What is your experience in an extremely competitive area?

[Anonymous]

Did your kids get to play if you were in an extremely competitive area?

Just to give you some numbers the Varsity football team roster is over 100 kids, 12-24 kids will contribute in a meaningful way and get playing time. (State championships are the norm)
Our B team for tennis and golf are ranked top 5 in state! Redshirting (sometimes even more than once, Kinder and then 8th) is extremely common in basketball, lacrosse and football which goes by grade. Any tips for dealing with a situation like this if you have a super sporty kid who really wants to play on a team in HS?

[Anonymous]

If you have a super sporty kid it probably won't be a problem? The real athletes still seem to standout. At our large FCPS high school- our kid played Varsity all four years in three different sports.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you have a super sporty kid it probably won't be a problem? The real athletes still seem to standout. At our large FCPS high school- our kid played Varsity all four years in three different sports.

Which sports? We don’t have a single freshman in the roster for V basketball, baseball, lax or football. There’s 400 boys in the football program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you have a super sporty kid it probably won't be a problem? The real athletes still seem to standout. At our large FCPS high school- our kid played Varsity all four years in three different sports.

Then this isn’t an example of what OP is about. It’s not a super competitive school.

[Anonymous]

My kid goes to a school like this….catholic powerhouse. My advice is…you’re not going to star in 3 sports like back in the day. Pick the 1-2 you think they have an opportunity to contribute on varsity as a junior and senior, then work your tail off for 4 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid goes to a school like this….catholic powerhouse. My advice is…you’re not going to star in 3 sports like back in the day. Pick the 1-2 you think they have an opportunity to contribute on varsity as a junior and senior, then work your tail off for 4 years.

When would you know?

And what if it’s a situation where
1. He LOVES football but the chance of actually playing is so low. Really good kids are on the second string and no one makes V until J or Sr. Year. We are frequently state champs in a very competitive state

2. Has a second sport he could probably that has much less competition and he would likely make V team freshman year but does not get as much attention as 1. It is also very fun and he competes now as a national level in MS

Same season!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid goes to a school like this….catholic powerhouse. My advice is…you’re not going to star in 3 sports like back in the day. Pick the 1-2 you think they have an opportunity to contribute on varsity as a junior and senior, then work your tail off for 4 years.

When would you know?

And what if it’s a situation where
1. He LOVES football but the chance of actually playing is so low. Really good kids are on the second string and no one makes V until J or Sr. Year. We are frequently state champs in a very competitive state

2. Has a second sport he could probably that has much less competition and he would likely make V team freshman year but does not get as much attention as 1. It is also very fun and he competes now as a national level in MS

Same season!

I would go with the non-football sport unless your son really prefers football. I think it is more fun for kids to do sports or other activities where they actually get to participate. My family stumbled on this by accident when one of my kids randomly chose an instrument not many people play (ex: bassoon) but we have had the same experience with sports. Better to be a big fish in a small pond in most cases. I also think it is a good rule of thumb for life - go where you are wanted and your unique skills are a good match for what is needed. Don't try to force something that is not happening.

[Anonymous]

My kid was sporty. Super sporty at our school meant D1 recruit. Really sporty meant D3. Mine had years of experience and went in with tons of passion but no chance for college. He rode the bench and didn’t play at all most games.

Kid 2 is more athletic and is getting more playing time on the freshman team but it’s only been a couple of scrimmages. We will see what the future brings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid was sporty. Super sporty at our school meant D1 recruit. Really sporty meant D3. Mine had years of experience and went in with tons of passion but no chance for college. He rode the bench and didn’t play at all most games.

Kid 2 is more athletic and is getting more playing time on the freshman team but it’s only been a couple of scrimmages. We will see what the future brings.

My son is sporty and enthusiastic about playing but he’s not at the level needed to play on a team where 80 percent of kids don’t play. He’s more like upper half. I don’t see him getting any playing time. He could play the second option and contribute because it’s less competitive and he’s one of the most experienced.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid goes to a school like this….catholic powerhouse. My advice is…you’re not going to star in 3 sports like back in the day. Pick the 1-2 you think they have an opportunity to contribute on varsity as a junior and senior, then work your tail off for 4 years.

When would you know?

And what if it’s a situation where
1. He LOVES football but the chance of actually playing is so low. Really good kids are on the second string and no one makes V until J or Sr. Year. We are frequently state champs in a very competitive state

2. Has a second sport he could probably that has much less competition and he would likely make V team freshman year but does not get as much attention as 1. It is also very fun and he competes now as a national level in MS

Same season!

