Am I spending too much time on travel soccer?
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Anonymous
| My son plays on the top U10 team at big club but I sometimes wonder, what is the point? He likes the game and his teammates, and our family loves watching him, but the odds of him (or anyone) "going pro" are pretty remote. I'm not even sure I would want him to play in college. The life of a college athlete seems pretty brutal. It's ultimately his decision, but I'd rather have him enjoy college, find his calling, and crush it on an intramural team. So, if a pro career and/or college scholarship are unlikely, should we be spending 6-10 hours per week to get him to practice, games, private training? It just seems kind of ludicrous to me. Interested in hearing what motivates other parents to dedicate the time to travel soccer if a scholarship or pro contract is not the ultimate goal. Or, are we all crazy? |
Anonymous
| Following. I have the same thoughts (and my child is on the only team at a small club). There are lots of positives to playing a team sport, but I have no illusions about a scholarship, let alone going pro. And yes, the money and time invested are not insignificant (but probably not too different from any other extra curricular activity). |
Anonymous
| I was a college athlete, and I have a son who loves sports - his great love is baseball, and he plays travel. We spend many hours schlepping to baseball and then watching and waiting around. They are looong games! We do it for only one reason - it makes my son happy. He knows that if it stops being fun, he should quit at the next natural stopping point. He can play rec, or not at all, if he likes. I played in college for the same reason - I loved my sport and could not imagine life without it. It gave me friends and a feeling of belonging and structure to my life. I still play my sport. So there is no big point. The point is simply joy. |
Anonymous
| It depends on what works for we vs him. As a family you can certainly put the desires of the family ahead of his desires. If it's a time/commitment burden for the family, it's too much. If the family is neutral about it, I'd let him determine it. |
Anonymous
Do you have other children? For me, the issue is largely the family dynamic. |
Anonymous
| We went into it at u9 knowing our son would not get recruited or even play in college. For 3 years our lives literally revolved around DS’s soccer schedule. We justified it because he was having fun, it was good exercise and we were lucky to enjoy the company of fellow team parents. This year something changed. The coach was very negative and screamed a lot. Our son stopped having fun. We realized it was time to re-evaluate. At our son’s request, we are moving him to an MSI classic team. I think you just have to take it year by year. We don’t regret our experience at all, but l wish I’d had a crystal ball so that we could have found more balance and put some of the team demands in perspective. |
Anonymous
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It is easy to get sucked into travel sports and the demands on parents/families. My son has a great time practicing/competing at games/tournaments and his favorite is the occasional overnight stays for games as well as carpooling with other players. It has given us an amazing bonding experience with our son to enjoy the sport he loves playing the most. My son is obsessed with soccer, watches euro games on tv, we go to dc united games and he really enjoyed the world cup. He plays fifa mobile on his phone and fifa on his ps4. I also dont have any illusions that he will go pro and/or play in college. For now we use it as his outlet to let off his excess energy and socialize with his friends. I figure at some point he will want to dial it back some or start to get interested in something else. For now we have the financial flexibility for him to play and enjoy it as a family. I would say one draw back is that having multiple children you have to divide and conquer sometimes and my spouse feels we lose out on some family time on the weekends. We usually make up for it during the off season.
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Anonymous
| The point is if he’s having fun, you don’t mind the time commitment and you can afford it. That’s why we let DD play. This spring she started feeling like she was missing out on other opportunities because she always had soccer. She wasn’t happy going to games and practice and that made the time commitment not worth it for anyone in the family anymore. We never considered or cared if she would play in college or beyond. She is playing in rec next year and is hoping to find soccer fun again when she can have a balance with other things she wants to do. |
Anonymous
+1 on the bolded. These are the same reasons we support our kids in all the various activities they've done through the years, plus playing competitive sports really does build kids' confidence regardless of the level they ultimately reach. It's not a transactional process for us at all, even though one of our kids is receiving a significant scholarship to play at a school where he got a huge admissions boost due to the sport. My kid who only plays at the intramural/club level in college loved the game and got the same benefits (in terms of friendships, discipline, leadership, and a love of keeping active) as my recruited kid did, and we enjoyed the youth sports years for both tremendously. |
Anonymous
| I am. |
Anonymous
| My son is never going to get a college scholarship, but he does not like and is not interested in other sports. Also, he has mild ADHD and all of the practices help him get his energy out. He's made some new friends (though there were some people on the team he didn't like). Overall, he met his personal goal of improving at soccer. So I'm fairly satisfied. |
Anonymous
| My son started at U9 and is going into U17 next year. I don't even want to calculate the amount of money we have spent. But he loves it and has loved it almost the entire time. I always thought he would quit at some point but has never wanted to. He won't play in college but he loves playing and loves his team. So it seems worth it in that it has shaped who he is. But darn it's an expensive hobby. |
Anonymous
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This is what I wonder about my child and her music schedule. She's not going to be a member of the NY Philharmonic, let alone a famous soloist. Why does she practice so much? Why do we let violin run our lives? Why do we spend so much on it? No idea. Well, we do like classical music. But apart from that? |
Anonymous
Nope, just the one. Whether one kid or 5, though, if the sport becomes too much for the family to happily handle then it’s too much. I didn’t think the OP was asking about the family time dynamic, but about what sports “get” you. But other people in the family matter, not just the travel sport kid and the world doesn’t get to revolve around them. |
Anonymous
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My kids are not on top level teams at the big clubs, so definitely a different demand than the OP describes, but I think there are a lot of benefits and none of them include college scholarships.
-Learning that increased effort results in improvement -Learning how to communicate with the various coaches -Learning about good and bad sportsmanship -Learning how to control emotions -Learning to work through challenges to improve on certain skills -Fitness -Friends -Time management skills -Commitment to your team (showing up & doing your part) I do think these life lessons make it worthwhile and wish I had this type of opportunity when I was younger. Of course, there are other ways for kids to get experiences to learn these types of life lessons, but mine gravitated towards sports. |