Reply to Why are youth and high school sports so competitive to get into now?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I just want my kid to play a team sport in high school and that’s starting to feel like a big maybe given the competition in our area. He’s an above average athlete who works hard and puts in extra reps outside of team but isn’t hyper driven in the sense that he has no expectations around being recruited to play in college. So, despite years of playing multiple sports at a fairly demanding level, love for the game, natural athleticism, and coachability he’s a bubble player and may find himself “retired” from his favorite sport(s) at 14. His athletic female friends are having far more success playing into HS than many of his male friends given the sheer numbers. [/quote]

Unfortunately, playing a sport in HS isn't a guarantee. As parents we may have had a different HS experience, but that was decades ago. But even then it could be hard to make teams if you attended a school that was good in a specific sport.  Today, there are very few sports at the HS level that can be "no cut" either due to ability to take everyone or low demand.  So if you want your DC to play a team sport in high school they either have to: 1) Be as good or better than the other players in the, 2) Switch to a sport where the team is easier to make or 3) Join a no cut sport.

There are great statistics on youth sports participation between the ages of 6-12 and 13-17 at [url]https://www.jerseywatch.com/blog/youth-sports-statistics[/url] and at [url]https://usafacts.org/articles/are-fewer-kids-playing-sports/[/url]. 2021 was the first year HS sports participation dropped below 50% this century.  There are lots of reasons for this, but one of the biggest is just simple demographics--there are more players with better training competing while at the same time the number of high schools in the US has not increased for decades.  More players competing for the same number of spots = more cuts.

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