Why are youth and high school sports so competitive to get into now?

[Anonymous]

I don't believe this is even a NOVA issue since it is happening all over America, whether it is California, Texas, Massachusetts, and so on. You have to put your kid in competitive sports at a young age to even have a chance of playing at the high school level. There aren't many rec options once you get to the middle school level, and every school team by then has competitive tryouts. There is no way to pick up a new sport by late elementary or middle school. Kids have to determine their interests at their young age or else it is too late. I don't want to encourage my kids to get into sports because I know it is going to suck for them in the end.

It is especially frustrating when there is basically nothing you get in return for investing so much into youth sports. Most kids will never play in the NCAA, and varsity sports don't matter much for college admissions. I don't know how it is reasonable for any family to invest so much time and money and risking their health for basically nothing.

[Anonymous]

$$$$$$

[Anonymous]

Give them opportunities to try various sports at rec level. You can sport hop, keep what they like, and drop what they don't like. They can play 2-3 rec sports for a few of years until they decide what they like best. That's when you try to get them in a club. They should not have a problem getting into JV if they play club one or two years before high school (but it may depend on the sport).

[Anonymous]

I guess we lucked out with our HS…we have sports like crew that kids don’t usually start until 8th grade (and no cut) or Ultimate which is also no cut…in addition to sports like XCountry.

Our school football team also stinks and nearly anyone can play if they want.

There are choices to play on varsity teams even if you didn’t play since birth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Give them opportunities to try various sports at rec level. You can sport hop, keep what they like, and drop what they don't like. They can play 2-3 rec sports for a few of years until they decide what they like best. That's when you try to get them in a club. They should not have a problem getting into JV if they play club one or two years before high school (but it may depend on the sport).

I should have also mentioned that you can make some teams even without club experience, depending on how popular the sport is. The same sport may be highly competitive in one HS (you really need the club experience) and not very competitive in a different HS (you can make it with rec experience only). Then you have a middle ground, where some club kids show up and make the team, then the coaches figure out how to fill up the team with players without club experience. You cannot really plan depending on how your HS team performs right now because things may change by the time your kids finish middle school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because we did it for the nookie

I do agree this is why I played and stuck with HS Football. It worked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't believe this is even a NOVA issue since it is happening all over America, whether it is California, Texas, Massachusetts, and so on. You have to put your kid in competitive sports at a young age to even have a chance of playing at the high school level. There aren't many rec options once you get to the middle school level, and every school team by then has competitive tryouts. There is no way to pick up a new sport by late elementary or middle school. Kids have to determine their interests at their young age or else it is too late. I don't want to encourage my kids to get into sports because I know it is going to suck for them in the end.

It is especially frustrating when there is basically nothing you get in return for investing so much into youth sports. Most kids will never play in the NCAA, and varsity sports don't matter much for college admissions. I don't know how it is reasonable for any family to invest so much time and money and risking their health for basically nothing.

I don’t think this is at all true for all sports. For some, sure. The investment is in your kids. It is internal and not external.

[Anonymous]

There's a book that covers this called "Until it Hurts" by Mark Hyman.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't believe this is even a NOVA issue since it is happening all over America, whether it is California, Texas, Massachusetts, and so on. You have to put your kid in competitive sports at a young age to even have a chance of playing at the high school level. There aren't many rec options once you get to the middle school level, and every school team by then has competitive tryouts. There is no way to pick up a new sport by late elementary or middle school. Kids have to determine their interests at their young age or else it is too late. I don't want to encourage my kids to get into sports because I know it is going to suck for them in the end.

It is especially frustrating when there is basically nothing you get in return for investing so much into youth sports. Most kids will never play in the NCAA, and varsity sports don't matter much for college admissions. I don't know how it is reasonable for any family to invest so much time and money and risking their health for basically nothing.

I don’t think this is at all true for all sports. For some, sure. The investment is in your kids. It is internal and not external.

+1. I did swimming and I wasn’t amazing at it, I wasn’t going to get a scholarship for it, but it was worth it for learning a skill, making friends, building confidence, learning about commitment.

[Anonymous]

Football definitely helps with college admissions if your GPA is good.

