Youth and sports

In My Humble Opinion
1

Here is an article from CBS News on youth and sports. It basically goes over how poor families cannot afford sports and the kids drop them and how wealthy families can afford more and their kids stay in.

Ok, some of this is spot on but I take exception to some of the things they say:

Cost: First they claim parents spend an average of around $700 for their kids sports. Ok, thats about right. However I dont think $700 a year is so bad. Sometimes I’ve seen fundraisers and sponsorships that help that.

They go on to further claim how parents pay up to $35,000 a year and they make it sound like $35k is common!

Now I call bull on this one. Yes, SOME do pay that much in some sports for example competitive gymnastics and figure skating. But its very rare. However they act like all parents put out that kind of money but what I’ve seen for even club level travel hockey its around $10,000 a year.

Now on the wealth disparity: They claim only 27% of families that make less than $25,000 a year can afford sports.

Is that really so bad?

I think the fact that 1 in 4 families making less than $25k a year and you can still afford sports is actually pretty good.

Now it also says 45% kids from families making over $100,000 a year play sports and often that is in the hope of their kid getting a college scholarship. Yes, we all have that hope. But I think most parents are pretty aware of their kids capabilities. Also that depends on gender and sport. Getting your daughter a soccer or softball scholarship isnt that hard. Getting your son one in basketball or football - good luck.

BTW, $25k to $100 k a year is a HUGE gap. They need to show the number somewhere around $50k

Finally are we talking rec leagues or competitive leagues? Yes, all kids regardless of money, location, and talent should be able to play sports for fun and we should have more rec leagues (which sadly there are few of). Yes the higher level travel teams are going to cost more because your talking paid coaches and travel.

I do agree we should have more programs for poorer kids to be able to afford the fees for the higher level programs because those are the programs that can set a kid up for a college scholarship.

What are your thoughts?

2

Irrespective of the rest of your OP, this part is not generally true.

I used to be a PE teacher and coach, and a fairly large part of my job was disabusing parents of the notion that their kids were going to play for the Yankees. Hell, very few kids get any kind of financial support for playing at the Division 1 or 2 level in college. The vast majority of athletes can forget about ever seeing Division 1, let alone the pros. There was a study out of the Univesity of Maine, I believe, giving percentages.

Lots of reasons why parents end up deluded on this. But it’s a big part of why some youth leagues have had to put in rules to make the parents tone it down.

3

ok, that’s interesting.

The question then can be is a scholarship to play say baseball at a local community college even worth the trouble? I mean its still free college credits right?

If say a girl gets a scholarship to play soccer at a school she wants to go to anyways (even not D1) maybe its worth it?

Plus often scholarships arent even 100%. But if he gets to play at the community college and at least gets his tuition for free, thats good. However it might not be worth all the money the parents have put into it at that point.

Best just play for fun, friends, and exercise. Frankly I think golf and tennis are best because you can play that as an adult even if you never made pro.

4

It’s a tragedy. Sports are beneficial to kids, even absent a college scholarship, and to have 3/4 of poor children simply unable to afford participating in sport is tragic.

They don’t get those benefits, and can’t even compete against wealthier kids for things of monetary value like scholarships. It’s simply another factor that makes it harder for poor kids to be upwardly mobile.

5

I think that’s ascribing a bit more self awareness to these people than is due. Lots of times parents are simply convinced their kid has great potential because once when they were three they made solid contact with a whiffle ball. But sure, some do channel that into a determined expectation they will get scholarships. Even when a kid does have some good ability, it’s hard to get parents to be realistic about it.

I don’t mean to say everyone, or even a vast majority of people are like that. But it was a sizeable and VERY vocal percentage. I had one parent who had been a very successful track and field athlete, and his daughter was fairly gifted too. But she had no real inner motivation and was mostly doing track to please her dad and be with her friends. It was a difficult conversation to have with him, but at least he wasn’t angry. Very disappointed and surprised though.

Also, I mis-typed something in my first response. Most kids will never see scholarships for Division two or even THREE is what I meant to say. Division 1 is a pipe dream for most.

6

Doesnt that also depend upon the sport and gender? Isnt their rates for say girls softball where almost half of the girls who at least try get offered a scholarship somewhere even if its a small college far away?

BTW, I know HS football program that brags about how many of their players get scholarships but they fail to mention that it is rarely D1. And if you dont get D1 for football is it even worth putting your body thru 4 more years of that?

7

Part of that is the lack of sports at the “rec” level past about grade 5.

8

It does of course vary by several factors. I’m too lazy to look up the study I mentioned, but I seem to recall hockey had some of the better odds. None of them were good though. IMHO, it is simply irresponsible to get kids’ or parents’ hopes up about sports careers or scholarships.

As to your second question, I don’t think the risks inherent to football are worth any amount of money. I’ll go so far as to say no kids should be playing full-contact football at all. Once someone is 18 they can bungee jump into volcanoes while gargling acid if they want to, but no way should we be doing traditional youth football. Even without the injuries angle, fielding football teams costs way too much money - funds that could be used getting many, many more kids playing rec sports for fun and fitness, which is ultimately what it should be about. Not careers and not scholarships.

