If your child plays sports in college when did it become clear she/he/they had a chance to make it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Girl, plays an individual, not a team, sport

Of her peers, at 6 we knew who liked the sport but by 12 we knew who had talent

By 14, we knew who had survived puberty and associated injuries and rehab enough to continue

By end of sophomore year, we knew who had the drive and ambition to go all out to try to do sport in college and/or internationally and/or professionally

By mid-Junior year, we knew who hadn't sacrificed so much studying time to the sport that they still had a decent shot at meeting benchmark academic qualifications

By decision day, not all peers decided to even go to college. Of those who did, some chose not to participate D1 but rather D3 for less pressure than they had experienced growing up. We know one who gave up the sport the day after parents dropped her off at school.

What sport

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Child is a swimmer, many of the fastest of whom get recruited at the end of Sophomore year, so that is when you really know.

I remember my child’s age group coach saying that they can never tell- the kids they thought were total winners at 9/10 or 11/12 didn’t end up as much, and there were kids who were slower at those ages that got recruited in HS.

I think the Katie Ledeckys and Michael Phelps of the world are really the exception and for the most part you have to wait until HS (and boys start getting really fast after HS)

As a board member at a big club, your coach is blowing smoke. The coaches almost always have a good idea which kids will eventually be recruited by 11/12. And swimmers who are mediocre at those ages but suddenly become very fast are very, very few and far between. It’s not just times at the young ages, it’s watching them in the water. Work ethic is part of it too. The coaches talk and are almost always right.

I think you can tell which kids have the potential and which kids just don't, but you don't know which girls will end up being 5'1 and which ones will be 5'10. Swimming is a sport where height and shoulder width are very very important and you don't know until puberty which kids will end up big and strong enough

You can get a pretty good idea of future height and shoulder width by looking at the kids' parents. Coaches know who has potential by 13.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Boy D1 soccer. Was clear that was his likely path by age 12, 7th grade.

The problem is 99% of parents with 12-year old boy travel players on top teams at that she think they same. It rarely pans out.

We did not find this to be the case, but we were on a high-level team where virtually every kid had one or more very knowledgeable soccer parents (DH in my case), and the families who didn’t sought out advice from those who did. If you polled all the knowledgeable parents on the team about which kids at 12 had college potential if they kept their grades up, the results would have been at least 75% accurate. I agree that a parent who does not know the game is not going to be able to make that prediction, and kids can go in a variety of directions depending on personalities and circumstances.

NP. FWIW as a parent of a college soccer athlete, this wasn’t my experience at all. If you’d lined up the 12-year-olds on my DS’s team back then (playing at the highest possible level of play), you would not have been likely to correctly identify the kids who eventually played in college. We are in California where there is a very deep pool of soccer players, so maybe that’s the difference.

Agree. Previous person talking out their ass

So wrong. The other two posters are spot on.

I’m the PP from California who said that if had you lined up the 12-year-olds on my son’s top-level team (and the teams beneath his), you could not have correctly identified the college players. I think that is the truth for soccer, at least for California where there is a very deep pool of players. BUT I also agree with the person who started her post talking about Hampstead. That person is exactly correct about just how few men’s college players come out of MLSNext and ECNL. There are almost none at the D1 level. A few more do go to very good D3 schools, but they get in on academics first and then soccer.

And the numbers will decline further because of the transfer portal change. Kids who made it onto D1 teams as HS seniors prior to 2021 probably wouldn’t make it on now, and they might never even see the field in all their years because the spot they thought they had back in 2020 is now going to a junior transfer. Meanwhile, the top D1 soccer teams spend the majority of their time recruiting internationally. They get the kids who didn’t quite make it at, say, Ajax and at 22 want to come to the US to get an education and extend their soccer career.

I think anyone who says they can identify the college player at 12 is pretty delusional, with the exception of spotting the kids who are good enough at 12 that they won’t even go to college but will go straight to Europe or the MLS. Those kids are few and far between. Anyone in soccer who talks about how their 12-year-old will play D1 is almost certainly fooling themselves.

