Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Absolutely not! Lots of kids from all socioeconomic levels play squash. In Baltimore there is a squash program geared towards lower socioeconomic kids.

Um. This is an exception that proves the rule situation.

It's a niche sport that people make their kids specialize in to get into elite colleges.

This...(and have seen it play out in real life)

That’s silly. It is not inequitable to spend one’s own money how one chooses. That is very different from having scholarships for so called elite sports. Apples and oranges.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can do you one better. I was flipping through the Vassar catalogue and they have a club polo team that competes against other schools. And yes, I polo with horses, not water polo.

You get club team means its a club, right?

DP. Club teams usually charge dues while varsity sports do not, so it’s even more inequitable.

Anonymous wrote:I can do you one better. I was flipping through the Vassar catalogue and they have a club polo team that competes against other schools. And yes, I polo with horses, not water polo.

You get club team means its a club, right?

Anonymous wrote:I was surprised to find out my DS’s college has a squash team. We’re from the Midwest, he attended private high school with rowing, and I don’t know anyone under 50 who plays squash. Is it a sport just for people at boarding schools who come from money?

Lots of urban metro privates have squash teams though not many have squash courts. There is a team @ our kids' school. Kid in our older DC's grade plays squash all to boost his stats for college admissions. I don't think he really likes it that much, but his mom knows it might be an asset at more selective schools. FWIW, a number of top schools have dropped these kinds of sports in recent years.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The field hockey and lacrosse teams are no different.

Incredibly different. Where I live, there have been field hockey and lacrosse teams, for generations, in school districts at all income levels.

This is not even close to the same thing as an individual, niche sport, often played outside of school and favored by well to do families.

I was talking about at the college level, and where I live they’re rich kid sports.

This is true of most non-revenue sports, gymnastics, swim, volleyball, even baseball. Basically any sport that is pay to play at the level where recruitment occurs is going to be a rich kid sport

Baseball a rich kid sport? Get serious. Travel doesn’t mean rich. My kids played travel and many of the families were semi-rural, working class, and drove beater trucks. If they were rich they were being awfully sneaky about it.

It means that or serious debt.

Both of our kids played a travel sport. DS played in a league where a number of the players' parents were working class. In fact, just a few of us owned cars. We traded our sedan in for a SUV in order to take more players on his team to games. A number of these kids had a shot at D1 scholarships. Perhaps not to the most academically rigorous schools, but still places they would've not have been able to swing unless on a scholarship.

DD played on a higher end team. There were less than a handful of players on financial aid. Most of the players on the team wanted to play in college - a few of the players on financial aid got D1 scholarships. Again, schools not the most academically rigorous, but certainly was a huge help to their families.

That said, we met TONS of people at tournaments who were putting it all into their kid getting a college scholarship and I sometimes wondered if it would work in the end. One dad clearly thought we were nuts as DD was not working to be recruited. I think a lot of tournament travel goes on credit cards and stays there for months till paid off.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Article about niche sports for the UMC, and describes the squash scene in CT.
https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/files/20201101_nichesports.pdf

The Atlantic retracted that article after it came out that the author made stuff up for the story. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/01/business/media/atlantic-ruth-shalit-barrett.html

Throw that article away! As PP noted, the Atlantic retracted it. It was full of fiction. The author has a history of making up facts.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The field hockey and lacrosse teams are no different.

Incredibly different. Where I live, there have been field hockey and lacrosse teams, for generations, in school districts at all income levels.

This is not even close to the same thing as an individual, niche sport, often played outside of school and favored by well to do families.

I was talking about at the college level, and where I live they’re rich kid sports.

This is true of most non-revenue sports, gymnastics, swim, volleyball, even baseball. Basically any sport that is pay to play at the level where recruitment occurs is going to be a rich kid sport

Baseball a rich kid sport? Get serious. Travel doesn’t mean rich. My kids played travel and many of the families were semi-rural, working class, and drove beater trucks. If they were rich they were being awfully sneaky about it.

did you kids play at a level where kids were drafted? Just like any other travel sport, there is travel, and then there is the type of travel that involves personal trainers and flights to tournaments

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The field hockey and lacrosse teams are no different.

Incredibly different. Where I live, there have been field hockey and lacrosse teams, for generations, in school districts at all income levels.

This is not even close to the same thing as an individual, niche sport, often played outside of school and favored by well to do families.

I was talking about at the college level, and where I live they’re rich kid sports.

This is true of most non-revenue sports, gymnastics, swim, volleyball, even baseball. Basically any sport that is pay to play at the level where recruitment occurs is going to be a rich kid sport

Baseball a rich kid sport? Get serious. Travel doesn’t mean rich. My kids played travel and many of the families were semi-rural, working class, and drove beater trucks. If they were rich they were being awfully sneaky about it.

It means that or serious debt.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The field hockey and lacrosse teams are no different.

Incredibly different. Where I live, there have been field hockey and lacrosse teams, for generations, in school districts at all income levels.

This is not even close to the same thing as an individual, niche sport, often played outside of school and favored by well to do families.

I was talking about at the college level, and where I live they’re rich kid sports.

This is true of most non-revenue sports, gymnastics, swim, volleyball, even baseball. Basically any sport that is pay to play at the level where recruitment occurs is going to be a rich kid sport

Baseball a rich kid sport? Get serious. Travel doesn’t mean rich. My kids played travel and many of the families were semi-rural, working class, and drove beater trucks. If they were rich they were being awfully sneaky about it.

can't read it

Anonymous wrote:Article about niche sports for the UMC, and describes the squash scene in CT.
https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/files/20201101_nichesports.pdf

The Atlantic retracted that article after it came out that the author made stuff up for the story. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/01/business/media/atlantic-ruth-shalit-barrett.html

Anonymous wrote:Polo with horses?! I'd be very interested to know which colleges have this.

We had it at SMU, but it was a club team. I know someone who played on their college's croquet team.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The field hockey and lacrosse teams are no different.

Incredibly different. Where I live, there have been field hockey and lacrosse teams, for generations, in school districts at all income levels.

This is not even close to the same thing as an individual, niche sport, often played outside of school and favored by well to do families.

I was talking about at the college level, and where I live they’re rich kid sports.

Fair enough. In my area, kids at all income levels (this is just not a UC/UMC town to begin with) earn college scholarships in those sports.

Here (anywhere?), you would not see that happen with squash. I guess that's the kind of thing the inner city program mentioned by PPs is hoping to address.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The field hockey and lacrosse teams are no different.

Incredibly different. Where I live, there have been field hockey and lacrosse teams, for generations, in school districts at all income levels.

This is not even close to the same thing as an individual, niche sport, often played outside of school and favored by well to do families.

I was talking about at the college level, and where I live they’re rich kid sports.

This is true of most non-revenue sports, gymnastics, swim, volleyball, even baseball. Basically any sport that is pay to play at the level where recruitment occurs is going to be a rich kid sport

DP. We are lower lower middle class by DCUM standards and ds did cross country and track at an SLAC. He was on significant financial aid. The students on the team ate all meals together (so you’d be the loner if you went off the meal plan when you are allowed to) and there were practices six days per week with unpredictable schedules, making it difficult to work during the school year.

D3 sports are for rich kids in general.