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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FWIW, McLean high school club Pickleball tryouts on Saturday (09/14/24) and Monday (09/16/24) between 4:30pm-6pm at Lewinsville park. I guess they only want good players and cut everybody else.

Why do you say that?

First, isn't that what every team wants? The best players available.

Second, you seem to be suggesting that the tryout time and locations are indicative of something, but I'm not sure what it could be?

There are only 4 PB courts @Lewinsville so the club just can't take everyone. They can probably reserve the court for only 90 minutes going forward. The point I am trying to make here is that it is competitive even at the HS club leve.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My friend's dorky son (don't get me wrong, great kid but I remember how excited he got when he discovered that when you kept pressing the sin function (or was it cosine) on a calculator, it eventually kept showing the same number and then he figured out why that was happening... in 6th grade) went to MIT and works for a hedge fund and is serial dating everything from vacuous models to gorgeous ivy league girls.

FALSE.

I attended MIT, worked for a hedge fund, and made a lot of money, but I couldn't date any models. However, my younger brother was a D1 athlete, broke, and l had to support him. And yet, he dates so many models. Just saying.

And that isn’t typical. First does your brother troll NYC spots where models might be so he can date them? Why does he date so many models that you’re claiming?

I can see a pro athlete getting dates easily but just a college player? During college, yeah, after college not so much.

PP here.

​My younger brother lives with me in my fancy apartment, drives a nice car I bought for him, and has an allowance from me because he is currently not interested in working.

I know people in the entertainment industry, and they are casting directors of reality TV shows. There are so many models/actresses and that's how my brother has access to them. Women will sleep with guys like my brother, and not me. They are only after me for my $$$. The idea of a guy from MIT dating models is so laughable.

And then find out he’s just a hanger on they dump him. What a life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FWIW, McLean high school club Pickleball tryouts on Saturday (09/14/24) and Monday (09/16/24) between 4:30pm-6pm at Lewinsville park. I guess they only want good players and cut everybody else.

Why do you say that?

First, isn't that what every team wants? The best players available.

Second, you seem to be suggesting that the tryout time and locations are indicative of something, but I'm not sure what it could be?

There are only 4 PB courts @Lewinsville so the club just can't take everyone. They can probably reserve the court for only 90 minutes going forward. The point I am trying to make here is that it is competitive even at the HS club leve.

Sure bro lolz

[Anonymous]

There is only this frenzy in certain sports and in over-populated 'super zip code' metros. Move to the exurbs or flyover country and youth sports are still chill. It's because these wacko striver parents are all living through their kids. And no matter how much dough they blow and summers and weekends wasted carting kids everywhere, they still won't go D1. These arrogant sports-obsessed parents think they're hot s*** when they're really literally being scammed and coerced out of their money...and 99% chance the kid will end up at the same college anyone else can go to with the same CV.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is only this frenzy in certain sports and in over-populated 'super zip code' metros. Move to the exurbs or flyover country and youth sports are still chill. It's because these wacko striver parents are all living through their kids. And no matter how much dough they blow and summers and weekends wasted carting kids everywhere, they still won't go D1. These arrogant sports-obsessed parents think they're hot s*** when they're really literally being scammed and coerced out of their money...and 99% chance the kid will end up at the same college anyone else can go to with the same CV.

No way. Flyover born-and-raised and exurb now, and if anything it’s worse here. The only time I had a brief respite from it was when I lived in a super crunchy, Waldorf-and-cargo-bike kind of neighborhood. And even then people found ways to compete over other stuff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is only this frenzy in certain sports and in over-populated 'super zip code' metros. Move to the exurbs or flyover country and youth sports are still chill. It's because these wacko striver parents are all living through their kids. And no matter how much dough they blow and summers and weekends wasted carting kids everywhere, they still won't go D1. These arrogant sports-obsessed parents think they're hot s*** when they're really literally being scammed and coerced out of their money...and 99% chance the kid will end up at the same college anyone else can go to with the same CV.