Just to put some color on this: this year for men’s U19, both NorCal and SoCal ECNL leagues are generally recognized as having, on average, the better teams in California. They regularly beat MLSNext teams both in and out of California, though not the best MLSNext teams. And yet, out of ALL teams in ECNL in California (which has some of the highest quality soccer in the US), there will probably be about 20-30 kids total who commit to a D1 program as freshmen.

I think there are so few D1 players coming out of MLSNext and ECNL because a lot of kids don't play in these leagues to position themselves to play in college. They want to go pro. When they realize they won't be able too, probably because they don't believe they will be able to overcome or compete with the natural athleticism and talent that some kids are born with or just can't imagine putting in more work then they already do or realize that playing pro would even be harder, they quit. Those who continue to play are gunning for a scholarship or trying to get into a better school than their grades would otherwise allow.

I disagree completely. There are very few D1 players coming out of MLSNext and ECNL simply because there are very few D1 roster spots for men who are freshmen. Most current D1 roster spots are taken by international players or junior transfers, all of whom are aged 20 and above, and many of whom have quasi-professional experience.

Kids playing ECNL and MLSNext are not playing because they want to go pro and then just quitting in a huff because they can’t go pro. I’ve worked with a lot of those kids, and they generally have a very levelheaded view of their future opportunities (maybe not so much their parents). Kids playing in those levels mostly play because they are driven, competitive athletes, not because they’ve got delusions of being pro players.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Child is a swimmer, many of the fastest of whom get recruited at the end of Sophomore year, so that is when you really know.

I remember my child’s age group coach saying that they can never tell- the kids they thought were total winners at 9/10 or 11/12 didn’t end up as much, and there were kids who were slower at those ages that got recruited in HS.

I think the Katie Ledeckys and Michael Phelps of the world are really the exception and for the most part you have to wait until HS (and boys start getting really fast after HS)

As a board member at a big club, your coach is blowing smoke. The coaches almost always have a good idea which kids will eventually be recruited by 11/12. And swimmers who are mediocre at those ages but suddenly become very fast are very, very few and far between. It’s not just times at the young ages, it’s watching them in the water. Work ethic is part of it too. The coaches talk and are almost always right.

I think you can tell which kids have the potential and which kids just don't, but you don't know which girls will end up being 5'1 and which ones will be 5'10. Swimming is a sport where height and shoulder width are very very important and you don't know until puberty which kids will end up big and strong enough

You can get a pretty good idea of future height and shoulder width by looking at the kids' parents. Coaches know who has potential by 13.

Well, it works out very well for Zach Wilson, the 2nd overall pick in the '21 NFL draft. He was benched in favor of a 5th round pick, Mike White.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Child is a swimmer, many of the fastest of whom get recruited at the end of Sophomore year, so that is when you really know.

I remember my child’s age group coach saying that they can never tell- the kids they thought were total winners at 9/10 or 11/12 didn’t end up as much, and there were kids who were slower at those ages that got recruited in HS.

I think the Katie Ledeckys and Michael Phelps of the world are really the exception and for the most part you have to wait until HS (and boys start getting really fast after HS)

As a board member at a big club, your coach is blowing smoke. The coaches almost always have a good idea which kids will eventually be recruited by 11/12. And swimmers who are mediocre at those ages but suddenly become very fast are very, very few and far between. It’s not just times at the young ages, it’s watching them in the water. Work ethic is part of it too. The coaches talk and are almost always right.

I think you can tell which kids have the potential and which kids just don't, but you don't know which girls will end up being 5'1 and which ones will be 5'10. Swimming is a sport where height and shoulder width are very very important and you don't know until puberty which kids will end up big and strong enough

You can get a pretty good idea of future height and shoulder width by looking at the kids' parents. Coaches know who has potential by 13.

Definitely not true, unless both parents are exceptionally big/tall, in which case there’s a pretty good chance kid will be too. I have seen so many kids go through our club whose size you never could have guessed in a million years based on parents. 6’4 boys with short/average height parents, girls who are taller than all peers at 12 but then stop growing at 5’4, boys with massively tall dads but short petite moms who top out at 5’9. Everything in between. My own nephew has a 5’5 mom and 5’10 dad but he is 6’4. He has a 6’4 grandfather.

