My son’s HS soccer in MCPS has little overlap in a formal sense. A few kids will be brought up for playoffs, but that’s it. The teams don’t practice together once the season starts. But unofficially the V players and JV players practice together all summer and some JV players play V for the informal summer league games. As a freshman, we noticed several V players served as mentors to my son and some other JV players. They even cheered them at games which was really nice. My son has really benefited from the relationships he’s built with older players. I think that’s probably school/player dependent though.

In football and baseball, you will see freshman and sophomores brought up for the playoffs. Sometimes in football some JV players will dress for home games.

When I played football, varsity and JV practiced together when not in game prep mode.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Related question: If offered, should an athlete (let's say a freshman) always accept an offer to be on varsity?

Not necessarily. My kid accepted a spot on varsity his freshman year and rode the bench. Fine, but he lost confidence in game situations because he wasn’t in games. He didn’t play well. Then in stopped being much fun. He came back to varsity his Sophmore year because he had blown his JV eligibility playing a bunch of varsity games. He sat on the bench again, and it just killed his love of the game. He won’t play this year. If he had played JV his freshman and sophomore years he would have had fun, and maybe made varsity as a junior or maybe not, but the experience would have been happier.

Wasn't he playing club? DD went through this, but she still had club games.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Related question: If offered, should an athlete (let's say a freshman) always accept an offer to be on varsity?

Not necessarily. My kid accepted a spot on varsity his freshman year and rode the bench. Fine, but he lost confidence in game situations because he wasn’t in games. He didn’t play well. Then in stopped being much fun. He came back to varsity his Sophmore year because he had blown his JV eligibility playing a bunch of varsity games. He sat on the bench again, and it just killed his love of the game. He won’t play this year. If he had played JV his freshman and sophomore years he would have had fun, and maybe made varsity as a junior or maybe not, but the experience would have been happier.

Just to be clear, he did play some his freshman year - last 2 minutes of blow outs, etc. so he played in 8-10 games, just never any real contribution.

Anonymous wrote:Related question: If offered, should an athlete (let's say a freshman) always accept an offer to be on varsity?

Not necessarily. My kid accepted a spot on varsity his freshman year and rode the bench. Fine, but he lost confidence in game situations because he wasn’t in games. He didn’t play well. Then in stopped being much fun. He came back to varsity his Sophmore year because he had blown his JV eligibility playing a bunch of varsity games. He sat on the bench again, and it just killed his love of the game. He won’t play this year. If he had played JV his freshman and sophomore years he would have had fun, and maybe made varsity as a junior or maybe not, but the experience would have been happier.

Anonymous wrote:Related question: If offered, should an athlete (let's say a freshman) always accept an offer to be on varsity?

Yes. They will practice with varsity and they will be coached by the varsity coaches. By the time next year comes, they will be a very known quantity. They are probably still playing their sport at the club level, so they are getting playing time in games- just not in high school games. Of course this assumes that the kid isn't just great and will start on varsity- obviously that's a much easier decision

Related question: If offered, should an athlete (let's say a freshman) always accept an offer to be on varsity?

I think there is a difference in private school versus public school and depends on the sport.

I don’t think you can generalize.

In our large private, volleyball practices overlap but on separate courts.

Lacrosse practice is together at the beginning, but varsity practice is a little longer.

At my high school in the 90s when our JV lacrosse team was new, to be competitive and to field a large-enough team, they allowed a few less-talented varsity players to “start” ( first string) on JV but they practiced and only went played in extreme (end of game) cases for varsity.

Anonymous wrote:Not much. One or two players from JV get to bench warm.

That's my observation from a large public. A varsity player with an injury may get a jv player promoted to the bench, but they won't play

What sport? Public? Private?

My examples, from very large competitive private:
-small amount of movement between JV and Varsity volleyball to fill in or sub at specific positions when a sophomore or junior was faltering or an upperclassman was injured; sometimes shared warmups and court set-up and traveled together on same schedule with rare exceptions
-softball: same as above but separate practice fields; shared game field maintenance
-swimming: no clear line between the two except at end of season when varsity letters were issued based on times/points; shared practices
-zero interaction except socially and at tryouts for lacrosse

It's all about varsity...period...p.e.r.i.d...

Not much. One or two players from JV get to bench warm.

How much interaction if any is there between the JV and V teams for each sport? Does your school sometimes do joint practices? Do they scrimmage together?