.
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Old 09-29-2017, 09:52 AM   #82
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From everything you have posted here, you are far more realistic than most sports parents though. If your son is talented, go for it. My issue is the parents that cannot see past their child is special, because they it is their child.

Yep that is the special snowflake syndrome.
We have that as well, trust me.

My favorite are the connected kids who play because of their connections and then their parents bitch about others playing and not deserving the PT...irony
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Old 09-29-2017, 10:11 AM   #83
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Caitlin did not work at all in high school, either. She simply had no time. Unless I had my own situation to employ her or a really good friend willing to do me a big favor, what employer is going to hire a 16 year old from mid-June to August 1st who can only work Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 10am to 5pm, except for those couple weeks where we'll be out? No one. She did some babysitting and petsitting and a few odd jobs like that, but nothing in a structured work environment. I didn't love it, but it was the reality. She'll get a job next summer hopefully, between freshman and sophomore year at college.
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Old 09-29-2017, 11:22 AM   #84
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Not nearly the same thing, but my daughter just turned 8 and has her first gymnastics meet this weekend. They already have her practicing 3 nights a week for 3 hours a night. Thankfully one of those nights is a Friday, so we're only rushing schoolwork in for 2 nights.

Its already taking a toll on her. Her grades are good (2nd grade, but the teacher is atrocious), but by Thursday night she's already exhausted and she still has 1 more practice. We've tried to stress that if she ever needs a break or just doesn't want to do it that's fine, but its hard to have an 8 year old understand that when she dreams of making the Olympics in LA (earliest eligibility).

Last night as I was putting her to bed I was talking about her meet and she said she was nervous and I told her its normal and that we're so proud of her. But then she got sad and almost cried because she said she wasn't going to make the Olympics because she didn't have one of her skills yet (she's also the youngest by nearly a year and the others look like giants compared to her). I told her not to worry, she has plenty of time and to just have fun. It's supposed to be fun and if it stops let us know. I then told her how smart she is and she can do anything and then I told he she could be a gymnastics astronaut with a vet clinic on the moon and it seemed to snap her out of it. Then I farted and she was good to go.

Its tough having your kids do sports and wanting them to do their best, but also making sure they don't stress about how good they are.
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Old 09-29-2017, 11:24 AM   #85
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Very interesting and informative thread--many thanks to all who've posted here.
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Old 09-29-2017, 12:03 PM   #86
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Its tough having your kids do sports and wanting them to do their best, but also making sure they don't stress about how good they are.

Fine line between caring too much and caring too little.

Not sure that balancing act ever really ends for the majority of folks, regardless of age, we just transfer it into other areas.
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Old 09-29-2017, 12:16 PM   #87
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True.

One of the things I always talked to Caitlin about was not confusing outcome with technique. She might go 2-3 with 2 crappy/lucky hits, or 0-4 with 3 well hit balls and a strikeout after a 10 pitch battle. She shouldn't be content with the 2-3 performance (although you take it!), and shouldn't get too down about the 0-fer, but to look at how she performed, not what the results were.

That seemed to help her from getting too high or low in any given scenario, since she understood that coaches knew what they were looking at and not worried about the outcome so much. And also, that coaches want to see you fail because it's how you perform under pressure that matters to them since they know you are going to fail in college and need kids who can play through it.
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Old 09-29-2017, 12:29 PM   #88
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That's what I tried to say. She's going to fall or miss a step or whatever, because she's going to have hundreds of gymnastics meets in the future and everybody does it.

Of course, then I remember the hours of conversations I had in my head when I played whichever sport about, OK swing here, shade more towards second, can you bounce that pass through the tiny window, Do I have time to dribble to the end line or do I need to cross it now. All were split second decisions, but I remember so many thoughts running through my head when I played and I think "I hope she doesn't inherit that from me."
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Old 09-29-2017, 12:40 PM   #89
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Of course, then I remember the hours of conversations I had in my head when I played whichever sport about, OK swing here, shade more towards second, can you bounce that pass through the tiny window, Do I have time to dribble to the end line or do I need to cross it now. All were split second decisions, but I remember so many thoughts running through my head when I played and I think "I hope she doesn't inherit that from me."

Wait ... doesn't nearly everybody do that?

Hell, I'm 50 years old and I still remember specific plays & thought sequences that went with them from baseball games at age 9.
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Old 09-29-2017, 01:21 PM   #90
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True.

One of the things I always talked to Caitlin about was not confusing outcome with technique. She might go 2-3 with 2 crappy/lucky hits, or 0-4 with 3 well hit balls and a strikeout after a 10 pitch battle. She shouldn't be content with the 2-3 performance (although you take it!), and shouldn't get too down about the 0-fer, but to look at how she performed, not what the results were.

That seemed to help her from getting too high or low in any given scenario, since she understood that coaches knew what they were looking at and not worried about the outcome so much. And also, that coaches want to see you fail because it's how you perform under pressure that matters to them since they know you are going to fail in college and need kids who can play through it.

