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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]There is only this frenzy in certain sports and in over-populated 'super zip code' metros. Move to the exurbs or flyover country and youth sports are still chill. It's because these wacko striver parents are all living through their kids. And no matter how much dough they blow and summers and weekends wasted carting kids everywhere, they still won't go D1. These arrogant sports-obsessed parents think they're hot s*** when they're really literally being scammed and coerced out of their money...and 99% chance the kid will end up at the same college anyone else can go to with the same CV.[/quote]

+1. This is the blunt reason.  Parents have lost all perspective about what youth sports should be and the experience their kids should have playing them.  City rec league sports used to be a way for neighborhood kids to build friendships, get exercise, stay in shape and learn sportsmanship.  Now it's all about parents paying a fortune for some travel league headquartered hundreds of miles away so they can spending every weekend driving 100-200 miles to play baseball.  The parents hope that maybe this will help their kid stand out well enough to maybe get recognized for a scholarship, but the odds of this are firmly stacked against them.  Kids would be better off if sports reverted back to how they were 20+ years ago and academics became the focus once again for getting into a good college.[/quote]

Pretty sure athletic college recruiting was a thing 20 years ago.  I don’t think you realize it’s always been a thing going back to the early 1900s.

The difference is back then the Ivy schools were actually best in the country in sports like football but they still just took kids from Andover or other elite private schools who were white and Protestant.  Not the best athletes or students.

The current system ramped up in the 1980s…and went to another level in just the last 5 years with the transfer portal, NIL $$$s and soon paying athletes directly to play.[/quote]

No kid was paying a ton of money to play a sport starting at 7 years old.  The early 80s kids played maybe middle school and then high school.   The real talented athletes would go on to play in college and a very few went pro.   There were recruiters and rankings but there weren’t so many parents who thought they could buy the talent necessary to go D1 or pro.

I know too many former pro athletes who went to college then professional for maybe 5-10 years.  They would then come home lost, [b]not knowing anything but what they’ve been doing every day for years. [/b]  [/quote]

I don’t understand this “tons of money” argument.  My kid plays two travel sports and we have never paid more than around $500-$1000 per season.

It’s not nothing, but it’s not exactly breaking the bank either.

And the bolded can be applied to literally *anything*.  Why do you think mid-life crises exist?[/quote]

I guess I’ve read so many posters saying they spend well over $10,000 for club sports and thousands for private tutors and it takes their whole weekends and travel costs add up.

Do mid-life crises start at 30 years old?   Because so many of them are done by then without any other skills.

[/quote]

Most travel sports don’t cost anywhere close to $10,000.  Don’t be stupid.

And who cares if an adult starts feeling lost in life at 30 or 40 years old?  What about the lawyer in golden handcuffs who realizes at 35 that he hates his job and his life, but what the heck is he going to do now?  It’s no different, so stop pretending that it there is some sort of unique let down for athletes.[/quote]

Parents who are obsessed with making their child a top baseball player or whatever don’t just stop at low level travel teams.  And the kids who are at the top need to spend a lot more just to stay at the top.

What about a lawyer who hates his shitty job?    That would describe half of them.

There’s no comparison to, say a hockey player who loves his job, first year salary $1 million, five years later $5 million per year, two years later cut from his team at 30 years old.  Some handle it by finding a new career, some fall into drugs and alcohol and girls.  It is a very unique letdown. [/quote]

Your first paragraph is true for some, but not all.  It’s not necessary for the genuinely talented kids to spend a ton of money being on the best team and attending every BS money-grab “showcase”.  Kids who know what’s up don’t bother with any of that crap until they’re about 16, because they know that no one who actually matters gives a single sh!t about whatever happened when they were 15 and under.  Kids who know what’s up ALSO know that being on the tippy top winningest middle school quintuple A+ travel team is not necessarily correlated with their *individual* development as a player, which is ultimately what actually matters.

And someone needs to educate these clueless athletes that obviously your athletic career has a *very* limited shelf life so you’d better save some money.  No reason not to pursue a dream though.[/quote]

That’s good to know. Posters here are always fretting about how 12 years old is just too old to play basketball, you need to start in kindergarten.   I always thought that sounded ridiculous but it’s what the vast majority are saying.   I know the genuinely talented in the 80s and 90s didn’t do all of this and everyone says it’s changed!

I have a feeling the genuinely talented are the same ones that were picked 30 years ago.   All that being on three teams at once along with tutors hasn’t changed anything.  [/quote]

To be clear, I think you do need to start playing relatively young still.   My kid started his sports in 2nd and 3rd grade, but he played rec league only in elementary school.  Then he did inexpensive, local travel only travel teams in middle school.   We have never paid for private coaching or lessons.

I’m just saying you don’t need to be over the top crazy with it young.  You don’t need to be on a national showcase winning team when you’re young.  Just slowly and steadily build a solid foundation of skills and abilities, athleticism, and most importantly keep the love of the sport alive and avoid injury by not overdoing it.

For those interested in college sports, recruiters don’t care what elementary and middle school kids are doing.  They care what the older teenagers are doing, so the kids should be in a position to really start pushing and be taken seriously when they’re around 16.[/quote]

I 100 percent agree with this [/quote]

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