+1. This is the blunt reason. Parents have lost all perspective about what youth sports should be and the experience their kids should have playing them. City rec league sports used to be a way for neighborhood kids to build friendships, get exercise, stay in shape and learn sportsmanship. Now it's all about parents paying a fortune for some travel league headquartered hundreds of miles away so they can spending every weekend driving 100-200 miles to play baseball. The parents hope that maybe this will help their kid stand out well enough to maybe get recognized for a scholarship, but the odds of this are firmly stacked against them. Kids would be better off if sports reverted back to how they were 20+ years ago and academics became the focus once again for getting into a good college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FWIW, McLean high school club Pickleball tryouts on Saturday (09/14/24) and Monday (09/16/24) between 4:30pm-6pm at Lewinsville park. I guess they only want good players and cut everybody else.

Why do you say that?

First, isn't that what every team wants? The best players available.

Second, you seem to be suggesting that the tryout time and locations are indicative of something, but I'm not sure what it could be?

There are only 4 PB courts @Lewinsville so the club just can't take everyone. They can probably reserve the court for only 90 minutes going forward. The point I am trying to make here is that it is competitive even at the HS club leve.

I still don’t get how you are coming to this conclusion. They provided weekend tryout slot and a weekday slot.

The amount of time allocated to tryouts is the same for basically every sport. They may have 100 kids show up or 3.

They may take just about everyone (which is typical for club sports)…but one gating factor is you need to attend a tryout. That seems reasonable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is only this frenzy in certain sports and in over-populated 'super zip code' metros. Move to the exurbs or flyover country and youth sports are still chill. It's because these wacko striver parents are all living through their kids. And no matter how much dough they blow and summers and weekends wasted carting kids everywhere, they still won't go D1. These arrogant sports-obsessed parents think they're hot s*** when they're really literally being scammed and coerced out of their money...and 99% chance the kid will end up at the same college anyone else can go to with the same CV.

+1. This is the blunt reason. Parents have lost all perspective about what youth sports should be and the experience their kids should have playing them. City rec league sports used to be a way for neighborhood kids to build friendships, get exercise, stay in shape and learn sportsmanship. Now it's all about parents paying a fortune for some travel league headquartered hundreds of miles away so they can spending every weekend driving 100-200 miles to play baseball. The parents hope that maybe this will help their kid stand out well enough to maybe get recognized for a scholarship, but the odds of this are firmly stacked against them. Kids would be better off if sports reverted back to how they were 20+ years ago and academics became the focus once again for getting into a good college.

Pretty sure athletic college recruiting was a thing 20 years ago. I don’t think you realize it’s always been a thing going back to the early 1900s.

The difference is back then the Ivy schools were actually best in the country in sports like football but they still just took kids from Andover or other elite private schools who were white and Protestant. Not the best athletes or students.

The current system ramped up in the 1980s…and went to another level in just the last 5 years with the transfer portal, NIL $$$s and soon paying athletes directly to play.

[Anonymous]

​If you want to see how competitive it is, just go to Lewinsville Park after 4pm on weekdays and all day on weekends and see how many soccer matches they have there. It is a money making machine.

[Anonymous]

The biggest misconception on DCUM is you all think it's about college recruiting. It's really not. These families can generally afford to send their kid to any college they can get into. The whole travel sports thing is simply a status badge, flashing how much disposable money you can burn, and it's something to talk about and size up other parents. Having sporty attractive kids is a genetic status badge.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is only this frenzy in certain sports and in over-populated 'super zip code' metros. Move to the exurbs or flyover country and youth sports are still chill. It's because these wacko striver parents are all living through their kids. And no matter how much dough they blow and summers and weekends wasted carting kids everywhere, they still won't go D1. These arrogant sports-obsessed parents think they're hot s*** when they're really literally being scammed and coerced out of their money...and 99% chance the kid will end up at the same college anyone else can go to with the same CV.

+1. This is the blunt reason. Parents have lost all perspective about what youth sports should be and the experience their kids should have playing them. City rec league sports used to be a way for neighborhood kids to build friendships, get exercise, stay in shape and learn sportsmanship. Now it's all about parents paying a fortune for some travel league headquartered hundreds of miles away so they can spending every weekend driving 100-200 miles to play baseball. The parents hope that maybe this will help their kid stand out well enough to maybe get recognized for a scholarship, but the odds of this are firmly stacked against them. Kids would be better off if sports reverted back to how they were 20+ years ago and academics became the focus once again for getting into a good college.

