Anonymous wrote:I know this is a dumb question for this board, but please help. I am not athletic and not at all in the know about how sports work in this crazy area…

My 4th grade DD is very talented. Picks up new sports quickly and easily, tough and disciplined, developing athletic IQ, good coordination, very fast, coachable, blah blah blah. She’s been playing her preferred sport at a higher than rec but still local level and - at the urging of other parents/coaches on her team - is going to try out for a travel club.

IF she makes it, what are the pros and cons to staying where we are v going to this next level? She is committed and wants to play at the highest level possible… but just… from a parent perspective, why? I mean, she’s 10. I have no idea if she’ll be good enough to get a HS or college scholarship or even if she’d want to do that. So please walk me through how to make this decision in a logical way.

If she is fast and bigger vs kids her age she will be good to go. Just remember it’s a huge time commitment(on your part), it’s expensive, many of the parents are extremely competitive/ back stabbing and games/practice/tryouts are pressure for kids. The kids play not to make mistakes. The coaches are hit or miss very few are any good.

Every parent who knows nothing about the sport will tell you the coach is great. All this means is the coach picked their kid. I have seen many kids have their confidence destroyed by coaches. Oh and the club will want you to do every camp, training skills, etc. It’s pay to play.

Anonymous wrote:Thank you all again. This has been an incredibly helpful thread.

To answer some questions, she is approaching this with a friend - which would certainly make things easier on the parents - but the kids understand this isn’t a package deal. And they are prepared for that.

And yea, this is what she wants even if it’s the only activity she does. So that’s fine. She understands and wants the commitment.

We’ll see what happens. If she makes the team we’ll try it for a year as others have suggested. And go from there.

Good luck! And good luck with the potentially thorny situation of two friends trying out. There’s only one scenario in 4 where everyone will be happy.

We signed up one kid for club soccer and really gave it no forethought at all other than “he likes soccer” and the practices were close by. We had no desire for him to play college or even high school. Five years later, he’s still at it and having a great time. We doubt he will play in high school because he has a different year round sport that he prefers. In any case, I really hope my kids don’t play sports in college beside rec level/ultimate on the quad.

He has tried a ton of things over the years- chess, piano, taekwondo, basketball, robotics, ski team, etc. Both you and your child will know when something sticks.

Anonymous wrote:There are no pros. Just a bunch of cons. In fact the whole industry is a con.

Yup. Travel leagues are a money grab.

Thank you all again. This has been an incredibly helpful thread.

To answer some questions, she is approaching this with a friend - which would certainly make things easier on the parents - but the kids understand this isn’t a package deal. And they are prepared for that.

And yea, this is what she wants even if it’s the only activity she does. So that’s fine. She understands and wants the commitment.

We’ll see what happens. If she makes the team we’ll try it for a year as others have suggested. And go from there.

"Travel" can be misleading. For three seasons we were on a travel team that 90% of the time drove a max of 45 minutes with an occasional weekend tournament that the kids loved.

Yes in some leagues you'll be traveling for real, but its not a binary choice between local rec and hours away travel.

Anonymous wrote:I know this is a dumb question for this board, but please help. I am not athletic and not at all in the know about how sports work in this crazy area…

My 4th grade DD is very talented. Picks up new sports quickly and easily, tough and disciplined, developing athletic IQ, good coordination, very fast, coachable, blah blah blah. She’s been playing her preferred sport at a higher than rec but still local level and - at the urging of other parents/coaches on her team - is going to try out for a travel club.

IF she makes it, what are the pros and cons to staying where we are v going to this next level? She is committed and wants to play at the highest level possible… but just… from a parent perspective, why? I mean, she’s 10. I have no idea if she’ll be good enough to get a HS or college scholarship or even if she’d want to do that. So please walk me through how to make this decision in a logical way.

Try it for a year. Ask lots of questions. Observe. Agree there's no need to worry so much about college or even HS.

Then read about college recruiting. There is a lot of information on the internet but 99.9% of people underestimate the fact that most players, if they go on to play college level, even D1, do not get any money. If they get money, it's typically nowhere near a "full ride." If it's more money, it's coming from academics/financial aid (that you'd get anyway), and attending a lower-ranked school than you would otherwise maybe choose. That's not necessarily bad, but people do not understand this, which is surprising to me given then amount of information on the internet.

It's sometimes easier to get "Recruited" to play a sport in college as a girl (depending on the sport) than a boy, because of fewer international recruits and other factors.

Read some books on college recruiting if you're really interested, I recommend Looking for a Full Ride and also google up some articles on realistic chances.

Like someone else said, if she wants to try piano, would you not allow her because she may not major in music?

(by the way - way more money in music recruiting than sports)

OP, if your kid has friends already playing the same travel sport, suggest talking to their parents and even trying to catch a game or two (my own kid loves going out to cheer on her friends).

Clubs and teams have varying levels of intensity, so this will give you a good feel for things. I encouraged my kids to try multiple things, but they both got hooked on the same sport and wanted more of it, so we found less intense teams for each of them and it’s worked out well. More practices with similarly interested kids, but no overnight travel and 2/3 of the games (including tournaments) are within 30 minutes from home.

