Reply to Is age 13 too "old" for DS to try baseball, tennis, or lacrosse?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I went to a college prep boarding high school.  Freshmen play all three seasons, sophomores and juniors can drop one season, seniors can drop 2 seasons.  It's also no cut.

Most of the PPs don't have experience with no-cut required sport schools.  Usually the school is very small.  By having every kid play sports they don't have to have a gym program and they can field full teams that they might not otherwise be able to fill.

With all that said, here's my experience ([b]and the experience of kids currently attending the same school this year[/b]):

Your experience 20 plus years ago is not particularly relevant 
Every year there are new students, sometimes freshmen, sometimes older.  Every kid comes in knowing that they have to play a sport, but many have never played anything, or they want to switch sports.  The coaches are all used to dealing with kids at various levels.  Some sports have varsity and jv levels, some only have varsity level and the kids who are just starting won't play more than 2 minutes per game for at least a month.  Two of our sports only had jv, because we couldn't be competitive on the varsity level.  For any sport that has varsity and jv both, varsity works solely on honing skills, jv works on basics at the beginning of every season, and they progress through honing strengths and shoring up weaknesses.  For the sports that only have one team, whether it's varsity or jv, the team works together to teach the basics as quickly as possible.

Personally, I did field hockey, swimming and soccer.  With the exception of one kid (male manager-exchange from Germany) in four years, every single girl on the field hockey team started having never held a stick before.  Some had played ice hockey, some had played soccer, 2 had played lacrosse, and many had never played anything.  We worked drills every practice, all four years, at least for a few minutes, because every year there was a new batch of girls for whom it was their first season, and we wanted to be competitive.  Swimming isn't really a team sport.  We had kids come in who set records their first couple weeks, but we also had kids who were learning to do all four strokes.  For soccer, we never had enough girls to have a jv team too, so we only had varsity.  Because we had enough girls who had previously played, most of the newest players played 2-5 minutes for the first month.

I like small schools, and the schools that do no-cut every kid plays for sports are great.  I don't know how it works at your kid's school, OP, but from what I've seen?  He should be able to pick anything he wants.  Check with the school, talk with him to the coaches.  And good luck![/quote]

Your experience a decade or two ago isn't particularly relevant in today's world where many kids start in sports league at the age of five.  Dd started field hockey in 4 th grade, most of the other girls had been playing since first grade.  [/quote]

Actually her experience is relevant.  My college age sisters went to a similar school. Where athletics are required each season.  Sisters both played soccer and then picked up lacrossee and rugby during their time at the school.  Some sports had more newbies than others but all of the sports had newbies each year.[/quote]

I highlighted the most relevant portion.  Yes, I attended from 99-03.  However, some of my friends have siblings currently attending, some have nieces and nephews attending, and I've recommended kids to the school (and I'm in touch with them).  Our high school has changed in some ways (cell phone policy, computer use and prevalence, etc.), but in other ways, it's exactly the same.

There are alumnae who offer full ride scholarships to kids from inner city schools to board there, kids who have decent to above average grades and decent to above average sports skills.  There are kids who have partial to full scholarships based on grades and/or test scores.  There are kids who have parents who can afford to pay 20K per year for room and board for high school.  There are kids who will be the first kid in their family to graduate college, a few might even be the first to graduate high school.  There are kids whose parent, grandparent, great-grandparent all attended this school, then attended the same college.  There are kids who have been playing a specific sport since age 3 or 4 (usually soccer).  There are kids who have never played a sport outside of a gym class.

Schools like this are equalizers.  Every kid stepping into the school knows few (if any) students when they start.  Every student has to play sports, and sports events have 75-100% of the students turnout.  They all have to have at least one fine art commitment per semester, and attend at least one other fine art event.

When the school prioritizes student involvement, cooperation and involvement over competition and winning, the kids can surprise everyone and perform beyond anyone's expectations (including their own).[/quote]

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