Anonymous wrote:The vast majority of athletes, particularly excluding top level basketball and football, are generally relatively close to the rest of the student body. It is the high profile stories that get the most press.

And I would argue that the skills learned playing a competitive sport will serve many people better in life than most of the other characteristics prioritized by all of the ignorant people who love to hate on sports. Teamwork. People skills. Determination. Dealing with failure. Sense of humor.

I would rather hire an athlete with slightly lower academic qualifications but strong EQ for most jobs than some kid with 18 APs who has never watched TV or been to a sporting event, doesn't have a firm handshake and can't make small talk. I'm sure I will be slammed for this but I don't care.

You forgot domestic violence, rape, animal abuse, drug abuse, and gambling.

The vast majority of athletes, particularly excluding top level basketball and football, are generally relatively close to the rest of the student body. It is the high profile stories that get the most press.

And I would argue that the skills learned playing a competitive sport will serve many people better in life than most of the other characteristics prioritized by all of the ignorant people who love to hate on sports. Teamwork. People skills. Determination. Dealing with failure. Sense of humor.

I would rather hire an athlete with slightly lower academic qualifications but strong EQ for most jobs than some kid with 18 APs who has never watched TV or been to a sporting event, doesn't have a firm handshake and can't make small talk. I'm sure I will be slammed for this but I don't care.

There is a recent article that addresses this:

The truth is the whole system is corrosive and rests on a highly profitable myth: that of the student-athlete. Not every student-athlete is a fraud, of course, even in the high-revenue sports of men’s football and basketball. But more than a few college athletes aren’t really students. In 2015, when he was coaching Notre Dame, Mr. Kelly said he doubted that any of his players could meet the university’s academic standards. And Notre Dame has long been one of the better athletic programs for academic performance.

The crisis of college athletics today is that too many of the athletes are simply hired hands. And with the transfer portal, an athlete can spend his years as a “student” playing for a different college each year.

Ironically, the situation now is a bastard version of one reform favored by free market types: paying athletes without any pretense that they are real students. Today we have something close to that but more hypocritical. When players can transfer from university to university with education an afterthought, college sports effectively become a professional system.

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Anonymous wrote:I think it’s interesting that many of you don’t let your kids play on the HS sports team. My kid would say that was the most fun part of playing their sport once they hit HS. They got to play with their closest friends (not usually on the same teams for travel), for their school where classmates could come cheer them on, working towards a collective goals as representatives of their community. And from playing club soccer they knew a few players on almost every opposing team. It’s a much more fun atmosphere and the season is like 3 months max.

I wish our child played for their high school. It would have made my life so much easier. Our child wanted to compete against the best players and teams. That ruled high school out completely.

You and your kid weren’t clever enough to realize that you can play for your high school AND whatever elite team they simply had to be on?

He was contractually precluded from playing high school soccer.

This is such a huge problem. Most of the players who go this “academy” route are not going to end up in any kind of lucrative pro arrangement. And you give up the HS experience. Shame on a structure that sets up contracts this way.

I know it’s hard to believe, but some athletes don’t care about a HS sports experience. They don’t see bypassing HS sports as giving up an experience.

As with everything else, a lot of truths. I know four kids, friends of my son, who bypassed HS for a club/ academy model. One became a pro player. The other three went to Division III colleges. Those three all now, at about age 25, regret not playing with their HS friends and say they would do it differently if they could do it over.

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Anonymous wrote:I think it’s interesting that many of you don’t let your kids play on the HS sports team. My kid would say that was the most fun part of playing their sport once they hit HS. They got to play with their closest friends (not usually on the same teams for travel), for their school where classmates could come cheer them on, working towards a collective goals as representatives of their community. And from playing club soccer they knew a few players on almost every opposing team. It’s a much more fun atmosphere and the season is like 3 months max.

I wish our child played for their high school. It would have made my life so much easier. Our child wanted to compete against the best players and teams. That ruled high school out completely.

You and your kid weren’t clever enough to realize that you can play for your high school AND whatever elite team they simply had to be on?

He was contractually precluded from playing high school soccer.

This is such a huge problem. Most of the players who go this “academy” route are not going to end up in any kind of lucrative pro arrangement. And you give up the HS experience. Shame on a structure that sets up contracts this way.

I know it’s hard to believe, but some athletes don’t care about a HS sports experience. They don’t see bypassing HS sports as giving up an experience.

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Anonymous wrote:I think it’s interesting that many of you don’t let your kids play on the HS sports team. My kid would say that was the most fun part of playing their sport once they hit HS. They got to play with their closest friends (not usually on the same teams for travel), for their school where classmates could come cheer them on, working towards a collective goals as representatives of their community. And from playing club soccer they knew a few players on almost every opposing team. It’s a much more fun atmosphere and the season is like 3 months max.

