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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I guess the problem I see is that sports have basically become all or nothing. Either you're doing travel teams and shelling out money for private lessons, or you're out of luck.

I grew up playing rec league sports in Toronto. Anyone who wanted to could sign up for a hockey team in winter and a soccer or baseball team during summer, which were run by Toronto's parks and rec, and have very modest signup calls. This provided a middle ground of giving kids the benefits of physical activity without having to devote your family's life to it. Whether you played a sport or not was irrelevant to college admissions, since college sports aren't much of a thing in Canada.  [/quote]

I grew up in the US and this is pretty much my feeling as well.

I played rec sports as a kid and then in middle school my school offered no-cut teams in a handful of sports -- basketball, volleyball, track and field. I did all three and while I wasn't good I went to all the practices and learned the sports and techniques for getting better at them. And I got the social benefits and learned about teamwork.

I could have done at least one of these in high school. I would never have made varsity but I could have played a year or two of JV. Probably track or cross country would have been the best fit and CC was no cut. I wound up not doing sports in high school because I was in both marching band and orchestra and it took up a lot of time. But I got the benefit of sports and became a fit and reasonably athletic adult.

It makes me really sad how hard this is for kids to get now because the focus has shifted away from rec and no-cut school opportunities (especially in middle) and toward travel teams and cuts for athletics starting at a very young age.[/quote]

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