Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have been thinking about this topic a lot lately and there are some good points in this thread. Have a 9 year old son who plays travel soccer year round and have been thinking about switching to a "better" club. This would mean traveling further for practices and games, having more practices and more commitment. My son has been asking to play other sports though so I think the right balance is staying with the closer soccer club that is not as competitive but gives us more flexibility and free time to explore other sports. Everything I have read suggests playing several sports is what is best for kids anyway, even if there is a primary sport you don't have to make that sport all or nothing for the kid.

You sound entirely too rational for this message board. What are you doing here?

Anonymous wrote:I have been thinking about this topic a lot lately and there are some good points in this thread. Have a 9 year old son who plays travel soccer year round and have been thinking about switching to a "better" club. This would mean traveling further for practices and games, having more practices and more commitment. My son has been asking to play other sports though so I think the right balance is staying with the closer soccer club that is not as competitive but gives us more flexibility and free time to explore other sports. Everything I have read suggests playing several sports is what is best for kids anyway, even if there is a primary sport you don't have to make that sport all or nothing for the kid.

Anonymous wrote:

We should urge kids to avoid hyperspecialization and instead sample a variety of sports through at least age 12.

Nearly a third of youth athletes in a three-year longitudinal study led by Neeru Jayanthi, director of primary care sports medicine at Loyola University in Chicago, were highly specialized — they had quit multiple sports in order to focus on one for more than eight months a year — and another third weren’t far behind. Even controlling for age and the total number of weekly hours in sports, kids in the study who were highly specialized had a 36 percent increased risk of suffering a serious overuse injury. Dr. Jayanthi saw kids with stress fractures in their backs, arms or legs; damage to elbow ligaments; and cracks in the cartilage in their joints.....
....In the Loyola study, sport diversification had a protective effect. But in case health risks alone aren’t reason enough for parents to ignore the siren call of specialization, diversification also provides performance benefits.

Kids who play multiple “attacking” sports, like basketball or field hockey, transfer learned motor and anticipatory skills — the unconscious ability to read bodies and game situations — to other sports. They take less time to master the sport they ultimately choose.

Several studies on skill acquisition now show that elite athletes generally practiced their sport less through their early teenage years and specialized only in the mid-to-late teenage years, while so-called sub-elites — those who never quite cracked the highest ranks — homed in on a single sport much sooner.

Data presented at the April meeting of the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine showed that varsity athletes at U.C.L.A. — many with full scholarships — specialized on average at age 15.4, whereas U.C.L.A. undergrads who played sports in high school, but did not make the intercollegiate level, specialized at 14.2.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/11/opinion/sports-should-be-childs-play.html?emc=eta1&_r=1

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Soccer at high levels means requiring the footskills at the critical learning ages 8-12. You just can't be an expert on the ball if you pick it up later. It is very heavily skill-based.

It is, at least in terms of any sort of very high-level play.

That said, I've seen kids pick up soccer at age 12 who are good enough to play for high school teams. I know that's a shock to people who signed their kids up for U7 WonderFootSkill class so they'd be "ahead," but some people simply have that much athleticism and aptitude to pick up skills.

And many soccer pros -- in the U.S., sure, but also elsewhere, including people who've played at Premier League level -- played other sports as well (usually basketball, a good complement to soccer) until they were roughly 14.

It is not a shock that kids that start soccer at 12 can play in HS. HS soccer is in a bit of flux in regards to who play. Many high level club players are discouraged from playing HS soccer so it is a little more open than some other sports are. Some high level players do play HS for the experience of it but you do not need to be a soccer All Star to play in HS. But you do need to know how to play.

You really can't refer to HS soccer generically around here. The reality is that at some area high schools -- specifically the largest public and private/Catholic schools -- you DO need to be a good travel player on a competitive year round travel team in order to play on the varsity. If you are talking about smaller high schools, then sure -- you don't necessarily need to be playing on a travel team from U9 onward to make those varsity teams.

We should urge kids to avoid hyperspecialization and instead sample a variety of sports through at least age 12.

Nearly a third of youth athletes in a three-year longitudinal study led by Neeru Jayanthi, director of primary care sports medicine at Loyola University in Chicago, were highly specialized — they had quit multiple sports in order to focus on one for more than eight months a year — and another third weren’t far behind. Even controlling for age and the total number of weekly hours in sports, kids in the study who were highly specialized had a 36 percent increased risk of suffering a serious overuse injury. Dr. Jayanthi saw kids with stress fractures in their backs, arms or legs; damage to elbow ligaments; and cracks in the cartilage in their joints.....
....In the Loyola study, sport diversification had a protective effect. But in case health risks alone aren’t reason enough for parents to ignore the siren call of specialization, diversification also provides performance benefits.

Kids who play multiple “attacking” sports, like basketball or field hockey, transfer learned motor and anticipatory skills — the unconscious ability to read bodies and game situations — to other sports. They take less time to master the sport they ultimately choose.