Be grateful he's not playing because it will save his brain.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you have a super sporty kid it probably won't be a problem? The real athletes still seem to standout. At our large FCPS high school- our kid played Varsity all four years in three different sports.

It depends on the purpose of sport. Is it fun and fitness for everyone, or top teams for a few? I'd argue for the first objective. I don't know why they don't have several teams for each popular sport, and then et the kids in the C, D, E, F or G ranked teams play similar level kids from other schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid was sporty. Super sporty at our school meant D1 recruit. Really sporty meant D3. Mine had years of experience and went in with tons of passion but no chance for college. He rode the bench and didn’t play at all most games.

Kid 2 is more athletic and is getting more playing time on the freshman team but it’s only been a couple of scrimmages. We will see what the future brings.

My son is sporty and enthusiastic about playing but he’s not at the level needed to play on a team where 80 percent of kids don’t play. He’s more like upper half. I don’t see him getting any playing time. He could play the second option and contribute because it’s less competitive and he’s one of the most experienced.

You replied to me and I really hope your kid gets some playing time. My kid was second string and the depth chart was deep. His super competitive school only played the starters the majority of the time. Even with the huge roster they had some playing offense and defense. He played under 5 minutes most games and many never got in at all. It wasn’t like that for all positions though.

[Anonymous]

My experience was that if you look across freshman, JV and Varsity teams, you could plot kids on an a graph with natural athleticism (speed, size, recovery, agility, coordination) on the X axis and work ethic/determination on the Y axis.

So at a school like you describe, the very top right would be kids who will get major conference D1 offers and a very few who have realistic thoughts of playing professionally. The bottom left are kids who won’t make the freshman team.

The freshman team will include mostly kids high on the work ethic axis and not as high on the natural gifts side — assuming they’ve had that work ethic for years, done travel teams, private training, and done all available open gym type training. JV will be a mix with the older JV players being more on the work side. Varsity will include kids with both natural gifts and a lot of hard work, with some outliers of kids who work absurdly hard to sit on the bench and absolute freak athletes who may not work as hard as they could.

My kid was one of the hard work outliers - he decided in elementary school that he wanted to play for his high school, which happened to be a huge public that always dominates and is usually ranked in the top 25 nationally. Through a combination of like 25+ hours a week of training (not counting travel time or time between games at tournaments) and a big growth spurt, he made his HS varsity team.

It was honestly kinda miserable. He wanted a team experience with the chance to play in front of his classmates and win for the school - like you see in the movies. What he found was a culture where everybody was focused on the next level all the time — everything was about college recruiting, that’s all coaches talked about, and all kids focused on. The team rolled over most opponents, so kids goofed around in games and still won by huge margins, and they celebrated beating bad teams really obnoxiously. When they played another top ranked team and lost, it was all a blame game. Also, my kid was devoting every waking minute to training to be one of the worst players on varsity. He quit after sophomore year, and now says he wish he’d quit earlier.

The one positive outcome is that he knows he can do hard things. He’s taught himself to do some cool stuff (academically and in art and music), and he totally credits his sports experience for giving him the patience, determination, and emotional control to be OK at being bad at something new and sticking with it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you have a super sporty kid it probably won't be a problem? The real athletes still seem to standout. At our large FCPS high school- our kid played Varsity all four years in three different sports.

It depends on the purpose of sport. Is it fun and fitness for everyone, or top teams for a few? I'd argue for the first objective. I don't know why they don't have several teams for each popular sport, and then et the kids in the C, D, E, F or G ranked teams play similar level kids from other schools.

The reason is that they don’t have gyms, locker rooms, fields, coaches, trainers, uniforms, officials, equipment, and busses for c,d,e,f, and g teams. In DC, basketball and volleyball teams fight for gym space all year. Soccer teams fight for field space. Baseball teams practice in crazy, unsafe ways.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you have a super sporty kid it probably won't be a problem? The real athletes still seem to standout. At our large FCPS high school- our kid played Varsity all four years in three different sports.

It depends on the purpose of sport. Is it fun and fitness for everyone, or top teams for a few? I'd argue for the first objective. I don't know why they don't have several teams for each popular sport, and then et the kids in the C, D, E, F or G ranked teams play similar level kids from other schools.

The reason is that they don’t have gyms, locker rooms, fields, coaches, trainers, uniforms, officials, equipment, and busses for c,d,e,f, and g teams. In DC, basketball and volleyball teams fight for gym space all year. Soccer teams fight for field space. Baseball teams practice in crazy, unsafe ways.

It's a shame we pay 100% of the taxes for only the top 5% of kids to get to participate, while everyone else subsidizes it for them.