I would argue basketball and football are the most fair in the sense that the coaches are trying to sell tickets thus are more competitive. The more competitive a sport is the less likely "other" factors come into play in making decisions. My high school's football team had skills-based competitions. Kids broke arms trying to get spots on the starting squad.

Some would argue that "size" makes them unfair, but there are plenty of sports where size is an advantage, basketball and football attract and retain the biggest and best athletes. It always annoyed me that my coaches were all sawed off former point guards that were jealous of size, but you know it isn't like they said Hey let's build a short team of our buddies' kids, so I give them credit for that. I'm trying to get my daughter on a swim team. They don't seem to care that she stands a whole head taller than all the other kids on the team. It's amazing, you can look at the Olympic swimming roster all the women are around six foot tall, nope they've got every one of the smallest kids from the summer league on the competitive roster. It's absurd. They are clearly not competitive minded.

Anonymous wrote:Swimming and track have to be the most fair. Can’t argue with a stopwatch.

I don't know about track, but I'd have to argue with swimming. There are several issues with swimming that make less fair than just the clock. Pools and swim clubs are expensive. It's difficult to make a team and you have to start when you are five. The sport doesn't make any money, the parents pay for everything. The coach is not looking at the "stroke" in those evaluations, they are looking at the parents' pocketbook. It helps to take a hundred hours or so of private lessons, so the coach gets a taste for you.

Anonymous wrote:It's any sport where the best is decided in an objective and not subjective fashion. In soccer for example, yes the absolute best stick out, but there is a whole lot of middle ground where subjective criteria are taken into account for team selection.

In track, your time is your time. The fastest 100m runs the 100m.

The best stick out but only a few of the best go to Barcelona school, it's a big world.

I don’t understand these responses. Golf, tennis, swimming, wrestling, etc. are not “team” sports (even if one is on a “team” and one’s points/wins/whatever count toward the “team” score).

They are very much individual sports, in the sense that your teammates’ performances have absolutely zero effect on your performance (even if your overall team doesn’t win).

It’s not like being a quarterback behind an offensive line that is having a bad day, or receivers who can’t catch the ball.

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Anonymous wrote:You clowns buy into team sports and end up getting cut and fat and out of shape later in life

I want to move my kids from basketball and football to golf + tennis. And dad played in college. I just have a gut feeling it's not worth it and they could be just as happy with an individual life sport.

Sorry meant to add dad played football in college. He doesn't do any sports now. What a waste. Seems like individual sports just have lifelong benefits. Our golf and tennis team are hard to make but at the min. at least you can play post HS and college.

Golf a kid will play for life...because you can play a competitive game with other competitive golfers or you can easily play for fun with scratch golfers. Also, it's not like a competitive game of golf involves sprinting on the golf course...you can still walk leisurely (or now rent a cart) on the course. Honestly, it's hard to really be able to say that you are working out as a 50 year old because you continue to play golf.

Plenty of former tennis players don't play that often...plenty of former swimmers don't really swim in anything resembling training anymore..etc.

Lots of former basketball players still play basketball as adults. Not sure why you would think that isn't fairly popular for adults.

They don't swim or play tennis everyday but they do swim or play tennis regularly.

Golf and tennis are the two sports that you can play for life. As you get older, you can switch over to pickleball if tennis is too much for you. Golf and tennis are two of the sports that are objective and not subjective. The coach can not cut you from the team and put another inferior in the team because the scores do not lie. That being said, they are two of the hardest sports to make in high school, especially if you live in wealthy areas, and due to a small roster size.

No…plenty of people play tennis that never played formally in high school, and plenty of former tennis players barely play much at all. Tennis is not a sport you ever had to play at a high level to join any number of adult leagues.

Many, many former high school swimmers no longer swim much at all other than going to the pool for fun. They don’t work out any more than the next person and if they do they do normal gym training which at least has a social aspect to it.