Pretty sure athletic college recruiting was a thing 20 years ago. I don’t think you realize it’s always been a thing going back to the early 1900s.

The difference is back then the Ivy schools were actually best in the country in sports like football but they still just took kids from Andover or other elite private schools who were white and Protestant. Not the best athletes or students.

The current system ramped up in the 1980s…and went to another level in just the last 5 years with the transfer portal, NIL $$$s and soon paying athletes directly to play.

There aren't any more slots for college recruiting in 2024 than there were in 2004, so when youth travel sports apparatus goes 10x, there are still the same handful of winners (college recruits) at the top. For the bottom 99%, it remains a time and money sink. What's astonishing is every local community has these "super star" local athlete kids who were high school graduates recently in say 2014-2020, so parents ought to reference them to see pointless it all was. Either they didn't go to great colleges, or they went D1 and rode the bench and quit, or maybe they did play all four years of college...and now they have a unremarkable 9-5 corporate job paying them $75,000 a year. Nobody cares they were some amazing swimmer or field hockey player or whether they were some obscure player at D1 Maryland or DIII Emerson College in Boston. They're just a dime a dozen washed up athlete. People care what career your kid has after college and who they marry. Are they good people. Do they visit you (parents) often. That's the real scoreboard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The biggest misconception on DCUM is you all think it's about college recruiting. It's really not. These families can generally afford to send their kid to any college they can get into. The whole travel sports thing is simply a status badge, flashing how much disposable money you can burn, and it's something to talk about and size up other parents. Having sporty attractive kids is a genetic status badge.

OR…

Some kids just really love sports.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is only this frenzy in certain sports and in over-populated 'super zip code' metros. Move to the exurbs or flyover country and youth sports are still chill. It's because these wacko striver parents are all living through their kids. And no matter how much dough they blow and summers and weekends wasted carting kids everywhere, they still won't go D1. These arrogant sports-obsessed parents think they're hot s*** when they're really literally being scammed and coerced out of their money...and 99% chance the kid will end up at the same college anyone else can go to with the same CV.

+1. This is the blunt reason. Parents have lost all perspective about what youth sports should be and the experience their kids should have playing them. City rec league sports used to be a way for neighborhood kids to build friendships, get exercise, stay in shape and learn sportsmanship. Now it's all about parents paying a fortune for some travel league headquartered hundreds of miles away so they can spending every weekend driving 100-200 miles to play baseball. The parents hope that maybe this will help their kid stand out well enough to maybe get recognized for a scholarship, but the odds of this are firmly stacked against them. Kids would be better off if sports reverted back to how they were 20+ years ago and academics became the focus once again for getting into a good college.

Pretty sure athletic college recruiting was a thing 20 years ago. I don’t think you realize it’s always been a thing going back to the early 1900s.

The difference is back then the Ivy schools were actually best in the country in sports like football but they still just took kids from Andover or other elite private schools who were white and Protestant. Not the best athletes or students.

The current system ramped up in the 1980s…and went to another level in just the last 5 years with the transfer portal, NIL $$$s and soon paying athletes directly to play.

There aren't any more slots for college recruiting in 2024 than there were in 2004, so when youth travel sports apparatus goes 10x, there are still the same handful of winners (college recruits) at the top. For the bottom 99%, it remains a time and money sink. What's astonishing is every local community has these "super star" local athlete kids who were high school graduates recently in say 2014-2020, so parents ought to reference them to see pointless it all was. Either they didn't go to great colleges, or they went D1 and rode the bench and quit, or maybe they did play all four years of college...and now they have a unremarkable 9-5 corporate job paying them $75,000 a year. Nobody cares they were some amazing swimmer or field hockey player or whether they were some obscure player at D1 Maryland or DIII Emerson College in Boston. They're just a dime a dozen washed up athlete. People care what career your kid has after college and who they marry. Are they good people. Do they visit you (parents) often. That's the real scoreboard.