Also, for D1 swimming size/height is important but not that important. Olympic level is a bit different. But our two top recruits last year oddly were a 5’3 girl and a 5’10 boy. Both now at top D1 schools.

[Anonymous]

So which sports are the easiest for boys to get into at the D1 level? Obviously not soccer or tennis...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Boy D1 soccer. Was clear that was his likely path by age 12, 7th grade.

The problem is 99% of parents with 12-year old boy travel players on top teams at that she think they same. It rarely pans out.

We did not find this to be the case, but we were on a high-level team where virtually every kid had one or more very knowledgeable soccer parents (DH in my case), and the families who didn’t sought out advice from those who did. If you polled all the knowledgeable parents on the team about which kids at 12 had college potential if they kept their grades up, the results would have been at least 75% accurate. I agree that a parent who does not know the game is not going to be able to make that prediction, and kids can go in a variety of directions depending on personalities and circumstances.

Like Hampden Sydney, Christopher Newport, Randolph Macon, Mount St. Mary's to play? I have seen pretty much zero boys going to UNC, Stanford, Duke, UCLA, UVA, etc. from this area. I have been watching the commits at my kid's big Club (considered one of the best in the DMV) since 2010 and the neighboring MLSNxt Club's commits. There were a few that went over to DC United academy, but not many top colleges/programs. The girls were different, of course.

I have seen so many parents who told me their kid had 'pro potential' or would play D1 when these boys were little. Most had dropped the Club after Junior year of HS when it was apparent that wasn't panning out. I saw some families drive 1,000s upon 1,000s of miles and fly too and dump so much time and effort and to come up short. I am one of the parents you talk about-pro in the family and several D1 players (who I'm not sure would be D1 with the huge landscape and number of foreign players taking college spots today).

Where was your Club? I'd be very interested to know.

What club commits were you looking at? In recent years BSC has sent boys to most Ivies (Harvard, Penn, Dartmouth, Princeton, Cornell), Stanford, Duke, Georgetown, and plenty of other good D1 schools plus several academically excellent D3s. None of the kids on the top couple of teams suddenly blossomed or tanked (barring injury) when they were 15 or 16 and ended up with very different options from what was expected in late MS. Of course lots of kids at all levels at all clubs will end up choosing a school based on academic fit alone and will forgo recruitment.

I’m not sure why this seems to be such controversial notion. It’s pretty obvious whether a kid is a good athlete by 11 or 12 in most cases, right? If you combine good athletes, good training with other competitive kids, parents who value academics and education and generally have plenty of discretionary income (which describes most families who gravitate to BSC and similar clubs in other areas) and years of hard work, your odds of ending up as a recruitable athlete are pretty good. I’d noted in my earlier post that a knowledgeable parent or coach can often make a pretty good prediction in MS about what a kid’s ceiling is IF that kid continues playing AND has good academics. I’m not suggesting that any random parent who doesn’t know the game or how recruitment works can do the same. And it’s not surprising that kids who play for DCUnited often end up with fewer elite college admissions no matter their academic talents. Kids there who are talented enough athletically that a pro-career is realistic are going to be doing online school their last couple years of HS, and that makes it tough to get into some schools whose coaches would be delighted to have them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So which sports are the easiest for boys to get into at the D1 level? Obviously not soccer or tennis...

Lacrosse
Track & Field
Baseball
Cross Country
Volleyball (but not many teams)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Boy D1 soccer. Was clear that was his likely path by age 12, 7th grade.

The problem is 99% of parents with 12-year old boy travel players on top teams at that she think they same. It rarely pans out.

We did not find this to be the case, but we were on a high-level team where virtually every kid had one or more very knowledgeable soccer parents (DH in my case), and the families who didn’t sought out advice from those who did. If you polled all the knowledgeable parents on the team about which kids at 12 had college potential if they kept their grades up, the results would have been at least 75% accurate. I agree that a parent who does not know the game is not going to be able to make that prediction, and kids can go in a variety of directions depending on personalities and circumstances.