[Anonymous]

High schools are larger these days, and more kids focus on a sport early on (which unintentionally keeps other kids out, as they get older).

There are no-cut sports at many high schools, however. A lot of boys at my kids’ high school do the football-wrestling-track combination. All of those are no-cut, so boys can be part of a team all year. A lot of girls do cross country and/or track, cheerleading is also inclusive and easy to make. There is a path to do some sports in high school for all, at our school- just not necessarily every sport they want

At our school volleyball, basketball and baseball are extremely to make. Soccer and softball vary by the year.

I think the best advice for parents would be to encourage kids to focus on 1 team sport by middle school and 1 individual sport by middle school (swim tennis or golf). If the kids are reasonably willing and interested. That gives two opportunities for team tryouts, and if they don’t make either one, they can opt for no cut sports.

Travel teams in early elementary are not necessary at all. Half the kids will quit before middle school anyway, and none of them have started puberty. Fine to start in 5th-6th grade in almost all cases

[Anonymous]

If your child stars soccer at age five or six and they are on a team with 7-10 other players maybe 2 on that team go on to play through elementary. Those 2 are really into the sport, love the physical activity and their team. For soccer players you do need to start younger than 5th or 6th grade. It’s just harder to compete with the players that have ball skills and the ability to pass the ball.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Give them opportunities to try various sports at rec level. You can sport hop, keep what they like, and drop what they don't like. They can play 2-3 rec sports for a few of years until they decide what they like best. That's when you try to get them in a club. They should not have a problem getting into JV if they play club one or two years before high school (but it may depend on the sport).

It very much depends on the sport. At my kids' HS this is nowhere near true for any sport except maybe football and cross country, at least for boys. Kids who do club/travel level for years get cut from teams. Even for things like swim which are no cut at some schools. I imagine this is true at most high schools where there are a lot of kids from families with the money to spend on travel sports from a young age.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't believe this is even a NOVA issue since it is happening all over America, whether it is California, Texas, Massachusetts, and so on. You have to put your kid in competitive sports at a young age to even have a chance of playing at the high school level. There aren't many rec options once you get to the middle school level, and every school team by then has competitive tryouts. There is no way to pick up a new sport by late elementary or middle school. Kids have to determine their interests at their young age or else it is too late. I don't want to encourage my kids to get into sports because I know it is going to suck for them in the end.

It is especially frustrating when there is basically nothing you get in return for investing so much into youth sports. Most kids will never play in the NCAA, and varsity sports don't matter much for college admissions. I don't know how it is reasonable for any family to invest so much time and money and risking their health for basically nothing.

It depends on the sport. Track and field, you can get into that late and excel. Your observation is on point for ball sports though.

Focus on individual sports that don't require a team. My DD took archery and skateboarding lessons. She couldn't have made the team for a ball sport if her life depended on it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't believe this is even a NOVA issue since it is happening all over America, whether it is California, Texas, Massachusetts, and so on. You have to put your kid in competitive sports at a young age to even have a chance of playing at the high school level. There aren't many rec options once you get to the middle school level, and every school team by then has competitive tryouts. There is no way to pick up a new sport by late elementary or middle school. Kids have to determine their interests at their young age or else it is too late. I don't want to encourage my kids to get into sports because I know it is going to suck for them in the end.

It is especially frustrating when there is basically nothing you get in return for investing so much into youth sports. Most kids will never play in the NCAA, and varsity sports don't matter much for college admissions. I don't know how it is reasonable for any family to invest so much time and money and risking their health for basically nothing.

Completely agree that it’s problematic for kids to have a hard time picking up new sports after ES.

Disagree strongly with the rest, because we’re fortunate enough to be able to afford extracurriculars (even though we’d probably be considered DCUM LMC). We expect no ROI on sports or music lessons but happy, healthy adults and I find the expectation that there’s more to it really weird, tbh.

Risking their health? One of my kids was able to articulate at age 12 that they got a huge mental health boost from exercise. They do organized sports AND ad hoc stuff outside with friends virtually every day.

Assuming that it’s all about college admissions and D1 scholarships is a really myopic view, OP.