9 years of travel socce for DC, I regret it
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Anonymous
Nope, not really. If I'm paying for school at 100%, it's not entirely up to him to skip school for sports. And in all honesty, chasing a college soccer dream has very minimal ROI. There is little to no point in this country. Sports are great but academics are better. DS will get far more out of his studies than he ever will with travel sports. And let's just say kid - any kid- is good enough to play MLS, have you seen the average salary for that? Doesn't make any sense to me. Get a degree in a field that delivers a way to have a paying career. Sports only pay their way if you are in the top .001%. So study, kids! |
Anonymous
Yes, I have a 2nd child (3yrs. apart) who also plays soccer. So my husband and I divide and conquer between practices and games times. Competitive Travel soccer can be very stressful. The difference is that we don't stress as much as we did with our first. But also we love the sport. I cannot imagine doing it if we didn't love it. I have friends in Baseball and that would be torturous years for me. LOL. |
Anonymous
Why would you "skip school for sports?" I played women's soccer at University of Tennessee. I'm not a soccer player as an adult, but rather, a nurse practitioner. I did very well at UT, and enjoyed playing soccer. |
Anonymous
Heck even the jobs with Uncle Sugar pay better than MLS very early on. Don't mind wearing green uniform? Get some cool equipment, collect GS12 plus 25% incentive pay and work outdoors, all without a college degree. All you need is a reasonably clean background. While in, get continuing ed. and climb the ladder. GS14's handed out like candy. |
Anonymous
Eh, I'd argue that there are different kinds of ROI. One of my best friends in college was captain of our football team. Did he go on to play in the NFL? Nope, he went into banking. But he left school with excellent time management skills and a HUGE network of friends with whom he's still in touch. I think that counts for something. |
Anonymous
Being captain of football time is not the only way to gain time management skills or friends. The argument here is that the time suck that is sports is not worth it long term to many families, and those who have invested heavily in it come to regret it. So if you can gain same or similar skills (time management from, say, on campus employment) by investing less time and money that's a better ROI. The sad truth is that the majority of kids in travel will not benefit from it as much as they think. maybe the top 10% will but the rest may have been better off playing in local, cheaper leagues with friends. |
Anonymous
So here is the thing for all the posters that keep saying that they would want their kid to focus on academics more than sports in college (and the reality is that doing the one does not in any way negate doing the other). Getting INTO college, a decent college like a T1-50 ranked school, is tough these days. Really tough. Many of you may have younger kids so don't see how competitive it is these days. The kids who are gunning for top universities pretty much ALL LOOK THE SAME (which is a good thing - lots of intelligent, focused, involved kids). They all have high GPAs, take AB/IB, do countless hours of volunteer work, lead the drive/charity/organization/small business that they started. They are all stellar students trying to win a limited number of slots (again, if we are talking about top collleges) And so many do much more like on a national level. So, again, here is the thing: before you put college level sports down saying that they do not allow a student to focus on academics realize that your child can't focus on academics in college IF they don't get accepted into whatever-high-level school they and you want them to attend. And believe me, many kids work strive to attend the top schools. They are more than aware of the rankings. If your child is athletically talented and loves their game that can very well lead to a hook that makes them stand out. Among the thousands and thousands of applications that your kid's application is competing with. Hey, so maybe don't look down on college athletes too much because beyond working their butts off, the reality is that many got themselves in to some pretty amazing schools; schools you'd love for your children to someday attend. |
Anonymous
There are hundreds of thousands of kids playing sports. The point is that trying to be a stand out in sports is incredibly difficult and, often times, not worth the effort. If you're gunning for a top university, why not try more of a niche area to stand out instead of being 1 of 10000000 soccer players in the area? Or, novel idea, try studying more? Shockingly, our good friend's kid just got into Stanford. He wasn't a soccer player so I don't know how it could've happened. I think he studied a lot and kept his focus there. |
Anonymous
Well that is the problem, it isn't the "families time" in college, it is your son's. How many other things will you hold over is head to control how he spends his time? At a certain point you have to let them manage their lives. Offer your support and input but otherwise butt out. Part-time jobs can be just as distracting and a time suck as well. They have the rest of their lives to hate their career you don't need rush it with a part-time job during college. |
Anonymous
Anybody who does recruiting and hiring for jobs you want your kid to have will tell you that you are chasing your tail worrying about where to go undergrad. That is like where you go to high school in the current environment. Nobody cares. Grad schools (which matter tons more) will look at your grades, will want to know what you studied and perhaps who mentored you on independent work. And they will look at test scores. Tons of kids who go to schools well outside the top 50 go to top grad programs every year and can look a lot more interesting on paper to people like me who make hiring decisions. Studying and balance at HS age (and happiness with some stress mixed in) are good raw materials for what you do next. Chasing sports for an admissions edge is absolutely idiotic. |
Anonymous
DP. Definitely. But I never pushed DS into travel soccer. We had a very strict rule: if we have to push you to practice, or motivate you to do your practice/schoolwork, it stops. DS has to want this for himself, not because we want it. And it's been a lot of fun for us. One of my other kids did competition dance and theater and that's the one that I question, FWIW. He decided this year to not go back after covid and I'm so relieved. So it's not like I am always gung ho for all activities either. But soccer? That has been overwhelmingly positive. I would never terminate a child's soccer experience the way OP is talking about. That seems petulant and vindictive. |
Anonymous
That's a pretty dense comment. It is the family's time with the kid in sports leading up to college. To play college football (or soccer) one must precede that with years of play in the sport in HS, MS and ES. So yeah, that's sort of the parents' business. And yes, we will absolutely control that. And guess what? That sports time can cost upwards of $30K, as OP has pointed out. We have a say in that, too. Kid can do what he likes when he heads off to college. If I'm paying that tuition bill, however, he's going to attend class and make the most of it. End of story. I'm not paying $150K for him to waste everyone's time. If kid wants to find himself in college he can do it for either less than $150K+ or not on my dime. And I think you're massively out of touch with reality. I had a part time job in college - as did MOST students - because we needed the freaking money. Your princes may not have to do that but I think balancing my PT job at restaurant/gym/etc while in school helped with time management. So cheaper than football I guess? |
Anonymous
| I think this discussion is flawed. It is discussing each child who plays travel sports as if they are all the same when they are not. You may have a child who loves to play baseball and your neighbor may have a child who loves[b] to play baseball. Your neighbor's kid may be that kid who can't wait to get to practice, comes home from practice and asks to throw the ball so more on the front lawn, watches the sport on tv every day, laments that it is raining and his game is canceled. Your neighbor is in a different position than you are. You have the ability to gently guide your child to another activity. Other kids would feel that loss so much deeper. It really depends on what type of child you have. |
Anonymous
Until the CTE kicks in … |
Anonymous
I agree...this is a newish concept that you need to keep the kids "busy", and that the only option is video games or drugs. god forbid kids have time to read, chill, be creative etc. It's easier to parent with set schedules with sports set by other people. Been there done that, and we had to fight hard against people saying "but you HAVE to do travel or HS sports". No, you don't. |