Does anyone have experience with any of Yorktown’s no-tryout teams? I would like my son to have the opportunity to make friends through a team, but his main sport, baseball, is almost certain to be too competitive for him to make the team. I’m not sure how to convince him to jump into something new. What do most kids do? Do they just stick with rec teams outside of school?? Join track? |
Cross country (fall) and track (winter & spring) are no cut sports. Swimming (winter) is another no cut sport. |
Last year over 100 kids tried our for the baseball team at YHS! Many still play rec or travel. |
Look into the crew team. It's a sport where virtually everyone starts in Grade 9.
The YHS swim team may technically be no-cut, but it seems to be primarily kids who are also year-round club swimmers. |
I thought crew had cats because they didn’t have enough coaches last year. Am I wrong? |
Cuts
Cats would have been fun, though. |
Yes, YHS is unique among APS high schools when it comes to the very high number of sports cuts. The VHSL ranked Yorktown the second most competitive high school in the state this past year. Ultimate Frisbee, Cross Country, and Football generally don’t have cuts, but it may be too late to join the fall teams. You should check. Crew has cuts at Yorktown but not the other high schools, but see if fall crew is an option to get some experience prior to the spring season.
Wrestling may or may not have cuts at Yorktown. FYI, don’t transfer to another high school just to play sports on less competitive teams. The VHSL does not allow that. |
Curious - How would VHSL know? That seems like a hard thing to prove. If you are transferring schools, it Hass to be approved for academic or social reasons. |
Cross-country will be accepting kids until August 30. |
My kid does XC at YHS - she may not make the varsity team of her preferred sport this year and at least this way she still has something. She also really likes the coaches for XC. |
There are some batsh!t crazy Arlington parents that would report it. Not joking. |
The VHSL ranks schools based on the number of state championships won in a given year. Yorktown came in second place among Virginia high schools. The bottom line is that the demographics at Yorktown will make joining sports with cuts very competitive. But there are other options. Ultimate Frisbee is a fun and growing sport with no cuts. It is not however a VHSL sport, but it’s an official APS varsity sport. |
Op here. I’m not sure I could convince my kid that running is a fun sport (I’m a runner, so I’m not knocking it!). He’s mostly played baseball and soccer in the past. Are there a lot of kids on cross country who are completely new to running as a sport? |
Yes. My DS had never run before but made one of his HS best friends doing cross country in 9th grade. Crew and ultimate are also good ideas. |
There are no cuts for wrestling. Kids with no experience start at JV and can get tons of matches. |