Maybe. My son's travel team is made up of kids from various parts of VA and MD. Only five kids on it live in our community, and they are not the kids my son happened to become closest with. I am not in a place to drive him around to see kids outside of our area socially on a frequent basis, and he is too young to drive. So his sports friends remain mostly sports-based.

Not for us. We bonded with our travel sport community and now we know families from all over the DMV and made amazing friends. It’s been great socially and for advancing in the sport. Are you defining community for us? Does it really need to be your neighborhood?

Anonymous wrote:So little introspection and such defensiveness from the travel parents

I don’t see any travel families being defensive. They’re simply saying it works for them. I’m not understanding what community is missing. Each neighborhood isn’t made up of the exact same type of family with the exact same aged kids. So one family’s weekend schedule of sports is no different than another’s of family events, language lessons, religious services and activities, weekends out of town, etc. Why is travel sports singled out as the reason neighborhoods aren’t close?

Anonymous wrote:Just hope your kid keeps making the team. Being cut or demoted is so much worse when you lose your friends in the process. For anyone saying they won't lose friends, once the current seasons is over new players will be added to text threads and old ones dropped. We see it happen every year.

Like a PP said, my kids don't consider their teammates to be "real" friends though. They like to keep their sport world separate from then school and neighborhood friends. Which I think is a really healthy outlook. I mean travel sport is supposed to be competitive. That's part of competing, the risk of getting cut and learning to play with different people. If my kids get cut, they will be sad about not being good enough, not about being unable to play with so and so.

Just hope your kid keeps making the team. Being cut or demoted is so much worse when you lose your friends in the process. For anyone saying they won't lose friends, once the current seasons is over new players will be added to text threads and old ones dropped. We see it happen every year.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think in some cases travel sports can create a stronger community.

+1. I’m much closer with the travel families than my neighbors.

But that’s a problem

No, it's more of a solution, really.

I disagree. It is a problem.
-Travel sport mom

Anonymous wrote:What’s up with all the travel sports trolling lately?

I had the same though.

So little introspection and such defensiveness from the travel parents

One benefit of travel that doesn’t get mentioned much: when competing in HS, my DC usually knows someone from the opponent high schools from travel, whether it’s one of their travel teammates or a travel opponent, and that makes the High school games less “beat them” while still being competitive in a pure “I want to do well and for my team to do well” way. Even in contentious games or rivalry games, my DC is not anti the other team because DC knows/likes/respects one or more of the people on the other team. Kind of makes HS sports a bigger community than just DC’s team.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think in some cases travel sports can create a stronger community.

+1. I’m much closer with the travel families than my neighbors.

But that’s a problem

No, it's more of a solution, really.

Anonymous wrote:Travel sports are bad for families. They take a great deal of time and resources away from the rest of the family. My son played a sport through high school. Never did travel.
He went to a division, one school on a scholarship

I went to MIT without taking any ap science classes or doing research or doing math Olympiad or similar. Wouldn’t recommend that path for getting in these days though. Times have changed, old timer.

No, they're always bonding with their teammates and family.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think in some cases travel sports can create a stronger community.

+1. I’m much closer with the travel families than my neighbors.

But that’s a problem

I have a tween DD in a club sport and it’s great for her to have a group of friends that is NOT intertwined in school or the neighborhood. When there is tween girl drama at school (as there inevitably is at her age), she still has a solid group of friends that she sees every day that aren’t involved in it. That is way more important to me than being more involved in my neighborhood.

Anonymous wrote:I think in some cases travel sports can create a stronger community.

+1. I’m much closer with the travel families than my neighbors.