Anonymous wrote:People are gonna hate ...most of them uninformed... but find a good youth weightlifting or youth crossfit coach. They are out there. The self-confidence, skillsets, and overall functional development gained will have lasting impacts and translate to an ability (and perhaps interest in participating) in other sports.

Anonymous wrote:Look at the school athletics website. Find the Fall sports for girls that are “no cut” or, as some have said, are essentially “no cut” because not many tryout.

In the Fall your typical girls no cut sports are cross country, in many states swimming/diving though your State may do that in the winter, and any sport that has a specific “9th grade” team. 9th grade teams are pretty common at big schools. I would also consider sideline cheer a Fall sport (activity technically as no competitions in the Fall). She might also consider marching band/flag Corp.


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I was a 5 foot two 105 pound male 9th grader. I liked sports but was so small not much opportunity. I was encouraged to go out for cross country under the premise (not accurate) that it would help me make the freshman B team in basketball. I was also told that my future was in wrestling based on gym class success. No offense to wrestlers, some of the toughest athletes I know, but hair in the breeze XC sure seemed like a better deal. I did not like the sport of XC that much, and found the best thing was that it was time away from a home with abuse and addiction. After two weeks with the team, I ran a 21:30 four mile time trial, good enough to make the varsity. Two weeks later won a big varsity XC invitational, surprisingly beating future NCAA XC All Americans, and oddly setting a course record that still stands for nearly 50 years. Was All State that year and three years thereafter. Never liked cross country but after I grew (5 foot 10) track was fun because I had some sprint speed. 4:06 miler in high school and on to college. My high XC coach was a laid back guy who took the edge off - one of our favorite practice was running to his house to eat homemade ice cream and groaning on the way back. I am grateful that I was pushed to join the team. Not sure I ever really loved the sport - but racing close races at a high level was an adrenaline rush. XC not for everyone - but the improvement a 9th grader can show in a matter of weeks is often impressive. By the way, I never bought into the blood and guts approach and found the biggest enemy to performance, especially at the Division 1 level, was overtraining. If you can relax and stay connected to your body, it is a worthwhile endeavor. And you never know of the level of talent until you try it. 18 or so years ago I was timing at one of the huge all day indoor meets and a local Virginia high school coach asked me to persuade a 9th grade kid not to run the 7th (slow) heat of the mile and to run the 4th heat for a better time. He was stuck at a seven minute mile. He broke six minutes that day, making his coach look really smart. The guy went on to finish 3rd in the state in XC. break 9 minutes for the two mile in high school, and become all ACC in college several times. There was no way to know he had that kind of talent until he simply got out there and tried.