Anonymous wrote:When we lived in Jersey there was something called "inter county soccer". Basically it was all of the local towns that had enough kids that didnt want to do travel and could make a team. It was really cheap and the furthest any of your games were was like 25 minutes from home. It was really nice for my older kid. You would put 20 kids on a team and hope 11 showed up (mostly because of conflicts with other sports). They would combine 2 age groups so towns would have enough players. It was really nice
That kind of sounds like how Fairfax County runs its select basketball league. You have to try out and make a team, but you are only playing within the county and you don't go to any out of town tournaments. Some of the kids who play county/select bball also play AAU year round, but there are plenty of kids (especially in the lower divisions) who only play basketball in the winter because of other sports. The coaches are parent volunteers, so it's a lot cheaper.
I wish soccer had something similar. I know there's the SFL, but those teams aren't formed through tryouts so you can end up with a wide range of experience and skills. Having separate select teams that compete against other select teams would benefit the kids who can't or don't want to commit to travel, but still want a little more of a competitive environment.