Are travel sports bad for community?

[Anonymous]

Youth sports are emblematic of pretty much everything that is wrong with American culture these days. It's just ugly, ugly stuff - over-involved parents pushing kids way too hard at way too young an age, using their kids talents to grasp at some sort of illusory "status" for themselves.

We have friends who have allowed their family lives to revolve so fully around various youth sports schedules that they are essentially incapable of talking about or planning anything else. They have zero idea how boring they are.

And yes, it doesn't help in terms of fostering any sort of community outside their inner circle of the sad and the youth sports-crazed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We combined Scouts, some rec sports (basketball, swimming, tennis) with travel for what became the primary sport (baseball, soccer) for all of our kids. Plus other school clubs where no one keeps score. That was a nice balance. Travel sports do indeed have their own communities. Each of our kids made lasting friends in our communities and in the travel community.

It is t about whether a club or team is a community. It’s about being involved / being grounded in their own hometown, being involved and concerned about their local community, being present so they can give back, etc.

This is PP. we and our kids actually gave back plenty. And there is something to be said for playing a varsity sport in high school. That is a big part of our community.

Now, did we have down time? Not so much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We combined Scouts, some rec sports (basketball, swimming, tennis) with travel for what became the primary sport (baseball, soccer) for all of our kids. Plus other school clubs where no one keeps score. That was a nice balance. Travel sports do indeed have their own communities. Each of our kids made lasting friends in our communities and in the travel community.

It is t about whether a club or team is a community. It’s about being involved / being grounded in their own hometown, being involved and concerned about their local community, being present so they can give back, etc.

One more time: Why do you think these things are mutually exclusive?

75% of travel sports = practices. Believe it or not, those typically do not happen far from home. In fact, my kid practices her travel sport at her school.

Enough with the trolling….

Enough of your trolling. Your situation is not the case for many families. My kids’ school friends are on teams (which we follow via game changer) that are traveling far afield. One team for example is going to Richmond, Philly, Myrtle Beach, Florida, North Carolina, and other places on weekends in June and July. They will practice 2-3 times a week here back home. It’s been like this since they were at least 12yo.

Others are slightly more local but they live in western NOVA and travel into Falls Church / Arlington / Manassas for practices.

You are still salty about kid’s birthday party invite being turned down, I see.

Land the helicopter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We combined Scouts, some rec sports (basketball, swimming, tennis) with travel for what became the primary sport (baseball, soccer) for all of our kids. Plus other school clubs where no one keeps score. That was a nice balance. Travel sports do indeed have their own communities. Each of our kids made lasting friends in our communities and in the travel community.

It is t about whether a club or team is a community. It’s about being involved / being grounded in their own hometown, being involved and concerned about their local community, being present so they can give back, etc.

One more time: Why do you think these things are mutually exclusive?

75% of travel sports = practices. Believe it or not, those typically do not happen far from home. In fact, my kid practices her travel sport at her school.

Enough with the trolling….

Enough of your trolling. Your situation is not the case for many families. My kids’ school friends are on teams (which we follow via game changer) that are traveling far afield. One team for example is going to Richmond, Philly, Myrtle Beach, Florida, North Carolina, and other places on weekends in June and July. They will practice 2-3 times a week here back home. It’s been like this since they were at least 12yo.

Others are slightly more local but they live in western NOVA and travel into Falls Church / Arlington / Manassas for practices.

You are still salty about kid’s birthday party invite being turned down, I see.

Land the helicopter.

That’s not me. Sorry. Try again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not pro travel teams, but I think this is an odd question. The travel team IS their community. Just because it isn't near your house doesn't mean it isn't a community

But isn’t that a problem? Shouldn’t there be more local community

What if you only live near old farts

DUDE! Yes I feel this. my whole street is kids in HS or empty nesters. Lovely people but there was no way to know that when buying a house (you can't exactly go knock on all the doors with minivans and ask if their kids are old!). Our weekends are hard bc our non-neighbor friends all have atheltic kids and I don't think ours will end up that route, it gets kind of lonely as a family.