This is one of the items I impress upon John. It is better to consistently make or generate chances than it is to have fluke chances.

He had a game a week ago where he scored one goal, nearly scored another, and had several good runs. However, his best play was at the top of the 18, he took a pass on the left side of the field, weaved his way through three defenders along the 18, as soon as the third defender was on his hip, he ripped a shot that would have scored, but the backside defender was able to get back and into position to block it.

Comparing that to one of the backups who generated a PK, but it was not due to his stellar play. He created space (which was good), took the ball from the right side, hesitated as he tried to break down a defender, passed up a crossing opportunity, dribbled in, and was caught from behind. It was a clean challenge that saw both he and the defender go down. The PK chance came when he tried to get up, the defender turned and shoved him back down in the box. Yes, it was a positive outcome, but it was not due to great play, it was a fluke where the defender lost his mind.
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Old 09-29-2017, 01:27 PM   #91
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Yes. This is where we are CU.

My daughter is sophomore. 4.0 student. 6'1" and can shoot a college 3.

She wants to work. We are talking her out of it. Told her that her job is to focus on basketball.

I have told both my daughters, if you are playing sports you do not have to work. Sports takes up a lot of time. And if it gets them to college, then the work paid off.

This was me coming out of high school. I wanted to go to school, work, and play basketball. My parents told me school was #1 and pick one of the other 2. Since basketball was my way to college for free, we agreed basketball was the right choice. Ended up being a good choice as it got me through college with very little for me to pay for.

With my oldest son, he's just starting to play soccer and, so far, is playing well. We'll see how the next couple of years go, but if he continues to work at it and get better, we will probably follow the same route: School is always #1. You can either play sports or work, not both. He will do one or the other, though, unless his school work suffers, then it's school and school only.
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Old 09-29-2017, 02:00 PM   #92
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Wait ... doesn't nearly everybody do that?

Hell, I'm 50 years old and I still remember specific plays & thought sequences that went with them from baseball games at age 9.

Whenever you hear people talk about when they played, they always made it seem like they made snap decisions without even thinking. Maybe they were better or just more confident in themselves.
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Old 09-29-2017, 02:38 PM   #93
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Its funny hearing (reading?) you and Jon talk about that.
My son and I watch game film together every week. And he will stream of conscious give me these long break downs of what he was thinking pre-snap, mid play and post play.Alright OLB is showing blitz, 7 tech is my man, but if OLB comes I have to at least close the gap with the G and make him rub off me to slow him down. I need to call a line audible. Crap I better not, he is about to cadence if I audible and dont get it out others may not be on the same page OH SHIT snap...damn Im late off the ball. Damn OLB isnt coming why did I let all that crap bother me..crap dont forget the DE...he is going to spin in I know it... Ok plays over.

He can do this for 50 plays in perfect time as we watch film.

I at first thought he was F.O.S. bu Ive realized he isnt. I never remember thinking at all playing ball growing up. That why I loved it. I studied my playbook then I just would zone out and react.

Different mental processes I suppose
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Old 09-29-2017, 09:54 PM   #94
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Its funny hearing (reading?) you and Jon talk about that.

I can look at old stat sheets -- not in play chart sequence mind you, just individual carry & yardage stuff -- and reconstruct play sequences of games I did on radio.

And the year Will did stats for HS, we recharted everything each week and his recall astonished me as we went. Not just the tacklers, but who missed a tackle, who almost got an assist, so forth.

I think you hit it, just totally different ways of processing input.
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Old 12-05-2018, 07:09 PM   #95
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Bumping this to share a proud parent moment.

I know in a lot of cases when you hear of a kid being cut from a team and finger pointing at coaches and administration you take it with a grain of salt. There are a ton a of parents that see more ability in their kids than they truly have.

My son (cut by his 8th grade coach earlier in this thread) was selected by Garciaparra Baseball Group (GBG Northwest) to play on the team they're taking to Phoenix to compete in the Perfect Game MLK Championship next month. This is currently the number 21 ranked travel ball team in the country.

Being selected for this team was a goal he set for himself last year and he was rather bummed he missed out on selection for the fall classic, but he received multiple recommendations this time around and was informed Monday night that he was selected. Needless to say he's excited as can be.
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Old 12-05-2018, 07:18 PM   #96
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Congrats.

Are you going to Phoenix to watch him play?
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Old 12-05-2018, 07:45 PM   #97
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Congrats.

Are you going to Phoenix to watch him play?

Up in the air at this point. Looking unlikely though.

My wife has family there she'd like to visit and we need someone to stay with the animals. The dog didn't handle being boarded very well the last time we left for a weekend even though it was an amazing boarding place.

So one of us is definitely going, but it's looking for more likely my wife is the winner.
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Old 12-05-2018, 10:21 PM   #98
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Likely once in a lifetime. I would encourage you to go also because son is more important than dog
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