Travel Youth sports scam?
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Anonymous
No, it’s completely different. Academic enrichment boosts grades, boosts test scores, allows acceleration, and will gain you child admission to a T30 university. Playing sports-ball gets one nowhere. |
Anonymous
NP but I believe the point is parents can force children to do things they don't really want to do. Not that forcing them to sports is the right thing to do. Also the idea that some academic enrichment will lead your child to a T30 university is a bit misguided. But that's another thread. |
Anonymous
Go tell that to everyone complaining about athletes taking up spots at your T30 schools |
Anonymous
You have so many things wrong in your post, I need to add more. How about physical fitness/teammate bonds/leadership/learning tough life lessons. I could go on, but once you go "sports-ball" I know you can't be reasoned with. I will finish though that those who do make it to the top and are also academically inclined are taking those coveted T30 spots you hold so dear. |
Anonymous
You can get those things without sports though. And can we please just for a minute not concentrate on what might get kids ahead and just let them be kids. |
Anonymous
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It’s extremely important for everyone to be active and exercise. It is anlso particularly important for girls to play sports. Over half of executive level women played a college sport.
The great thing about the large number of club sports now is that it gives a much wider opportunity for kids to play a school sport. No more (or far far fewer) “3 sport athletes”. If you want to be on the baseball or softball team you focus on that - playing club ball. The same with pretty much every sport save football and to some extent, track - though lots of cross over there with x-country. |
Anonymous
It’s like abortion. If you don’t want one, don’t get one. Same with travel sports - if you don’t want to do it then don’t. But that doesn’t make it a scam. And you don’t need to be a college recruit to enjoy it. |
Anonymous
A scam is a fraudulent scheme designed to deceive people in order to steal money, personal information, or other valuables. Most people willingly sign up for travel sports. They aren't tricked into it. Nothing is stolen. Most UMC parents with kids in travel sports know it's not going anywhere. We didn't do it at the expense of saving in our kids' 529 plans. We did it because our kids asked and we wanted to support them and see what they could do. I often wonder what better trips we could have taken if we didn't have travel sports eating so much of our time, but I take full responsibility for letting it get to that point. |
Anonymous
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Correct it’s not a scam…other than 90% of all travel teams provide zero value add for college recruiting but will never admit that to parents.
The joke is that they will claim anyone who ever played for the program at any age as part of their “college commits”. Literally knew a shit program claiming kids who played one season when they were 11 as their “college commits” |
Anonymous
Plenty of travel teams don’t claim to have college commits or be pursuing that goal. We have never been on a team like that and the “value” it provides is somewhere for my DD to play and improve. We can afford college and don’t need or want her to play there. Most other parents are the same. |
Anonymous
Academic enrichment can lead a struggling child to a middle tier college. |
Anonymous
I think “travel” comes in all different flavors, so wouldn’t paint it with a broad brush. You have soccer, where all the decent kids play travel starting in 1st grade (!!) but it is community-travel so the furthest they’re going is 45 min away. Luckily DS doesn’t like soccer so we bowed out - but it was absolutely painful to see the mismatches at times - one really good kid scored 20 goals on the other team 😂 On the other hand, Ds LOVES baseball and is starting travel next year - its a community based travel league which is actually part of the same organization as the local rec baseball league, so they make all of the travel team players play rec league as well (aside from the top team starting at I think age 10). I think it’s a nice way to balance out the desire for better competition without decimating the local rec league. We’ll see how it goes! And let me tell you, the kids are SO excited to be on the travel team - no one’s parents are forcing them. |
Anonymous
Yeah for hockey we are going as far south as Tampa and as far north as Pittsburgh this year. And this is AA hockey not AAA hockey (AAA flies all over the country). It’s just super dumb. If we all stayed put and created a local/community league, there would be plenty of kids at various levels to play. You could just divide the leagues by skill level just like the adult leagues do. Sure maybe you have some less talented kids with some more talented kids, but every team would. Who cares. We do not need to be so obsessed with churning out elite athletes. |
Anonymous
Maybe in girls’ sports. Don’t see that in most boys’ sports. BTW, if sports are so important in HS, why do you not even want her to play in college? |
Anonymous
Did you play hockey? Why sign up for this nonsense ever? It really wasn’t a hard conversation with my kid when they expressed some interest…nope, go play one of the 12+ other sports around. It’s not like we are in Canada or MN where there might be in fact pickup hockey games or multiple rec leagues. |