Go play league.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is the HS swim team no-cut?

Not usually.

So kids who want to swim with their HS team get cut for the club swimmers who only show up for the meets?

Our high school has over 3k students and has cuts for swimming. My son made it on the team but knows of a club swimmer who did not. He also cannot make high school practice because of club swim practice and the coach said that’s fine. It’s not like it’s a team sport that you need to have dynamics figured out.

This is why some kids get cut and don’t get to participate and play for their school. So club players can go to meets.

In Fairfax county, there is not lane space for the entire team to practice as it is. Coaches need club kids not to be there. A team of non-swimmers who would need to show up every day would be a logistical disaster.

These aren’t beginners, just kids who want to participate but don’t even get to practice because of club players.

Move to Loudoun. The HS are smaller and most (not all) teams are no cut. If you really want your kid to play, you need to choose a school that has socioeconomic diversity. The super rich kid schools have a lot more travel players are gunner parents.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Serious question (because both my kids are still in elementary) - are HS sports still the end all, be all, with year-round $$$ teams being so prevalent? Do the top soccer players, swimmers, or baseball players even play for their HS teams or are they just pure travel/competitive team players? I can see it being a big thing for some sports (football obviously, maybe basketball although private teams seem to be big for that too) but I assumed private teams had taken over the top spots in some of these sports. And then the private sports-oriented HS’s like the St. James Academy are starting to dominate the HS leagues too.

I feel like this may be sport-specific. A friend with a college recruit soccer player told me that in his daughter's experience, players at that level didn't tend to play high school soccer- only for their club. Maybe it was due to injury risk but also he seemed to indicate the club coaches were way better than the HS coaches.

I have a baseball kid who is just in the local baseball travel league. All of those teams don't play in the spring as the assumption is you'll be playing for your HS team and then reconvene do summer and fall travel. I don't know what the super high going pro kids do though as my son isn't at that level.

This is PP and that’s why I was wondering - a friend of a friend’s daughter is on a very high level club soccer team but doesn’t play for the HS. And I was like, there’s no way she didn’t make the team, so then I assumed that the club team was probably better than the HS team so there was no real point to playing on a worse team, with a worse coach, and risking injury or scheduling conflicts with the club team.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is the HS swim team no-cut?

Not usually.

So kids who want to swim with their HS team get cut for the club swimmers who only show up for the meets?

Our high school has over 3k students and has cuts for swimming. My son made it on the team but knows of a club swimmer who did not. He also cannot make high school practice because of club swim practice and the coach said that’s fine. It’s not like it’s a team sport that you need to have dynamics figured out.

This is why some kids get cut and don’t get to participate and play for their school. So club players can go to meets.

In Fairfax county, there is not lane space for the entire team to practice as it is. Coaches need club kids not to be there. A team of non-swimmers who would need to show up every day would be a logistical disaster.

Me too.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is the HS swim team no-cut?

Not usually.

So kids who want to swim with their HS team get cut for the club swimmers who only show up for the meets?

Our high school has over 3k students and has cuts for swimming. My son made it on the team but knows of a club swimmer who did not. He also cannot make high school practice because of club swim practice and the coach said that’s fine. It’s not like it’s a team sport that you need to have dynamics figured out.

This is why some kids get cut and don’t get to participate and play for their school. So club players can go to meets.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is the HS swim team no-cut?

Not usually.

So kids who want to swim with their HS team get cut for the club swimmers who only show up for the meets?

Our high school has over 3k students and has cuts for swimming. My son made it on the team but knows of a club swimmer who did not. He also cannot make high school practice because of club swim practice and the coach said that’s fine. It’s not like it’s a team sport that you need to have dynamics figured out.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is the HS swim team no-cut?

Not usually.

So kids who want to swim with their HS team get cut for the club swimmers who only show up for the meets?

Anonymous wrote:Is the HS swim team no-cut?

Not usually.

Anonymous wrote:This is the negative trickle down effect of the American obsession with sports and the cult of the athlete. It poisons the college experience and now the HS and even middle school experience for kids.

I can’t even understand when this all happened. My family is very athletic and artistic. No academic standouts just arts and athletes. My family and friends who played D1 and the ones who went pro never played organized sports until middle school. These are people in their fifties now. They played obsessively in neighborhoods as kids. Not anymore.

Who had the idea of charging 9 year olds to play basketball outside of park & rec? So now you have hundreds of kids playing like they are in some pre-pro program. These kids are well trained and know how to play the game but very few of them have that thing that makes them naturals. But these kids aren’t aware of this. Their parents call them athletes. Summer programs want them and their $8,000 tuition. The kids travel to other locations to play. They look forward to playing in high school but quickly find out that they aren’t even good enough to play high school varsity.

Parents should calm down. Don’t over schedule sports thinking the more the better. Don’t cancel family activities because the 10 year old has a game. Don’t let these expensive club sports rule your family.

Everywhere local to here has rec leagues for HS basketball. And lots of other HS sports.

Anonymous wrote:If they want to play, they find a rec league and get their friends to sign up with them. While disappointing, getting cut is a relatively low stakes way to learn that you don't always get what you want in life, even if you try really hard.

+1. My brothers played in rec leagues for fun in addition to whatever sports they did in school. I took tennis lessons even though I was cut from the team freshman year (the teacher who coached hated me and I still maintain I was cut due to her personal bias lol)

Yeah, it’s gotten crazy. The schools are too large and there are just too many kids who have been playing travel ball since they were like 8 or whatever. It’s not just sports, my son debated in middle school and there were schools that had cuts for *middle school debate.* It’s absurd, kids should have more opportunities to participate without specializing from age 6.

Is the HS swim team no-cut?