Anonymous
Post 11/21/2022 21:47     Subject: Re:HS sports question
FPYCparent wrote:My oldest kid is currently a HS freshman. She's been on an intermediate-level travel team (i.e., not-elite, college-recruitment-focused) for one sport since 3rd grade ... that's 6 years. While in 8th grade last year, she fell in love with another sport (without losing any love for her first sport). Over the summer, we let her know that she could choose to focus on the new sport and take a pause from the other. If she wanted to experiment, 9th grade would be a great time to do it. If it didn't work out, she would likely have an easy path back to the other sport. Also, none of us knew if she would even make a HS team in her new sport.

She decided to stay with her original sport and still try out for the new sport (for the fall). She made the team and the practice schedules aligned so that there were no regularly occurring conflicts (most HS team practices were right after school anyway, whereas travel team practices were later in the evening). In fact, I think we only missed two travel team practices due to HS sport matches during the fall season.

Now, she has secured a travel team spot in the new sport (December to/through June). Unfortunately, the practices for both travel sports now overlap and she has elected to pause participation in her original sport. Again, our thinking is that if things don't work out, she can go back to the original sport next year.

As for why we as parents opt for this lifestyle ... well, it keeps the kid physically active and off screens! Sure, I wish the new sport was a little cheaper (more than twice the cost of the original sport), but it's at least indoors. The balance we need to seek now id how to keep extracurricular options open for the younger sibling.


What are the sports?

We are considering basketball and lacrosse if DD makes the teams but not sure they’ll line up. We are still in 6th grade.
Anonymous
Post 11/17/2022 09:31     Subject: HS sports question
Depends on sport. For softball, the girls mostly do a summer and fall ball travel club team and in spring just do their HS team. But it’s a lot having almost no weeks off during the year and the travel tournaments kill a whole weekend.
Anonymous
Post 11/17/2022 09:11     Subject: HS sports question
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Why go through all this? Do you want your kids to be professional athletes when they grow up?


Go through what? A lot of kids join HS sports because they love it, it is social and it’s activity most days after school. There are no plans to continue in college. Those are my kids. They would stop if they didn’t love it. Neither did the travel madness at an early age. They wanted more by middle school. Like the other poster, they scaled back in HS and were only on one team at a time.


Playing HS basketball at a basketball-crazy high school is pretty fun for the kids who do it.
Anonymous
Post 11/17/2022 07:36     Subject: HS sports question
Anonymous wrote:DS plays HS soccer and also plays soccer for a club. It was a hellish schedule between the 2 for the fall. I couldn’t believe what a huge commitment the HS team was. He never had enough time for homework so sleep was sacrificed. On his HS team all the kids play travel so I don’t know if he could be competitive without it. But I also know that being on the HS team was great for him socially so I feel badly asking him to give that up.

From what I understand, most of his HS friends who play baseball, will no longer be playing travel. They have unofficial summer and fall ball HS teams and then play the official HS season on the spring. There are even winter workouts.


Yeah. Soccer is brutal. And both the Club coach and high school coach place demands on the kids. So many end up injured from doing two workouts a night. After school with high school until 5–and then to club later that night. And at our private the travel to away games can be brutal in traffic, and some are far drives. Not to mention the very long high school season. Like 20 games this year.

Everyone on the high school team plays travel, and on high level teams.

I had my kid only play travel spring season one year because it was just too much. He is a straight A honor/AP student and the course load with zero time was crazy.
Anonymous
Post 11/17/2022 07:23     Subject: HS sports question
Definitely depends on the school. Our mcps hs is small, so it's easier to get on the teams even if you aren't doing travel year round
Anonymous
Post 11/17/2022 07:09     Subject: HS sports question
Anonymous wrote:Which sport? Club swimmers and gymnasts rarely do any sports in school. Soccer is different but travel will eat up your life same with basketball. Youth sports are insane (speaking from experience!)