[Anonymous]

There are also still areas of the country that run travel differently, in order to play travel you have to be in the house league as well. I grew up in an area like that, there were no travel teams not associated with a rec league(s) at least peripherally if they weren't just an integrated team. That kind of helps. The travel team kids split up among rec teams and get to have more laid back games and the kids who only play rec get to have better players to learn from- also the kids that with fewer resources but a lot of talent tend to rise to their potential in rec then too

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The alternative to travel sports in middle school is to stay home and plug in to screens. That's just reality in 2023. It's not 1985 when kids went outside to play, etc. (and even that wasn't totally real--a lot of that is fetishizing history.) I agree that this country has screwed up priorities, but travel sports parents and kids are making a choice between that and a worse thing. It's not like there are these amazing local sports communities just ready to accept kids past age 11. It's travel or stop playing, in reality.

Are parents not just setting rules when it comes to screens? I really don't get this. I want my MS kids to be kids as long as they can and play outside. I may not have total control, but I'll try. And it sucks that in many ways it's travel or nothing. Nothing wrong with kids who just want to play for fun. Of course, they can play pickup sports informally as well.

There is literally no one in my neighborhood to play with by the time the kids are 10 on weekends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The alternative to travel sports in middle school is to stay home and plug in to screens. That's just reality in 2023. It's not 1985 when kids went outside to play, etc. (and even that wasn't totally real--a lot of that is fetishizing history.) I agree that this country has screwed up priorities, but travel sports parents and kids are making a choice between that and a worse thing. It's not like there are these amazing local sports communities just ready to accept kids past age 11. It's travel or stop playing, in reality.

Are parents not just setting rules when it comes to screens? I really don't get this. I want my MS kids to be kids as long as they can and play outside. I may not have total control, but I'll try. And it sucks that in many ways it's travel or nothing. Nothing wrong with kids who just want to play for fun. Of course, they can play pickup sports informally as well.

There is literally no one in my neighborhood to play with by the time the kids are 10 on weekends.

That's really sad imo. 10 year olds %100 should be playing outside like that. And it shouldn't stop at 10 either, kids should do this as long as they can.

[Anonymous]

There are kods who are 13-14 years old and younger who don't get enough free play/ free time and nobody seems to bat an eye at it. I don't suspect it carries much past those ages, but at least pre teen ages it should.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So little introspection and such defensiveness from the travel parents

+1,000,000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So little introspection and such defensiveness from the travel parents

I don’t see any travel families being defensive. They’re simply saying it works for them. I’m not understanding what community is missing. Each neighborhood isn’t made up of the exact same type of family with the exact same aged kids. So one family’s weekend schedule of sports is no different than another’s of family events, language lessons, religious services and activities, weekends out of town, etc. Why is travel sports singled out as the reason neighborhoods aren’t close?

Of course you don’t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If my kid wasn't playing a travel sport, he would be gaming. So no big loss to the community.

Are you this weak of a parent? How sad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If my kid wasn't playing a travel sport, he would be gaming. So no big loss to the community.

I really don't understand this at all. First of all, I don't understand why kids like screens so much instead of hanging out in person. But, also if your kid games too much, stop them from gaming so much.

But…but that would require parenting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the travel sports community is one type of community and having various communities is a healthy thing.

The problem I see with the travel sports community is that it’s limited to players whose parents have enough disposable income to pay and enough free time to do all that travel. Very insular.

Wealthy people will find ways to gather and exclude others no matter what. County clubs, golf clubs, vacation homes, private schools, real estate zoning and gates communities. Travel sports is the tip of the iceberg and I imagine teams manage to find money for really exceptional players.

Sigh. There’s always someone. Our travel experience was the exact opposite — a great way to get to know a mix of kids and families. Less wealthy, public school, private school, bunch of different races/ethnicities. It was actually one of the best ways to get to know each other because it was about the sport, not where you lived or how much money you have.

No. REC is “not about how much money you have.” Travel is expensive AF and is “pay to play.” And no, sorry, the vast majority of kids your kids are playing with are not on full scholarship. They’re wealthy kids, just like yours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Travel takes up more time than any of these other activities listed. But keep justifying all the costs - both monetary and time from family events and holidays.

But yes, I missed the days where kids had lots of unstructured free time to roam the neighborhood on their bikes.

It will be interesting to see if in the next generation or two, the kids of today stop with the travel nonsense and competitiveness

They don’t know what they’ve missed, so it’s a crap shoot.

Wow. That’s pathetic.