Like Hampden Sydney, Christopher Newport, Randolph Macon, Mount St. Mary's to play? I have seen pretty much zero boys going to UNC, Stanford, Duke, UCLA, UVA, etc. from this area. I have been watching the commits at my kid's big Club (considered one of the best in the DMV) since 2010 and the neighboring MLSNxt Club's commits. There were a few that went over to DC United academy, but not many top colleges/programs. The girls were different, of course.

I have seen so many parents who told me their kid had 'pro potential' or would play D1 when these boys were little. Most had dropped the Club after Junior year of HS when it was apparent that wasn't panning out. I saw some families drive 1,000s upon 1,000s of miles and fly too and dump so much time and effort and to come up short. I am one of the parents you talk about-pro in the family and several D1 players (who I'm not sure would be D1 with the huge landscape and number of foreign players taking college spots today).

Where was your Club? I'd be very interested to know.

What club commits were you looking at? In recent years BSC has sent boys to most Ivies (Harvard, Penn, Dartmouth, Princeton, Cornell), Stanford, Duke, Georgetown, and plenty of other good D1 schools plus several academically excellent D3s. None of the kids on the top couple of teams suddenly blossomed or tanked (barring injury) when they were 15 or 16 and ended up with very different options from what was expected in late MS. Of course lots of kids at all levels at all clubs will end up choosing a school based on academic fit alone and will forgo recruitment.

I’m not sure why this seems to be such controversial notion. It’s pretty obvious whether a kid is a good athlete by 11 or 12 in most cases, right? If you combine good athletes, good training with other competitive kids, parents who value academics and education and generally have plenty of discretionary income (which describes most families who gravitate to BSC and similar clubs in other areas) and years of hard work, your odds of ending up as a recruitable athlete are pretty good. I’d noted in my earlier post that a knowledgeable parent or coach can often make a pretty good prediction in MS about what a kid’s ceiling is IF that kid continues playing AND has good academics. I’m not suggesting that any random parent who doesn’t know the game or how recruitment works can do the same. And it’s not surprising that kids who play for DCUnited often end up with fewer elite college admissions no matter their academic talents. Kids there who are talented enough athletically that a pro-career is realistic are going to be doing online school their last couple years of HS, and that makes it tough to get into some schools whose coaches would be delighted to have them.

If by previous years, you mean prior to the change in the transfer rules, then that’s pretty irrelevant to the current D1 recruiting landscape. Most D1 recruits from prior to the change would not be D1 recruits now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Boy D1 soccer. Was clear that was his likely path by age 12, 7th grade.

The problem is 99% of parents with 12-year old boy travel players on top teams at that she think they same. It rarely pans out.

We did not find this to be the case, but we were on a high-level team where virtually every kid had one or more very knowledgeable soccer parents (DH in my case), and the families who didn’t sought out advice from those who did. If you polled all the knowledgeable parents on the team about which kids at 12 had college potential if they kept their grades up, the results would have been at least 75% accurate. I agree that a parent who does not know the game is not going to be able to make that prediction, and kids can go in a variety of directions depending on personalities and circumstances.

NP. FWIW as a parent of a college soccer athlete, this wasn’t my experience at all. If you’d lined up the 12-year-olds on my DS’s team back then (playing at the highest possible level of play), you would not have been likely to correctly identify the kids who eventually played in college. We are in California where there is a very deep pool of soccer players, so maybe that’s the difference.

Agree. Previous person talking out their ass

So wrong. The other two posters are spot on.

I’m the PP from California who said that if had you lined up the 12-year-olds on my son’s top-level team (and the teams beneath his), you could not have correctly identified the college players. I think that is the truth for soccer, at least for California where there is a very deep pool of players. BUT I also agree with the person who started her post talking about Hampstead. That person is exactly correct about just how few men’s college players come out of MLSNext and ECNL. There are almost none at the D1 level. A few more do go to very good D3 schools, but they get in on academics first and then soccer.