Again…golf really isn’t much of a sport if you are just out playing your 18 holes which again, thousands of people do that who never played on a golf team. However, it’s foolish for them to claim they are getting a workout.

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Anonymous wrote:You clowns buy into team sports and end up getting cut and fat and out of shape later in life

I want to move my kids from basketball and football to golf + tennis. And dad played in college. I just have a gut feeling it's not worth it and they could be just as happy with an individual life sport.

Sorry meant to add dad played football in college. He doesn't do any sports now. What a waste. Seems like individual sports just have lifelong benefits. Our golf and tennis team are hard to make but at the min. at least you can play post HS and college.

Golf a kid will play for life...because you can play a competitive game with other competitive golfers or you can easily play for fun with scratch golfers. Also, it's not like a competitive game of golf involves sprinting on the golf course...you can still walk leisurely (or now rent a cart) on the course. Honestly, it's hard to really be able to say that you are working out as a 50 year old because you continue to play golf.

Plenty of former tennis players don't play that often...plenty of former swimmers don't really swim in anything resembling training anymore..etc.

Lots of former basketball players still play basketball as adults. Not sure why you would think that isn't fairly popular for adults.

They don't swim or play tennis everyday but they do swim or play tennis regularly.

Golf and tennis are the two sports that you can play for life. As you get older, you can switch over to pickleball if tennis is too much for you. Golf and tennis are two of the sports that are objective and not subjective. The coach can not cut you from the team and put another inferior in the team because the scores do not lie. That being said, they are two of the hardest sports to make in high school, especially if you live in wealthy areas, and due to a small roster size.

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Anonymous wrote:You clowns buy into team sports and end up getting cut and fat and out of shape later in life

I want to move my kids from basketball and football to golf + tennis. And dad played in college. I just have a gut feeling it's not worth it and they could be just as happy with an individual life sport.

Sorry meant to add dad played football in college. He doesn't do any sports now. What a waste. Seems like individual sports just have lifelong benefits. Our golf and tennis team are hard to make but at the min. at least you can play post HS and college.

Golf a kid will play for life...because you can play a competitive game with other competitive golfers or you can easily play for fun with scratch golfers. Also, it's not like a competitive game of golf involves sprinting on the golf course...you can still walk leisurely (or now rent a cart) on the course. Honestly, it's hard to really be able to say that you are working out as a 50 year old because you continue to play golf.

Plenty of former tennis players don't play that often...plenty of former swimmers don't really swim in anything resembling training anymore..etc.

Lots of former basketball players still play basketball as adults. Not sure why you would think that isn't fairly popular for adults.

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Anonymous wrote:You clowns buy into team sports and end up getting cut and fat and out of shape later in life

I want to move my kids from basketball and football to golf + tennis. And dad played in college. I just have a gut feeling it's not worth it and they could be just as happy with an individual life sport.

Sorry meant to add dad played football in college. He doesn't do any sports now. What a waste. Seems like individual sports just have lifelong benefits. Our golf and tennis team are hard to make but at the min. at least you can play post HS and college.

Anonymous wrote:You clowns buy into team sports and end up getting cut and fat and out of shape later in life

I want to move my kids from basketball and football to golf + tennis. And dad played in college. I just have a gut feeling it's not worth it and they could be just as happy with an individual life sport.

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Anonymous wrote:In *private* HS, apparently donor kids get the leg up. In public high schools, kids with difficult parents who complain all the time get the leg up (very toxic).

Anywhere you go, the kid who TRAINS PRIVATELY with the coach gets the leg up. Sickening.

Coaches would probably argue that shows the kid has a passion for the sport, no?

Of course, coaches would argue that. They have vested interest in maintaining the private training pipeline since most of them are selling private training.

What it shows is which kids gave parents with cash.

PP here. I'm just pointing out that this is not an argument that anyone but the coach is going to win. Doesn't make it right, but there's juuuuust enough gray here.