Your attitude is really pathetic. Sorry you were an unathletic dork, but even more sorry to tell you that nobody cares about your boring career.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The biggest misconception on DCUM is you all think it's about college recruiting. It's really not. These families can generally afford to send their kid to any college they can get into. The whole travel sports thing is simply a status badge, flashing how much disposable money you can burn, and it's something to talk about and size up other parents. Having sporty attractive kids is a genetic status badge.

No parent thinks their kid is getting a scholarship. Honestly. We know that. We've seen enough of the youth athletes that you notice when 1 kid stands out at a tournament and you say "hmm, maybe that kid has a shot". But 99% of sports parents are pretty honest about their kid's abilities.

In fact, if the kid wasn't recruited (and given money) to go play HS ball somewhere (whether it be football or basketball or baseball), then all the parents know their kid isn't getting a D1 scholarship.

We're not dumb.

But we do it because it teaches valuable lessons. Because the kids are interested in. It rewards hard work. And most of all, its FUN. The kids like it; the parents like it.

Nobody is under any illusions of grandeur. We do it bc our kids like it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is only this frenzy in certain sports and in over-populated 'super zip code' metros. Move to the exurbs or flyover country and youth sports are still chill. It's because these wacko striver parents are all living through their kids. And no matter how much dough they blow and summers and weekends wasted carting kids everywhere, they still won't go D1. These arrogant sports-obsessed parents think they're hot s*** when they're really literally being scammed and coerced out of their money...and 99% chance the kid will end up at the same college anyone else can go to with the same CV.

+1. This is the blunt reason. Parents have lost all perspective about what youth sports should be and the experience their kids should have playing them. City rec league sports used to be a way for neighborhood kids to build friendships, get exercise, stay in shape and learn sportsmanship. Now it's all about parents paying a fortune for some travel league headquartered hundreds of miles away so they can spending every weekend driving 100-200 miles to play baseball. The parents hope that maybe this will help their kid stand out well enough to maybe get recognized for a scholarship, but the odds of this are firmly stacked against them. Kids would be better off if sports reverted back to how they were 20+ years ago and academics became the focus once again for getting into a good college.

Pretty sure athletic college recruiting was a thing 20 years ago. I don’t think you realize it’s always been a thing going back to the early 1900s.

The difference is back then the Ivy schools were actually best in the country in sports like football but they still just took kids from Andover or other elite private schools who were white and Protestant. Not the best athletes or students.

The current system ramped up in the 1980s…and went to another level in just the last 5 years with the transfer portal, NIL $$$s and soon paying athletes directly to play.

There aren't any more slots for college recruiting in 2024 than there were in 2004, so when youth travel sports apparatus goes 10x, there are still the same handful of winners (college recruits) at the top. For the bottom 99%, it remains a time and money sink. What's astonishing is every local community has these "super star" local athlete kids who were high school graduates recently in say 2014-2020, so parents ought to reference them to see pointless it all was. Either they didn't go to great colleges, or they went D1 and rode the bench and quit, or maybe they did play all four years of college...and now they have a unremarkable 9-5 corporate job paying them $75,000 a year. Nobody cares they were some amazing swimmer or field hockey player or whether they were some obscure player at D1 Maryland or DIII Emerson College in Boston. They're just a dime a dozen washed up athlete. People care what career your kid has after college and who they marry. Are they good people. Do they visit you (parents) often. That's the real scoreboard.

There are more D1 sports in 2024 vs. 2004...so there are more overall slots.

FYI, the recent NCAA settlement has increased D1 football rosters from 85 to 105 players, so in fact there are 24% more football slots starting in Fall 2025.

I don't know if you are specifically talking about the DMV, but perhaps the opposite is true and that is the problem. Caleb Williams was the #1 NFL draft pick and a Gonzaga alum...one of his teammates was also a first round draft pick. James Wood on the Nationals is from Olney and played for SJC before transferring to IMG. Bryce Eldridge is a Madison alum and was a first round MLB draft pick last year. Kevin Durant is from PG County and runs the most elite AAU basketball program in the DMV.

It's probably more damaging and misleading to see these superstars make it to the pros.