I wish our child played for their high school. It would have made my life so much easier. Our child wanted to compete against the best players and teams. That ruled high school out completely.

My son and many of his HS teammates also played ECNL. Some are now playing in college. He still had way more fun playing for his HS. I know MLSnext doesn’t allow it but ECNL does. I hope your son finds great success off the field! Mine decided that since he wasn’t destined for the pros he’d go to the best school he could and play club in college and he’s having a blast.

Our son started in USSDA which eventually became MLSNext. His high school was a perennial championship contender but they would have lost to his club team 10-0. He was recruited to D1 and has since graduated.

And is he a professional soccer player?

He could have been, but not at a level that made financial sense. He realized it was time to start his career. He had a good run.

Sorry to question you, ma’am. Consider this your gold star and your certificate of validation (which clearly you desperately desire).

That’s the difference between us. There are no college stickers in the back window of my BMW. There weren’t any college athletic sweatshirts in my wardrobe. I never talked about it at gatherings unless directly asked, and even then I downplayed it. The reason I posted it here was to answer a direct question. Several of his teammates over the years went the “pro” route for $65,000-$75,000.

The only question asked of you was whether your kid was pro. Everything else you volunteered on your own and you seemed pretty desperate to do so. Perhaps you should have talked about it with people who actually know you so you didn’t feel the need to post on an anonymous forum.

That was not an honest question. It was meant to delegitimize our son’s sacrifice and effort to pursue his goals. It’s fine. It’s the standard defense mechanism for posters on college forums. Whatever gets you through the day.

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Anonymous wrote:I think it’s interesting that many of you don’t let your kids play on the HS sports team. My kid would say that was the most fun part of playing their sport once they hit HS. They got to play with their closest friends (not usually on the same teams for travel), for their school where classmates could come cheer them on, working towards a collective goals as representatives of their community. And from playing club soccer they knew a few players on almost every opposing team. It’s a much more fun atmosphere and the season is like 3 months max.

I wish our child played for their high school. It would have made my life so much easier. Our child wanted to compete against the best players and teams. That ruled high school out completely.

You and your kid weren’t clever enough to realize that you can play for your high school AND whatever elite team they simply had to be on?

He was contractually precluded from playing high school soccer.

This is such a huge problem. Most of the players who go this “academy” route are not going to end up in any kind of lucrative pro arrangement. And you give up the HS experience. Shame on a structure that sets up contracts this way.

I think it’s because soccer is one of the only true global sports and that’s how it works worldwide (though most foreign countries don’t have HS sports…so not an issue).

Also, you have 15 year olds going pro…so it works great for the top 1% of the top 1%.

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Anonymous wrote:I think it’s interesting that many of you don’t let your kids play on the HS sports team. My kid would say that was the most fun part of playing their sport once they hit HS. They got to play with their closest friends (not usually on the same teams for travel), for their school where classmates could come cheer them on, working towards a collective goals as representatives of their community. And from playing club soccer they knew a few players on almost every opposing team. It’s a much more fun atmosphere and the season is like 3 months max.

I wish our child played for their high school. It would have made my life so much easier. Our child wanted to compete against the best players and teams. That ruled high school out completely.

You and your kid weren’t clever enough to realize that you can play for your high school AND whatever elite team they simply had to be on?

He was contractually precluded from playing high school soccer.

This is such a huge problem. Most of the players who go this “academy” route are not going to end up in any kind of lucrative pro arrangement. And you give up the HS experience. Shame on a structure that sets up contracts this way.

My son was a state champion in his sport. What’s really a bummer is that he can’t even play his sport except at club level at his large university. (At least he gets a club team though but it’s frankly not that strong.). All the other players on the D1 well know team are from another country or Olympic-level athletes. There are only 2-3 spots for his postion, in a university with tens of thousands of students.

To really play in college, we would have had him go to a D3 school that would have been maybe an academic fit, but $60-90k tuition even with aid, plus much less of a social fit for him.

The real problem is college sports like football and basketball are too much like a business, and detract from athletics being what they are supposed to be for most college students. They are sexist (no women can play football) and they shortchange all the other non revenue sports. Plus they twist the focus at college to something other than its primary intent: education.

Weird thread.

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Anonymous wrote:It's almost like the purpose of college is to develop a skill for employment rather than play a sport.

lol. It always amazes me about the amount of money and effort some parents put into travel sports. If they put that amount of effort into supporting their academic pursuits, many of those kids would be top of their class

Nah because the kids who have the pushy travel sports parents are never the smartest kids in the grade. Effort and pushing from the parents would never get them to top of the class.

Both my boys are at an Ivy. 35 and 36 AcTs. Straight As, 5s on all APs. We didn’t push in school or sports, but they excelled in both. Top of class and highest club level. Never talked to a coach or teacher since they were tiny.

