What to do with a kid who is good at a number of sports & school only allows kid 1 sport per season

[Anonymous]

9:40 again. Absolutely 9:45. At some point doing two outside sports is impossible as there are too many conflicts and the athlete is letting down one team or the other (as well as him/herself).

OP during the summer you can find some great sports camps. St. John's basketball camp is terrific! My son did tennis at Sidwell a few summers. There are lots of soccer and baseball day camps, too.

[Anonymous]

Question for those posters that have children on the travel teams: My son is in 4th grade and wants to play travel soccer. He currently plays on a MSI Classic team w/ his friends from school.

He made it on a travel team last year (we just tried out for the heck of it), but we turned down the spot. We felt like it was too much of a commitment too soon, plus we have 2 other younger children that also do activities.

The coach was nice and let him practice with the team over the summer and has kept in touch.

My question is, other than this one team that we already have contact with, how do we go about getting into travel soccer? I've looked on the web sites for Bethesda Soccer, MSI and Stoddart. Most teams do not seem to have slots. Is he shut out now that we have not put him in at the age of 9??

Also, are there any differences between MSI, Bethesda Soccer, Potomac Soccer, Stoddart? Practicing up at the soccerplex is not appealing to me - and we live in Bethesda!

Thanks for any info... sorry to hijack this thread.

[Anonymous]

14:25 Bethesda, Potomac and Stoddert all have strong teams in Division 1 or 2 of National Capital Soccer League (ncsl-soccer.com). MSI plays in another league, it's not as competitive. It works for lots of people. Some top MSI teams are as good as some bottom ranked NCSL teams. (Bethesda, Potomac and Stoddert, with an e, are part of NCSL).
A few pointers:
For this spring, most teams are full but you never know. I'd email coaches and managers and ask what's open. if spring's full, ask about tryouts for Fall 2010 (usually in May) and coming to practice before tryouts.
Questions to Ask: How many practices a week, how many tournaments, etc. There are 9-10 games each fall and spring. My son, age 13, is in a 10-month program with December off, four tournaments, intensive winter training.

[Anonymous]

7th grade seems late for a talented athlete to be struggling with this. Surely he or she has had lots of team experience in various sports already. Based on those experiences she/he should be able to choose which sports to play. While being well rounded has its benefits getting very good at one or two sports will probably serve him/her better for high school.

Not true. If you have natural athletic ability one can start a new sport in the 7th grade. One is not condemned because they never joined some Bethesda, Potomac, Rockville of N.W. DC travelling club. Coaches who can spot raw, natural ability can take a novice 7th grader that has not played soccer (or basketball for example), teach him the skills and this kid will shortly outperform many that started year round sports in diapers. I'll take any novice 7th grader on my team with raw athletic ability: runs like a deer, jumps like a kangaroo and throws like a cannon any day.

[Anonymous]

17:06 What the heck sport do you coach?

I'll take any novice 7th grader on my team with raw athletic ability: runs like a deer, jumps like a kangaroo and throws like a cannon any day.

[Anonymous]

New poster here. In our experience a kid can only do one sport seriously starting in about middle school, especially if one of them is something like travel soccer or crew, which go year-round. You could probably do several sports at the rec level. We've spent a lot of time lying to various coaches when DC had a game for team X and couldn't attend the practice and/or game for team Y. It's really awkward, not to mention we hated the lying. Each kid does one serious sport now, and one DC also does a different sport for rec.

[Anonymous]

14:18 I'm sure people knew you were lying. I manage a travel team. We know. The coaches know.

I hope people who read this don't think it's okay for parents to lie about their other commitments. They're usually transparent and it's embarrassing for all -- especially when players ask where the missing player is. It also puts folks on the spot. We're forced to either repeat what we know is a lie (the made-up conflict) or lie and say we don't know. Not appreciated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:14:18 I'm sure people knew you were lying. I manage a travel team. We know. The coaches know.

I hope people who read this don't think it's okay for parents to lie about their other commitments. They're usually transparent and it's embarrassing for all -- especially when players ask where the missing player is. It also puts folks on the spot. We're forced to either repeat what we know is a lie (the made-up conflict) or lie and say we don't know. Not appreciated.

What's more, while you're lying your kid is telling the truth to teammates, so you just end up looking bad.

[Anonymous]

Thanks to the poster who offered the info on travel soccer. Do you have any idea which group (Bethesda, Potomac, Stoddert - sorry about prior misspelling.) the DC private school boys play in? We are in MCPS now, but hope to put our son at a DC private starting in middle school.