Several studies on skill acquisition now show that elite athletes generally practiced their sport less through their early teenage years and specialized only in the mid-to-late teenage years, while so-called sub-elites — those who never quite cracked the highest ranks — homed in on a single sport much sooner.

Data presented at the April meeting of the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine showed that varsity athletes at U.C.L.A. — many with full scholarships — specialized on average at age 15.4, whereas U.C.L.A. undergrads who played sports in high school, but did not make the intercollegiate level, specialized at 14.2.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Soccer at high levels means requiring the footskills at the critical learning ages 8-12. You just can't be an expert on the ball if you pick it up later. It is very heavily skill-based.

It is, at least in terms of any sort of very high-level play.

That said, I've seen kids pick up soccer at age 12 who are good enough to play for high school teams. I know that's a shock to people who signed their kids up for U7 WonderFootSkill class so they'd be "ahead," but some people simply have that much athleticism and aptitude to pick up skills.

And many soccer pros -- in the U.S., sure, but also elsewhere, including people who've played at Premier League level -- played other sports as well (usually basketball, a good complement to soccer) until they were roughly 14.

It is not a shock that kids that start soccer at 12 can play in HS. HS soccer is in a bit of flux in regards to who play. Many high level club players are discouraged from playing HS soccer so it is a little more open than some other sports are. Some high level players do play HS for the experience of it but you do not need to be a soccer All Star to play in HS. But you do need to know how to play.

You really can't refer to HS soccer generically around here. The reality is that at some area high schools -- specifically the largest public and private/Catholic schools -- you DO need to be a good travel player on a competitive year round travel team in order to play on the varsity. If you are talking about smaller high schools, then sure -- you don't necessarily need to be playing on a travel team from U9 onward to make those varsity teams.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Soccer at high levels means requiring the footskills at the critical learning ages 8-12. You just can't be an expert on the ball if you pick it up later. It is very heavily skill-based.

It is, at least in terms of any sort of very high-level play.

That said, I've seen kids pick up soccer at age 12 who are good enough to play for high school teams. I know that's a shock to people who signed their kids up for U7 WonderFootSkill class so they'd be "ahead," but some people simply have that much athleticism and aptitude to pick up skills.

And many soccer pros -- in the U.S., sure, but also elsewhere, including people who've played at Premier League level -- played other sports as well (usually basketball, a good complement to soccer) until they were roughly 14.

It is not a shock that kids that start soccer at 12 can play in HS. HS soccer is in a bit of flux in regards to who play. Many high level club players are discouraged from playing HS soccer so it is a little more open than some other sports are. Some high level players do play HS for the experience of it but you do not need to be a soccer All Star to play in HS. But you do need to know how to play.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Soccer at high levels means requiring the footskills at the critical learning ages 8-12. You just can't be an expert on the ball if you pick it up later. It is very heavily skill-based.

It is, at least in terms of any sort of very high-level play.

That said, I've seen kids pick up soccer at age 12 who are good enough to play for high school teams. I know that's a shock to people who signed their kids up for U7 WonderFootSkill class so they'd be "ahead," but some people simply have that much athleticism and aptitude to pick up skills.

And many soccer pros -- in the U.S., sure, but also elsewhere, including people who've played at Premier League level -- played other sports as well (usually basketball, a good complement to soccer) until they were roughly 14.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Soccer at high levels means requiring the footskills at the critical learning ages 8-12. You just can't be an expert on the ball if you pick it up later. It is very heavily skill-based.

It is, at least in terms of any sort of very high-level play.

That said, I've seen kids pick up soccer at age 12 who are good enough to play for high school teams. I know that's a shock to people who signed their kids up for U7 WonderFootSkill class so they'd be "ahead," but some people simply have that much athleticism and aptitude to pick up skills.

And many soccer pros -- in the U.S., sure, but also elsewhere, including people who've played at Premier League level -- played other sports as well (usually basketball, a good complement to soccer) until they were roughly 14.

Yep. It's why our Natuonal team sucks. You are really not playing soccer at all I. That situation. You are just getting the biggest, fastest kids to mow the ball down the field. We need a new name for this sport. It resemble nothing of the original game and a style that gets crushed anywhere else I. The world.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Soccer at high levels means requiring the footskills at the critical learning ages 8-12. You just can't be an expert on the ball if you pick it up later. It is very heavily skill-based.

It is, at least in terms of any sort of very high-level play.

That said, I've seen kids pick up soccer at age 12 who are good enough to play for high school teams. I know that's a shock to people who signed their kids up for U7 WonderFootSkill class so they'd be "ahead," but some people simply have that much athleticism and aptitude to pick up skills.

And many soccer pros -- in the U.S., sure, but also elsewhere, including people who've played at Premier League level -- played other sports as well (usually basketball, a good complement to soccer) until they were roughly 14.

Anonymous wrote:Soccer at high levels means requiring the footskills at the critical learning ages 8-12. You just can't be an expert on the ball if you pick it up later. It is very heavily skill-based.