Anonymous wrote:Usually no one gets cut from track and cross country. They are considered "social sports". In fact at some schools there are so many team members that the coach can't keep track of all of them.

The reason that track and XC don't cut is that it takes years of running to develop a runner, and most kids don't run until MS or HS. Often you can't tell what a freshman will do by senior year.

Runners dislike and are kind of baffled by kids who join their teams looking to socialize. If kids are not good but willing to run hard that's ok. Kids who join the team and then don't do the work are hated. As a coach, I struggled with those kids, but fortunately did not deal with them much.

PP back again.

Wow. Looking at the Robinson crew page, I found a link to this http://www.row4nvrc.com/NVRC_Junior-Learn.html
which sounds like it would work well for my son! Thank you PP, for mentioning crew!

Anonymous wrote:Basically, the larger the school, the harder it will be to make a varsity team...especially in fairfax county where the parents have had their kids in club teams from the age of 5.

At Robinson, where athletics are a big deal, no cut teams include cross country, track, crew. Maybe field hockey???

Everything else is verrrry competitive.

Crew? I didn't realize that high schools around here had crew (I'm from the west coast, and my kids aren't old enough for high school yet!). That is awesome! I was a coxswain for my university's mens team. I would love for my kids to be involved. My oldest (son) is in 7th grade currently, but has absolutely no rowing experience (like I said--I didn't even really know it was in schools around here.) We are not in the Robinson (or even in Fairfax county) district though. I'll have to look and see if the schools we are elligible for have it!

Maybe go private where you might be able to 'donate' your kids into a spot on a team???

Usually no one gets cut from track and cross country. They are considered "social sports". In fact at some schools there are so many team members that the coach can't keep track of all of them.

Basically, the larger the school, the harder it will be to make a varsity team...especially in fairfax county where the parents have had their kids in club teams from the age of 5.

At Robinson, where athletics are a big deal, no cut teams include cross country, track, crew. Maybe field hockey???

Everything else is verrrry competitive.

Totally school dependent.

My HS was a soccer power-house. State champs many years. My friends and I on the top travel team made Varsity as Freshmen--but the norm was that most girls didn't make it until Junior year or not at all.

Track is generally all-inclusive.

At our public HS soccer, basketball, tennis, golf and baseball are difficult to make even JV. Dance team is very difficult, Cheerleading not so much. Varsity lacrosse is, JV not so much but you can only play JV in 9 th and 10th grade. In fact most varsity sports are tough to make without a reasonable amount of skill. Football is no cut. Field hockey and softball are easy for JV. XC and track are no cut and are huge teams but only a small group does Invitational meets which are top 2 per event or you have to meet qualifying times.

It really varies by school so ask around your neighborhood. Go to some games and get a sense of the kids skills but also the dynamics.

Anonymous wrote:Lacrosse for public school

Are you saying Lacrosse is easiest or most difficult?


Not sure if it's changed since I was in school, but when I was in high school, I remember Track and Field and Cross country as being "all inclusive". ANYONE who wanted to be in Track and Field could do it. Football pretty much was as well, though if you weren't good, you'd be like 3rd string and not get much playing time. We had a pretty good team (not state champ level or anything, but usually in the top 2 for our district of about 12 teams.)

Lacrosse for public school

Soccer and basketball are generally difficult to make for younger class men even when they have played travel/club sports since skilled 15 yo travel player is generally (plenty of exceptions though) not nearly as good as the skilled 16 and 17 YOs. There seem to be less girls that play year round volleyball so more non-travel players make that team . Swim team is all inclusive though the year-round swimmers seem to be the ones that compete in meets. That's our experience.

6:57 By club sports, you mean not travel or competitive league growing up? Anyone can make club sports, so why would those kids automatically make the team? At our local school, even the kids who play travel don't necessarily make the teams.

I think you can tell early on if your child has coordination, focus and commitment from a young age for certain sports; that being said, ability could still change. We still did dance and gymnastics for fun for DD for a couple years but now as we head intohomework time age (2nd)- I am canceling out many things and leaving them for summer camp fun.

I don't want to invest their time or mine driving and coordinating if I see no talent.

Depends on the school. At Wakefield the basketball team is a big deal and most athletic guys go for that and don't play football. They are desperate for football players and just about anyone can make the team. Yet just a few miles away at Yorktown football is huge and its really hard to make that team.

Baseball might be a safe sport? Or swim team.

I have a number of friends with older kids who are dismayed that their children did not make their schools' sports teams despite having played club sports for years. Just looking at what's ahead for my own daughters, I'm wondering if there are any sports that are relatively easy to make and don't require many years worth of training to simply stand a shot of making the team.