Boys at our MCPS generally do the Bethesda Soccer, but just wondering if boys in DC go for Stoddert. Or are they all spread out?

Kind of an odd question, but just wanted to throw it out there. Thanks.

[Anonymous]

Stoddert probably gets the greatest critical mass of DC private school kids; teams are a mix of private, DCPS, and close-in MCPS kids, with others, of course. MSC (MSI is classic or rec, MSC is travel) is largely Montgomery County kids. I know a few DC private school kids who play for MSC, Potomac, or Bethesda.

Stoddert holds open tryouts each May/June for U9 through U12. After that selection is done directly with the team.

[Anonymous]

14:57 Worse still the message to the child is it's okay to lie.

Re: Stoddert: From U-10 up, it's great to contact the coach in the early spring about practicing with the team. Same for U13 and up. It's on the website. Check other club's websites, too!

I think Stoddert might get the most range of schools on any one team but Bethesda and Potomac get a range, too. On my child's team, Sidwell, GDS, Maret, Bullis, Field, Burke and a few other privates as well as DCPS and MCS are represented.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:14:18 I'm sure people knew you were lying. I manage a travel team. We know. The coaches know.

I hope people who read this don't think it's okay for parents to lie about their other commitments. They're usually transparent and it's embarrassing for all -- especially when players ask where the missing player is. It also puts folks on the spot. We're forced to either repeat what we know is a lie (the made-up conflict) or lie and say we don't know. Not appreciated.

Thanks for the lecture, you must know better than everybody else. (And you seem to enjoy lecturing so much, this must have been a pleasure for you.)

The point was that families get into these traps unwittingly. You sign up for sports before you know the game schedule. You only find out about the conflicts when it's too late. Then you face the choice of dropping a team mid-season (which I'm sure you'd be just as pleased to lecture us about) or muddling along, trying to please everybody at once.

As soon as this happened to us, we made the kid in question choose a single sport.

So no, we don't need a lecture on ethics from you. We need you and your league to tell us your schedules in advance, so we can make informed decisions beforehand, and save everybody the stress. By the time most families realize they need to reduce sports, it's already too late and you're in the middle of a season.

[Anonymous]

This is DCUM. Somebody is honest about the dilemmas they face. And somebody else sees this honesty as a glorious opportunity to get up on that high horse....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:14:18 I'm sure people knew you were lying. I manage a travel team. We know. The coaches know.

I hope people who read this don't think it's okay for parents to lie about their other commitments. They're usually transparent and it's embarrassing for all -- especially when players ask where the missing player is. It also puts folks on the spot. We're forced to either repeat what we know is a lie (the made-up conflict) or lie and say we don't know. Not appreciated.

Thanks for the lecture, you must know better than everybody else. (And you seem to enjoy lecturing so much, this must have been a pleasure for you.)

The point was that families get into these traps unwittingly. You sign up for sports before you know the game schedule. You only find out about the conflicts when it's too late. Then you face the choice of dropping a team mid-season (which I'm sure you'd be just as pleased to lecture us about) or muddling along, trying to please everybody at once.

As soon as this happened to us, we made the kid in question choose a single sport.

So no, we don't need a lecture on ethics from you. We need you and your league to tell us your schedules in advance, so we can make informed decisions beforehand, and save everybody the stress. By the time most families realize they need to reduce sports, it's already too late and you're in the middle of a season.

Oh please. I am not the PP, but really you didn't realize that a travel team needs to be a top priority? In our experience the coaches have been extremely clear about that. Obviously school is first, but among extra curriculars the travel team has to come first.

[Anonymous]

I think it's the most ridiculous social change in our society today ... the idea of 8, 9 and 10 year-olds committing to one sport year round at such a tender and naive age. Young children should play a wide variety of sports at a young developmental age when they can optimize overall maturation and coordination--upper and lower body--hand eye. Specialization should be reserved for later, on a solid, deep and broad athletic foundation, in the adolescent years when interests and skill set tend to become more focused. Akin to reading, writing and arithematic before year round sociology and psychology.

One really fun advantages of private school in my days was playing three different sports during each term at the varsity level and continuing this at a little three college in 2 of them. I opted for medical school instead of a low paying stint in professional soccer.

My sense is that students today miss out on athletic variety because of lack of access or entry to new sports because of coaching requirements. I also see many kids that have committed to one sport since they were in diapers who suffer waxing and waning burnout for years. I found that the freedom to play a variety of sports minimized the syndrome of ennui and burnout and provided a beneficial cross training effect.