And the numbers will decline further because of the transfer portal change. Kids who made it onto D1 teams as HS seniors prior to 2021 probably wouldn’t make it on now, and they might never even see the field in all their years because the spot they thought they had back in 2020 is now going to a junior transfer. Meanwhile, the top D1 soccer teams spend the majority of their time recruiting internationally. They get the kids who didn’t quite make it at, say, Ajax and at 22 want to come to the US to get an education and extend their soccer career.

I think anyone who says they can identify the college player at 12 is pretty delusional, with the exception of spotting the kids who are good enough at 12 that they won’t even go to college but will go straight to Europe or the MLS. Those kids are few and far between. Anyone in soccer who talks about how their 12-year-old will play D1 is almost certainly fooling themselves.

Just to put some color on this: this year for men’s U19, both NorCal and SoCal ECNL leagues are generally recognized as having, on average, the better teams in California. They regularly beat MLSNext teams both in and out of California, though not the best MLSNext teams. And yet, out of ALL teams in ECNL in California (which has some of the highest quality soccer in the US), there will probably be about 20-30 kids total who commit to a D1 program as freshmen.

I think there are so few D1 players coming out of MLSNext and ECNL because a lot of kids don't play in these leagues to position themselves to play in college. They want to go pro. When they realize they won't be able too, probably because they don't believe they will be able to overcome or compete with the natural athleticism and talent that some kids are born with or just can't imagine putting in more work then they already do or realize that playing pro would even be harder, they quit. Those who continue to play are gunning for a scholarship or trying to get into a better school than their grades would otherwise allow.

I disagree completely. There are very few D1 players coming out of MLSNext and ECNL simply because there are very few D1 roster spots for men who are freshmen. Most current D1 roster spots are taken by international players or junior transfers, all of whom are aged 20 and above, and many of whom have quasi-professional experience.

Kids playing ECNL and MLSNext are not playing because they want to go pro and then just quitting in a huff because they can’t go pro. I’ve worked with a lot of those kids, and they generally have a very levelheaded view of their future opportunities (maybe not so much their parents). Kids playing in those levels mostly play because they are driven, competitive athletes, not because they’ve got delusions of being pro players.

I said they either quit or for those who stay, they are trying to get a scholarship or leverage it into getting into a bigger college. You basically confirmed this. They are driven, competitive athletes with very levelheaded view of their future opportunities --- in other words, once they realize they're not good enough to go pro, if they stay in MLSNext or ECNL, they continue to play with the hope of leveraging that in getting a college scholarship or getting into a better college. I'm sorry, no kid is playing MLSNext and ECNL and putting themselves through that grind in high school just because they are "driven" and "competitive" without thinking they're going to get something out of it. And to your point, few D1 players are coming out of MLSNext and ECNL because those that are left were never the most talented. Those with actual pro potential leave to chase that dream.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So which sports are the easiest for boys to get into at the D1 level? Obviously not soccer or tennis...

Football or fencing

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Boy D1 soccer. Was clear that was his likely path by age 12, 7th grade.

The problem is 99% of parents with 12-year old boy travel players on top teams at that she think they same. It rarely pans out.

We did not find this to be the case, but we were on a high-level team where virtually every kid had one or more very knowledgeable soccer parents (DH in my case), and the families who didn’t sought out advice from those who did. If you polled all the knowledgeable parents on the team about which kids at 12 had college potential if they kept their grades up, the results would have been at least 75% accurate. I agree that a parent who does not know the game is not going to be able to make that prediction, and kids can go in a variety of directions depending on personalities and circumstances.

NP. FWIW as a parent of a college soccer athlete, this wasn’t my experience at all. If you’d lined up the 12-year-olds on my DS’s team back then (playing at the highest possible level of play), you would not have been likely to correctly identify the kids who eventually played in college. We are in California where there is a very deep pool of soccer players, so maybe that’s the difference.

Agree. Previous person talking out their ass

So wrong. The other two posters are spot on.

