Underwear with the cup built in.

You can get them at Dick's or Sports Authority.

Thanks everyone! I would normally ask my dad to talk to him about this, but I suspect that "cups" have changed since he was 12 in the 1940's...

Buy the underwear (like tight boxers)...the underwear comes in sizes based on weight. The cup comes with it.

Google?

I'm also a single mom to a son, but this thread kind of makes me laugh, because most of my male friends who are dads spent high school playing Dungeons and Dragons as opposed to sports. I don't think they'd be able to answer this question either.

For baseball, my son 9yo wears compression shorts which have a pocket for a cup I wouldn't wish a jock strap on my worst enemy.

http://m.dickssportinggoods.com/product/index.jsp?productId=13063622&ppp=24&cp=4406646.4413887.4414021.13016138

Just call the coach, it's different for different sports. If you don't know who the coach is ask another parent, this is the age they start to need this stuff so they will have recently bought one.

Why don't you just contact the coach, explain you're a single mom, and ask him?

If he doesn't want to ask anyone he knows, how about asking a young guy working at a sporting goods store -- as in, I'm trying out for hockey and am not sure what I need -- is this what most guys get? It may be embarrassing but chances are the guy would know, and even better for your kid -- he won't ever have to see that guy again.

My DS had to get one for sports last year. His is McDavid brand -- looks like regular, brief-style underwear, but the fly has a pouch where the removable hard cup can be inserted. Seems to have worked out fine.

Single mom of teen boy. It depends on the sport. If they are wearing hockey pads or football girdle it's tight enough to hold a cup on its own with just boxers. If it's a less padded sport then my kid prefers the shorts to the strap. We actually had the opposite problem to what you wonder about which is that my big but prepubescent kid found that he needed "man" sized shorts and a "youth sized cup, and they don't come packaged that way. We ended up buying a hockey cup which was sold separately and putting it in the large short

He doesn't know -- that's why I am asking. This is his first time needing one. He was too embarrassed to ask the teacher.

Take him to the sports store and let him pick out the one he wants. They know.

Do 12 year olds wear the old fashioned jock strap type cups anymore? Or do they wear underwear with built in ones. I saw the latter at Sports Authority (called a McDavid or something), but it didn't look big enough to hold in all the "goods". And, no, this is not a troll post. My son needs it for school sports try-outs, and I am afraid to send him in with the wrong thing and embarrass him in front of all his middle school class-mates.