OP ask your daughter whether she wants to keep doing other sports a couple times a week or if she just wants to focus on this one sport. I know some really athletic kids who could be on a top travel team for multiple sports, but they are in rec because they like being able to do multiple sports in the same season and don’t have a favorite sport yet. Travel is more about the kid having a clear favorite sport and wanting to prioritize it over other extracurriculars. It’s possible to do travel with other rec sports/activities and even beneficial if you can make it work, but those other things have to be fit in around the travel sport. Travel coaches expect that you will prioritize their practices and games.

Not all travel sports are the same when it comes to weekend games and tournaments, so hearing about sports other than soccer won’t be super helpful. Consider the timing of the fall and spring soccer seasons and whether or not you mind not being able to go away on weekends (for non soccer stuff) during those times of year. I personally don’t mind since it overlaps with the school year… but you may feel differently. I am steering my kids away from sports like lacrosse and baseball because those go into the summer which is when we tend to travel.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How much travel and how far? I know some say travel and it’s to the next county over. Some say travel and it’s a couple of hours away with a night or two in a hotel. These are drastically different.

This would be local practices (but more days a week), games 45 mins away, and tournaments a few times a year longer distances away - maybe 1-2 that would require hotels. It’s not overwhelming, but enough that this would be kid’s only activity.

This sounds reasonable, especially if this is the kid’s only activity. I would advise that you allow your daughter to try out. Rec soccer becomes more frustrating for skilled players as they get older - most of the skilled players will commit to travel soccer, and the rest will treat rec soccer as a second or third priority to their main sport. If you wait until 11/12 to join travel, it’s harder to catch up.

You will also have to decide if she will try out for just her club or any additional ones. The teams are not huge at this age - 10u roster is limited to 12.

And don’t think about hs or college plans! If your kid really wanted piano lessons, I’m sure you would decide without considering her chances of making it as a concert pianist. She likes it NOW. That’s enough.

Anonymous wrote:How much travel and how far? I know some say travel and it’s to the next county over. Some say travel and it’s a couple of hours away with a night or two in a hotel. These are drastically different.

This would be local practices (but more days a week), games 45 mins away, and tournaments a few times a year longer distances away - maybe 1-2 that would require hotels. It’s not overwhelming, but enough that this would be kid’s only activity.

How much travel and how far? I know some say travel and it’s to the next county over. Some say travel and it’s a couple of hours away with a night or two in a hotel. These are drastically different.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I wanted to respond to this part of your question:

“She is committed and wants to play at the highest level possible… but just… from a parent perspective, why? I mean, she’s 10. I have no idea if she’ll be good enough to get a HS or college scholarship or even if she’d want to do that. So please walk me through how to make this decision in a logical way.”

You should not go into this process with the idea that your child may be good enough to get a scholarship down the line. Putting aside the odds of that happening for any kid, you don’t really have enough info yet to know how talented your child actually is since she hasn’t been in a competitive program yet. She sounds like a kid who will probably learn and grow from the travel experience, and that should be your only focus for now if you can afford it.

Once you enter into the travel world, just evaluate it one season or year at a time. The goals for the coming year or two should all be about developing foot skills and learning how to play positions. Then most soccer kids focus on trying to make their middle school teams (not easy at most public schools in our area), next step is trying to make the HS team, or make varsity, while hopefully playing on a good travel team that is both competitive and fun. You can quit at any point along the way, but you don’t need to think about potential college play for many years.

You know how athletic you are, you know how athletic your spouse is, and you know how athletic your family is. You know how tall you are, how tall your spouse is, and where your kid is on growth charts. You know how athletic your kid is compared to their peers and how coordinated your kid is. With all that information, you get a pretty good idea. Sure there are outliers, but genetics almost always wins.

You cannot know whether your 10 year old rec soccer player will eventually play in college even if you are able to accurately assess their athletic ability. There are far too many variables, and it’s not helpful to their development to try to forecast that far out. All you need to do is keep giving them opportunities to improve and the rest will sort itself out in time.

My kids were never going to be on the track. The couple of kids the played with who the parents agreed would play something are playing D1. There aren’t many kids like that, but if mom is 6’2 and dad is 6’4 and both played something in college, the odds are in the kid’s favor

Don’t think of this as a one time monumental decision. The yearly fee will be hefty and largely nonrefundable, but you can also sign up for installments and leave before the year is up if it doesn’t suit. Plenty of kids only do a year and move on to something else.

What is your chief concern? If you are concerned about the family time commitment, ask the club for a sample 10u or 11u girls’ practice/game/tournament schedule. Check it against your calendar from last year and see how many events you/your child would have missed. Pay attention to expectations over the summer.

If you are concerned about diving into the “my child plays travel soccer” subculture, then yeah, that can be an adjustment. It really depends on your team. Some families are 100% travel focused and drive around with cases of Gatorade, canopies and outdoor chairs in their cars. They will show up at an afternoon soccer game and wearily but proudly announce that this is their 6th game of the day. Others mostly chauffeur their kids and never know the score.