I’m the PP from California who said that if had you lined up the 12-year-olds on my son’s top-level team (and the teams beneath his), you could not have correctly identified the college players. I think that is the truth for soccer, at least for California where there is a very deep pool of players. BUT I also agree with the person who started her post talking about Hampstead. That person is exactly correct about just how few men’s college players come out of MLSNext and ECNL. There are almost none at the D1 level. A few more do go to very good D3 schools, but they get in on academics first and then soccer.

And the numbers will decline further because of the transfer portal change. Kids who made it onto D1 teams as HS seniors prior to 2021 probably wouldn’t make it on now, and they might never even see the field in all their years because the spot they thought they had back in 2020 is now going to a junior transfer. Meanwhile, the top D1 soccer teams spend the majority of their time recruiting internationally. They get the kids who didn’t quite make it at, say, Ajax and at 22 want to come to the US to get an education and extend their soccer career.

I think anyone who says they can identify the college player at 12 is pretty delusional, with the exception of spotting the kids who are good enough at 12 that they won’t even go to college but will go straight to Europe or the MLS. Those kids are few and far between. Anyone in soccer who talks about how their 12-year-old will play D1 is almost certainly fooling themselves.

Just to put some color on this: this year for men’s U19, both NorCal and SoCal ECNL leagues are generally recognized as having, on average, the better teams in California. They regularly beat MLSNext teams both in and out of California, though not the best MLSNext teams. And yet, out of ALL teams in ECNL in California (which has some of the highest quality soccer in the US), there will probably be about 20-30 kids total who commit to a D1 program as freshmen.

I think there are so few D1 players coming out of MLSNext and ECNL because a lot of kids don't play in these leagues to position themselves to play in college. They want to go pro. When they realize they won't be able too, probably because they don't believe they will be able to overcome or compete with the natural athleticism and talent that some kids are born with or just can't imagine putting in more work then they already do or realize that playing pro would even be harder, they quit. Those who continue to play are gunning for a scholarship or trying to get into a better school than their grades would otherwise allow.

I disagree completely. There are very few D1 players coming out of MLSNext and ECNL simply because there are very few D1 roster spots for men who are freshmen. Most current D1 roster spots are taken by international players or junior transfers, all of whom are aged 20 and above, and many of whom have quasi-professional experience.

Kids playing ECNL and MLSNext are not playing because they want to go pro and then just quitting in a huff because they can’t go pro. I’ve worked with a lot of those kids, and they generally have a very levelheaded view of their future opportunities (maybe not so much their parents). Kids playing in those levels mostly play because they are driven, competitive athletes, not because they’ve got delusions of being pro players.

I said they either quit or for those who stay, they are trying to get a scholarship or leverage it into getting into a bigger college. You basically confirmed this. They are driven, competitive athletes with very levelheaded view of their future opportunities --- in other words, once they realize they're not good enough to go pro, if they stay in MLSNext or ECNL, they continue to play with the hope of leveraging that in getting a college scholarship or getting into a better college. I'm sorry, no kid is playing MLSNext and ECNL and putting themselves through that grind in high school just because they are "driven" and "competitive" without thinking they're going to get something out of it. And to your point, few D1 players are coming out of MLSNext and ECNL because those that are left were never the most talented. Those with actual pro potential leave to chase that dream.

You obviously don’t know any of these kids. I’m sorry, but the bolded is next-level clueless.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So which sports are the easiest for boys to get into at the D1 level? Obviously not soccer or tennis...

Lacrosse
Track & Field
Baseball
Cross Country
Volleyball (but not many teams)

Sorry, I left off the obvious one, football.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So which sports are the easiest for boys to get into at the D1 level? Obviously not soccer or tennis...

Lacrosse
Track & Field
Baseball
Cross Country
Volleyball (but not many teams)

LOL take baseball off this list. The reduced number of draft rounds is making college recruiting a mess.

[Anonymous]

FWIW I know multiple ECNL boys who played for years with no intention of playing in college or pro, because their focus was academics. They just loved the sport and wanted to play at a high level. It is bizarre to assert that all kids who are playing at the highest level of competition are doing so in hope of some nebulous quid pro quo. Very, very weird take.