My son fences and last summer, he went to the Summer Nationals. In his age group (basically boys age 8-11), the kid who came in first place was a little Asian kid. He beat out over 100 fencers (most of them much bigger than him) for the top prize. It made my son feel a lot better about being tiny.

We have some great players on the school's ultimate frisbee team who are smaller in size. Height is helpful for some aspects, but these players focus on the other aspects and are among some of the best players (who get on competitive summer teams).

baseball.

squash.

Another 5th percentile boy. Great soccer player.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:my son is in the 5th percentile-he is an amazing soccer player-center mid, striker, wing. He plays basketball as well and is a pretty good point guard..he also plays baseball-top team, best outfielder on the team-he is FAST and ok at batting. He is not as big as the others but for his size he manages well enough. Plays flag football and again his size is an advantage-fast, excellent quarterback. His size has not stopped him from doing any sport he wanted to pursue.

Similar to my tiny son. I also want to add tennis. He seems to do really well at tennis.

He's okay at basketball but not great. But is super fast when he plays baseball and also does well in the outfield and shortstop (?). Needs work on batting but I feel like you can get better at that with practice.

Also agree with the PP who commented abozut coachability. My DS always gets comments about how he has a great attitude and I think it makes a huge difference. He's an excellent team player and seems to do well on teams and with his friends.

I am the PP you are quoting-mine also loves tennis and again because he is quick and agile, is pretty good at it. And yes, I too am told often that he is a "coachable" kid as well. He loves to play anything that involves his friends and I like you believe it is his attitude. Never occurred to us to not encourage him to do what he wants based on his size. I have an older son that is built for sports and will NEVER, EVER play anything other than tennis.

^^ same as pp. My son does rec basketball and is very quick and excels, but given his probable future height it's not something he will likely continue. His passion is soccer. He has incredible ball skill and is quick and very tough for his size---he will take down players that are much larger. They can't knock him off the ball. It helps that he always played against his older brother who is much larger.

I did track and soccer so I can say it's what they are used to since I, the mom, was the one that spent most play time with them. We always did races and played soccer. DH has longer hours than I so my sport interests were the ones emphasized early.

Mine did soccer and track. He is short but not slight, very athletic. He is a very fast runner which helped compensate for size in soccer. He played on a high level travel team and high school varsity soccer.

Anonymous wrote:my son is in the 5th percentile-he is an amazing soccer player-center mid, striker, wing. He plays basketball as well and is a pretty good point guard..he also plays baseball-top team, best outfielder on the team-he is FAST and ok at batting. He is not as big as the others but for his size he manages well enough. Plays flag football and again his size is an advantage-fast, excellent quarterback. His size has not stopped him from doing any sport he wanted to pursue.

Similar to my tiny son. I also want to add tennis. He seems to do really well at tennis.

He's okay at basketball but not great. But is super fast when he plays baseball and also does well in the outfield and shortstop (?). Needs work on batting but I feel like you can get better at that with practice.

Also agree with the PP who commented abozut coachability. My DS always gets comments about how he has a great attitude and I think it makes a huge difference. He's an excellent team player and seems to do well on teams and with his friends.

Martial arts. My small DS has a lot more confidence after years of Taekwondo.

DH is 5'6" and his brother is 5'4". Both were champion tennis players in HS, and my brother in law played in college (Div III).

They're both small and wiry in build, but incredibly quick and coordinated. Plus they loved tennis (understatement!) and were happy to work their butts off at it.

This is similar to what I'm observing in oucommunity now. Commitment, drive, coachability, and love-of-the-sport go a long, long way for middle school and high school kids! It's not all size or even natural talent.