Every kid on our HS's swim team swims club. I know club swimmers who also do travel sports. Swim is actually the easiest to juggle because of morning options
Anonymous
Post 11/17/2022 06:46     Subject: HS sports question
Anonymous wrote:Why go through all this? Do you want your kids to be professional athletes when they grow up?


Go through what? A lot of kids join HS sports because they love it, it is social and it’s activity most days after school. There are no plans to continue in college. Those are my kids. They would stop if they didn’t love it. Neither did the travel madness at an early age. They wanted more by middle school. Like the other poster, they scaled back in HS and were only on one team at a time.
Anonymous
Post 11/17/2022 06:34     Subject: HS sports question
Which sport? Club swimmers and gymnasts rarely do any sports in school. Soccer is different but travel will eat up your life same with basketball. Youth sports are insane (speaking from experience!)
Anonymous
Post 11/16/2022 23:26     Subject: HS sports question
Why go through all this? Do you want your kids to be professional athletes when they grow up?
Anonymous
Post 11/16/2022 23:01     Subject: HS sports question
Daughter runs XC and track and field. For those sports her high school is no cut - and she has become a leader on her team even though she is not yet on Varsity (second year). Basically went from couch to the course. For my son (soccer) his older friends on high school team play for the same club team so the practices for the fall are coordinated with the high school coach. Agree with the poster above - could not believe the time commitment for both. Do not believe there is a single player on soccer that doesn’t play club. My son will try out next year and is practicing furiously now to ensure a roster spot.
Anonymous
Post 11/16/2022 22:38     Subject: HS sports question
DS plays HS soccer and also plays soccer for a club. It was a hellish schedule between the 2 for the fall. I couldn’t believe what a huge commitment the HS team was. He never had enough time for homework so sleep was sacrificed. On his HS team all the kids play travel so I don’t know if he could be competitive without it. But I also know that being on the HS team was great for him socially so I feel badly asking him to give that up.

From what I understand, most of his HS friends who play baseball, will no longer be playing travel. They have unofficial summer and fall ball HS teams and then play the official HS season on the spring. There are even winter workouts.
Anonymous
Post 11/16/2022 22:25     Subject: HS sports question
22:22 again. What they make will depend entirely on your school and how many kids show up for tryouts. I wound not worry about any of this when they are young and let them play as long as they are enjoying it. My kids switched sports later on. I would have never thought they would play the high school sports they are today when they were in early elementary.
Anonymous
Post 11/16/2022 22:22     Subject: HS sports question
We know some kids that do this but I’m not sure how they manage the sports schedules, fit in time for school and have any sort of life. Mine play a fall and winter sport for the school. It’s 6 days per week with practices and games. There is almost year round, with off season training for both. They don’t do any off season in fall or winter since they are already in a sport.
Anonymous
Post 11/16/2022 21:46     Subject: HS sports question
This depends entirely on the HS and the sport. Some sports you can play high school and club, some sports you can't. Some high schools are very competitive, some aren't. No one can give you one answer about how schools in the area work.
Anonymous
Post 11/16/2022 21:37     Subject: HS sports question
My children are pretty young still but I was just thinking about HS sports and how they work. Let’s say a kid does a travel sport which has a heavy commitment in fall/spring. Can they do a winter sport for their HS, or is the time commitment too much even when there is a lighter schedule for the travel sport? What about their primary sport — do most kids compete for the travel team and the HS team or do they usually have to pick one or the other?

Related to that, let’s say a kid burns out on their travel sport and doesn’t want to do it year round anymore but wants to play for just the HS team, maybe while doing other HS sports in different seasons. Can the kid who dropped out of travel make the HS team or do only travel players have a real shot? Do kids who focused on another sport leading up to HS but then want to try something new have a shot at making a team? I’m mostly thinking of sports like track, cross country, crew, or swimming as opposed to something like basketball which I assume is much harder to make.

We let our kids make their choices about their activities, but just wondering what the landscape looks like at the HS level. Do decently athletic kids have options or is it a situation where kids who aren't doing club/travel level in that sport get shut out?