Similar story here. The notion that you can’t be outstanding at sports and academics is so odd to me. No one seems to be surprised by the kids who are outstanding at both music and academics. Those ECs take a similar amount of time at high levels.

+1

+2 Some posters want to stereotype "dumb jocks" because it makes them feel better.

In fairness…the average SAT of professional athletes, to the extent they even had to take the SAT, is very low.

When they tracked this data for football players for schools like Stanford, it was around 1190 for Stanford and they were one of the highest in the country and produced few NFL players.

So, let’s at least admit that the top 5% of the top 1% of revenue sport athletes rarely are top students.

Perhaps if they weren’t such strong athletes in the multiverse they would have better stats, but there really isn’t much point for those athletes to care much more about minimum academic requirements…and a ton more about maximizing their NIL potential.

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Anonymous wrote:I think it’s interesting that many of you don’t let your kids play on the HS sports team. My kid would say that was the most fun part of playing their sport once they hit HS. They got to play with their closest friends (not usually on the same teams for travel), for their school where classmates could come cheer them on, working towards a collective goals as representatives of their community. And from playing club soccer they knew a few players on almost every opposing team. It’s a much more fun atmosphere and the season is like 3 months max.

I wish our child played for their high school. It would have made my life so much easier. Our child wanted to compete against the best players and teams. That ruled high school out completely.

My son and many of his HS teammates also played ECNL. Some are now playing in college. He still had way more fun playing for his HS. I know MLSnext doesn’t allow it but ECNL does. I hope your son finds great success off the field! Mine decided that since he wasn’t destined for the pros he’d go to the best school he could and play club in college and he’s having a blast.

Our son started in USSDA which eventually became MLSNext. His high school was a perennial championship contender but they would have lost to his club team 10-0. He was recruited to D1 and has since graduated.

And is he a professional soccer player?

He could have been, but not at a level that made financial sense. He realized it was time to start his career. He had a good run.

Sorry to question you, ma’am. Consider this your gold star and your certificate of validation (which clearly you desperately desire).

That’s the difference between us. There are no college stickers in the back window of my BMW. There weren’t any college athletic sweatshirts in my wardrobe. I never talked about it at gatherings unless directly asked, and even then I downplayed it. The reason I posted it here was to answer a direct question. Several of his teammates over the years went the “pro” route for $65,000-$75,000.

Thank God you clarified that you have a BMW rather than just say car. Otherwise how would we all know to be impressed?

It’s jealousy/envy (im a non-athlete and I’m the parent of a non-athlete). Sports can be very beneficial in a lot of ways (besides a leg up in college admissions)- fitness, life lessons, having a ready-made social outlet, giving a sense of belonging, etc. We all want that for our kids but not everyone is going make the team or be a starter or be college recruit material. It’s up to the parents of lesser athletes or non athletes to make peace with that and stop bashing athletes and stop complaining about their admissions advantage.

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Anonymous wrote:It's almost like the purpose of college is to develop a skill for employment rather than play a sport.

lol. It always amazes me about the amount of money and effort some parents put into travel sports. If they put that amount of effort into supporting their academic pursuits, many of those kids would be top of their class

Nah because the kids who have the pushy travel sports parents are never the smartest kids in the grade. Effort and pushing from the parents would never get them to top of the class.

Both my boys are at an Ivy. 35 and 36 AcTs. Straight As, 5s on all APs. We didn’t push in school or sports, but they excelled in both. Top of class and highest club level. Never talked to a coach or teacher since they were tiny.

Similar story here. The notion that you can’t be outstanding at sports and academics is so odd to me. No one seems to be surprised by the kids who are outstanding at both music and academics. Those ECs take a similar amount of time at high levels.

+1

+2 Some posters want to stereotype "dumb jocks" because it makes them feel better.

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Anonymous wrote:It's almost like the purpose of college is to develop a skill for employment rather than play a sport.

lol. It always amazes me about the amount of money and effort some parents put into travel sports. If they put that amount of effort into supporting their academic pursuits, many of those kids would be top of their class

Nah because the kids who have the pushy travel sports parents are never the smartest kids in the grade. Effort and pushing from the parents would never get them to top of the class.

Both my boys are at an Ivy. 35 and 36 AcTs. Straight As, 5s on all APs. We didn’t push in school or sports, but they excelled in both. Top of class and highest club level. Never talked to a coach or teacher since they were tiny.

Similar story here. The notion that you can’t be outstanding at sports and academics is so odd to me. No one seems to be surprised by the kids who are outstanding at both music and academics. Those ECs take a similar amount of time at high levels.

For a forum full of high achievers, people are sure stupid. Most students can’t excel in either sports or academics, let alone both. Most high school kids take regular classes and do one or two clubs.