Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reality is, all the kids playing HS only and 99%+ of kids playing Travel will all be in the same place with soccer in 5 years

Exactly. If there is no path to college or pro soccer, high level travel soccer is an extravagant expense for high school age players. $10K/year would do much better sitting in a 529. At most high schools it is possible to make the team without continuing to play travel. I imagine many figure this out freshman/sophomore year.

Call me crazy but soccer isn't some investment for my daughter. 529s are fine as well. She actually likes playing club soccer and is really damn good at it so we support her.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reality is, all the kids playing HS only and 99%+ of kids playing Travel will all be in the same place with soccer in 5 years

Exactly. If there is no path to college or pro soccer, high level travel soccer is an extravagant expense for high school age players. $10K/year would do much better sitting in a 529. At most high schools it is possible to make the team without continuing to play travel. I imagine many figure this out freshman/sophomore year.

You would think more people would get this

Anonymous wrote:Reality is, all the kids playing HS only and 99%+ of kids playing Travel will all be in the same place with soccer in 5 years

Exactly. If there is no path to college or pro soccer, high level travel soccer is an extravagant expense for high school age players. $10K/year would do much better sitting in a 529. At most high schools it is possible to make the team without continuing to play travel. I imagine many figure this out freshman/sophomore year.

Anonymous wrote:Reality is, all the kids playing HS only and 99%+ of kids playing Travel will all be in the same place with soccer in 5 years

They are all going to either be in college talking about when they used to play club or HS soccer, or at work somewhere exaggerating their former soccer days exploits

Anonymous wrote:Reality is, all the kids playing HS only and 99%+ of kids playing Travel will all be in the same place with soccer in 5 years

Haha. So true.

I wish my kid had quit club. Most others had, and Maryland United struggled to put teams together. They usually had very small people playing up to fill in the empty spaces and had zero subs!

Maryland United is a big mess.

Depends but generally, yes.

My kid made varsity this year not having done club last year and it was not a pretty tryout. They got to know the coach last year and had earned some goodwill. There were some "are you really committed?" talks and honestly, they are not, but they will show up to practice when they can, they're just gonna miss some practices due to other commitments not realted to soccer. They won't play in a lot of games and not at all in important games. Soccer just fell down the list of priorities later in HS. Which is fine by me, and I've encouraged them to quit if it interferes with other more important goals. But they enjoy the team-ness of it and get some exercise.

My kid is probably the only kid like this on the HS team. Most kids are CLUB ALL YEAR and VERY COMMITTED.

Reality is, all the kids playing HS only and 99%+ of kids playing Travel will all be in the same place with soccer in 5 years

High school soccer - if child makes it - is the happiest soccer of a very long career. Wish the level was better! (So college coaches could recruit out of programs)

But it really is cool to see community and crowds grow with WC next year

At our HS, many kids quit club for senior year. A few quit junior year. I think everyone played club sophomore year. But our school isn’t the most competitive.

I coached (rec league) a couple of kids who made their varsities and then quit travel to play rec, especially in the fall when the HS teams weren't playing. They were generally among the happiest kids I coached.

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, really depends on the school. My son had a few kids on his HS varsity team that stopped playing club and did different sports instead.

I know one kid joined the football team and was the kicker and punter.

Nothing wrong with doing different things. Might even be healthier. Unless you're a can't miss prospect, no reason to pay thousands of dollars to play 1 sport year-round.

Yeah, really depends on the school. My son had a few kids on his HS varsity team that stopped playing club and did different sports instead.

I know one kid joined the football team and was the kicker and punter.

Probably fine once you make varsity to quit other team.

It depends on the school.

Once on the team, is it difficult to play Varsity soccer throughout high school without playing club anymore? DC wants to also play other sports and focus on academics.