There’s really no gray here at all PP. it’s a conflict of interest and immoral

This. No gray area at all. Will not let my kids to private training with their own coaches, even though one of them in particular is phenomenal.

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Anonymous wrote:All team sports are NOT fair because the coach can come up with any BS reasons to exclude someone from the team.

in 99% of cases, the reason is that the kid isn't good enough

In early youth sports, age or size bias can be a factor. Less so later but I’ve seen this often.

Eh I know a family frozen out from the higher level teams because the dad pissed off the wrong higher up in the club. It's an outlier situation, and generally I agree that coaches do the best they can, with biases at play for size/speed/aggressiveness.

This happens all the time.

+1 yep it does

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Anonymous wrote:All team sports are NOT fair because the coach can come up with any BS reasons to exclude someone from the team.

in 99% of cases, the reason is that the kid isn't good enough

In early youth sports, age or size bias can be a factor. Less so later but I’ve seen this often.

Eh I know a family frozen out from the higher level teams because the dad pissed off the wrong higher up in the club. It's an outlier situation, and generally I agree that coaches do the best they can, with biases at play for size/speed/aggressiveness.

This happens all the time.

Anonymous wrote:You clowns buy into team sports and end up getting cut and fat and out of shape later in life

There’s still the hope that they are learning about sportsmanship and being a team player. All my DCs learned that. But with one bad apple Coach, they end up learning about the gross inequities out there in the real world. So disappointing. Character really matters for coaches.

Now we’ve had some great coaches along the way who managed things like heating up a cold bat really well. But it doesn’t happen when they are conflicted or biased for one reason or another.

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Anonymous wrote:In *private* HS, apparently donor kids get the leg up. In public high schools, kids with difficult parents who complain all the time get the leg up (very toxic).

Anywhere you go, the kid who TRAINS PRIVATELY with the coach gets the leg up. Sickening.

Coaches would probably argue that shows the kid has a passion for the sport, no?

Of course, coaches would argue that. They have vested interest in maintaining the private training pipeline since most of them are selling private training.

What it shows is which kids gave parents with cash.

PP here. I'm just pointing out that this is not an argument that anyone but the coach is going to win. Doesn't make it right, but there's juuuuust enough gray here.

There’s really no gray here at all PP. it’s a conflict of interest and immoral

With the enormous increases in Tommy John surgeries for baseball and ACL tears for soccer (especially girls), someday someone is going to start taking a harder look at what is expected to make a varsity team and how kids are exploited for money by these Coach/trainers.

We were really angry to learn that timed running was supposed to be prohibited during tryouts (given health concerns), but guess what, soccer coaches at our school did it anyways.

Curious what this means. Is this due to conducting this kind of tryout in the August heat?

Not sure about the “why” but the timing of the policy was close in time to the horrible football incidents in tryouts/preseason.

Not to mention what happened to that college lacrosse team. Athletes are in good enough shape at tryouts to do some real damage to their health.

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In *private* HS, apparently donor kids get the leg up. In public high schools, kids with difficult parents who complain all the time get the leg up (very toxic).

Anywhere you go, the kid who TRAINS PRIVATELY with the coach gets the leg up. Sickening.

Coaches would probably argue that shows the kid has a passion for the sport, no?

Of course, coaches would argue that. They have vested interest in maintaining the private training pipeline since most of them are selling private training.

What it shows is which kids gave parents with cash.

PP here. I'm just pointing out that this is not an argument that anyone but the coach is going to win. Doesn't make it right, but there's juuuuust enough gray here.

There’s really no gray here at all PP. it’s a conflict of interest and immoral

With the enormous increases in Tommy John surgeries for baseball and ACL tears for soccer (especially girls), someday someone is going to start taking a harder look at what is expected to make a varsity team and how kids are exploited for money by these Coach/trainers.

We were really angry to learn that timed running was supposed to be prohibited during tryouts (given health concerns), but guess what, soccer coaches at our school did it anyways.

Curious what this means. Is this due to conducting this kind of tryout in the August heat?