Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As my high school's basketball coach used to say, "you can't teach tall." (that said, there were always a couple of players hovering around 5'6-5'8 on the team)

Your coach was a washed-up-charity-case-drunk who lived on recycled garbage. Sorry.

My kids played basketball all thru high school. I have literally heard at least 10 coaches say this over the years.

Still doesn't mean its not losers coasting on cliches.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As my high school's basketball coach used to say, "you can't teach tall." (that said, there were always a couple of players hovering around 5'6-5'8 on the team)

Your coach was a washed-up-charity-case-drunk who lived on recycled garbage. Sorry.

My kids played basketball all thru high school. I have literally heard at least 10 coaches say this over the years.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As my high school's basketball coach used to say, "you can't teach tall." (that said, there were always a couple of players hovering around 5'6-5'8 on the team)

Your coach was a washed-up-charity-case-drunk who lived on recycled garbage. Sorry.

Anonymous wrote:As my high school's basketball coach used to say, "you can't teach tall." (that said, there were always a couple of players hovering around 5'6-5'8 on the team)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Soccer in the USA is so UMC kids don't get slapped around by the colored kids in basketball and football.

The thing about the contact laws in soccer 50/50 balls is they just don't work well when contact isn't shoulder to shoulder. When there is a difference in height the taller player isn't allowed to drop their shoulders so it's more like elbow to head or shoulders to ribs. So soccer players tend towards average height more than you would expect. You don't want to be the odd one out on a soccer squad and every challenge is like that. Except in the US they run slightly shorter than other places.

No. Look at the European leagues. 75-85% of the field player roster is above average in height. Look at the NCAA women’s soccer roster - the same.

Contract in soccer is about getting hands or an arm on the other player. A taller play can shield the ball from a short player, has longer/arms, lower the shoulder and lean on the smaller player. This really pays off after the 70 minute mark.

I don't disagree. My assertion is that this is why American soccer doesn't do well. It's an advantage when you can field a squad that is on average pretty tall, but when you have a squad that is mostly average or even below average, it's just kind of awkward to have an odd duck six or more inches taller than your 5'8" squad... It's not the big matches, just day to day challenges amongst 20 or so players with shots to the ribs no red cards with those dirty short players in practice. Plus, you're a six two, three or four ideal athlete with elite speed might as well be a wide receiver, tight end or something.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As my high school's basketball coach used to say, "you can't teach tall." (that said, there were always a couple of players hovering around 5'6-5'8 on the team)

Those were the kids with rock star personalities and super human work ethic.

Anonymous wrote:As my high school's basketball coach used to say, "you can't teach tall." (that said, there were always a couple of players hovering around 5'6-5'8 on the team)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Swimming (college recruiting) also favors tall and of course long limbs.

Swim recruiting is about times. While it is true that being taller is often an advantage and may lead to faster times, college coaches are not recruiting based on height or limb length - they are recruiting based on times (and demonstrated trajectory).

Nah has was eloquently exposed in the follow ups to the Varsity Blues sting most of the non-money sports filter started finding ways to filter kids at much younger ages so that poor kids don't have a chance to get times.

https://time.com/6100715/varsity-blues-trial-college-sports/

They used to be able to reliably cheat, even if they didn't have the times or whatever the coaches would just take a kick back, but now they have to have the times so they make it so that poor families can't get their kids into the programs at all.

Poor kids already get the low income preference. They can't have them all.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Swimming (college recruiting) also favors tall and of course long limbs.

Swim recruiting is about times. While it is true that being taller is often an advantage and may lead to faster times, college coaches are not recruiting based on height or limb length - they are recruiting based on times (and demonstrated trajectory).

Nah has was eloquently exposed in the follow ups to the Varsity Blues sting most of the non-money sports filter started finding ways to filter kids at much younger ages so that poor kids don't have a chance to get times.

https://time.com/6100715/varsity-blues-trial-college-sports/

They used to be able to reliably cheat, even if they didn't have the times or whatever the coaches would just take a kick back, but now they have to have the times so they make it so that poor families can't get their kids into the programs at all.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Now I'm curious about the height of high school baseball pitchers. My child is on the taller side at 6'2" but honestly I see a wide variety of heights in pitchers, including some short ones.

DS has average velo and lots of the faster pitchers so far are definitely shorter than he is.

My kids are softball pitchers so it's a little different, but my understanding is the shorter pitchers have to perfect their mechanics at an even more obsessive rate to overcome the shorter limbs. Or perhaps these overall shorter pitchers happen to have proportionately short torsos.

Longer arms are a huge advantage in ball throwing sports. It's the distance the ball spends in their hand during the throw. The ball can spend overall more time accelerating. This has several advantages. A) More time accelerating, faster overall velocity. B) Even if the shorter arm compensates there is more time to control the ball in a less explosive throw. C) If the shorter arm manages to compensate, there is a higher likelihood of injury because there are more forces involved.

In addition: longer arms will likely have more overall muscle mass to bring to bear. The smaller pitcher may be able to do more pushups, but at the end of the day the ball is the same size so if I am 220lbs and I do a pushup, it takes much more power to do so than a 180lb person. I think this where many short people make about tall athletes. They tend to quantify speed, but often times it's power and tall athletes' power is often off the charts. I really realized this taking spinning classes where they measure it, I have to push like twice as many watts as the instructor recommended just to get a workout. But the way that translates to cycling, taller/bigger riders are better for sprints and track riding, but for mountain climbing smaller riders are better.

So higher speeds, more control and less risk of injury more muscle mass.

Anonymous wrote:Now I'm curious about the height of high school baseball pitchers. My child is on the taller side at 6'2" but honestly I see a wide variety of heights in pitchers, including some short ones.

DS has average velo and lots of the faster pitchers so far are definitely shorter than he is.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Now I'm curious about the height of high school baseball pitchers. My child is on the taller side at 6'2" but honestly I see a wide variety of heights in pitchers, including some short ones.

DS has average velo and lots of the faster pitchers so far are definitely shorter than he is.

My kids are softball pitchers so it's a little different, but my understanding is the shorter pitchers have to perfect their mechanics at an even more obsessive rate to overcome the shorter limbs. Or perhaps these overall shorter pitchers happen to have proportionately short torsos.

Anonymous wrote:Now I'm curious about the height of high school baseball pitchers. My child is on the taller side at 6'2" but honestly I see a wide variety of heights in pitchers, including some short ones.

DS has average velo and lots of the faster pitchers so far are definitely shorter than he is.