Reply to Advice on whether young small player should accept invitation for 9u Travel

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[quote=Anonymous]At that age it is fairly common for kids to play both travel and rec, specifically because they still want to stay with their rec friends while also getting the training of travel.

Whether to accept the travel invitation is hard.  I don't know where you are or what league you would be playing in, but at least some leagues try to prioritize grouping U9 teams by geography to minimize the travel distance for young kids.  That said, travel is still a time commitment, and it does make it more difficult to do other sports as well, especially if he is also playing rec soccer.  Basketball is easier because it's typically in the winter when soccer is on a bit of a break, but doing baseball plus travel soccer and rec soccer would be a lot when they're all in season.  If he does do travel next year, I would probably say he would do one other team at the same time, either rec soccer or baseball, but not both.

Personally, I agree with you that this is too young for kids to specialize so heavily, and I have very strong negative feelings about the fact that clubs start travel that young.  It's the system we have, though, and reality is that if you turn down the invitation this year, it may limit options later, especially if your son doesn't try out for travel again for a few years.  That doesn't mean waiting is a bad thing.  We did not have our soccer-loving kid try out for travel at all until he asked to do it on his own initiative when he was 10.  By then he was behind a lot of peers, and with so many kids already ahead of him in the system he is unlikely to work his way up to one of the club's top teams.  But he is on a travel team and he loves it.  I don't question our decision to wait because it was the right one for our kid.[/quote]

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