But I do realize my attitude toward youth sports is against the grain and in many instances is pissing up a rope. I really don’t miss working in that field, let me tell you.

9

Wanna bet?

The economic issues are well known and I wish I had a good solution. I did have two kids who went on to play D1 on scholarship… one full ride, one much less. Full ride is the exception and not the rule. The only way they got there was playing on top level travel clubs which aren’t cheap.

I have always said that if college is the reason for doing that you are much better off to set up an account and put all that money in there and you will be able to send them anywhere they want.

I do think they gained a lot more than just the scholarships by playing though.

10

It’s not that bad if you’re talking about one kid. But it can add up if you have more than one kid.

And of course, that $700 doesn’t factor in the cost of time and inconvenience.

Junior wants to play football, which requires him staying after school for two hours everyday instead of riding the schoolbus home and babysitting his younger siblings. So that means you’re going to have to pay for a babysitter.

Junior wants to do track, which means finding a way to get him to Saturday track meets since you have to work. Maybe he can simply ride with the coach or another teammate. But if that isn’t an option, then you’ll have to spend money to get him there.

11

Part of the problem is that the parents have been lied to by people trying to sell them things–extra coaching, better equipment, summer camps, etc. It’s so tempting to believe the person telling you your kid is a super-star, and you don’t really have the perspective or context to judge.

Most sports scholarships are not worth what it cost to get them–they are usually partial tuition. There are also two things parents never consider:

  1. It’s not a guarantee. If you don’t perform, or the coach just thinks you could do better, you can be out on your ass, no scholarship. Same if you get injured and can’t play. Then you’ve got however many years of credit at a school you can’t afford to stay at, so you have to transfer, if you can–but any academic scholarships you turned down are gone now.

  2. It’s a lot of fucking work. We always hear about the corruption–D1 Football and basketball stars getting easy As–but most student athletes don’t get that sort of “perk”, but they have the same disadvantages: hours and hours of mandatory practice, lots of missed classes during the season, etc. Half of your tuition for “free” isn’t a great deal when you graduate with bad grades, worse skills, and no experience in a workplace. I had a student who was good enough at track to have D1 coaches interested–but her whole deal is she wants to be a doctor, and she realized she wouldn’t be able to keep her grades up like they needed to be for that if she was running track at the same time. She took an academic scholarship to a good but not amazing school instead.

12

from what I’ve read, for football it’s something like: 1 million kids play high school football every year. The NFL drafts 200 players every year.

odds are your kid isn’t going to make pros.

maybe the real problem is that we think sports are way, way more important than they actually are?

13

I would like to figure out how to get more sports at the rec level.

I think it comes down to just using volunteer coaches and using basic ballfields in parks and schools. Also having enough kids you can have enough teams that they dont need to travel.

14

It is possible but very unlikely unless your coach is a total ass or the player really screwed up somehow. I’ve never seen someone be dropped for an injury related to team play.

My daughter is currently in med school along with 5 other girls she played with (actually at least one is a full doctor by now). My son who also played D1 soccer as well (technically still on the team due to red shirt) got his bachelors in 3 years and is finishing up doing his grad degree doing rotations to be a Physicians Assistant.

It does take a lot of very hard work and discipline but isn’t impossible.

15

why?

16

I’ll jump in with an answer. A less intensive but more widely inclusive system of sports can result in a healthier and happier population. People should have the opportunity of playing regularly until they no longer can physically. And in leagues where the results don’t really matter. A good system would give everyone the opportunity to find a level of play in which they’re comfortable, make new friends, keep old ones and gather at the local watering hole (with their opponents) after the game. Soccer, softball, volleyball, bocce, it doesn’t really matter; the point is to interact with our fellow man, have a little fun and work up a little sweat.

In one regard, we take sports way too seriously in this country, selecting only the best of the best to continue playing. In another way, we don’t take the social aspects of participating into middle age seriously enough.

17

I dont think we take it past jr high. Thats about when most kids drop out of basketball, baseball, or whatever because they arent good enough for the top teams anymore.

18

I think it’s more accurate to say there’s a pause where a lot of kids who don’t make their high school team stop playing certain sports*. But they may start again later - I know plenty of bar/union/employer sponsored softball teams and over 18 basketball and hockey leagues and even over 30 and over 40 leagues. There’s a couple of volleyball teams that practice down the street from my house. There’s too many of them to be entirely full of people who played in high school and college and I know for a fact some didn’t. And I know plenty of people who did play in high school and college but never played afterward.
It’s related to this

As a sports parent, it seemed to me that some members of my kids’ teams were playing for something other than " the love of the game" . They were trying to get scholarships, or get a leg up on admission to a high school or college and of course some thought they would play professionally. And once those incentives were gone - it became obvious that a pro career wasn’t in the cards or the scholarship/admission didn’t materialize - they stopped playing. The one who played because they enjoyed it are the ones who populate the adult teams I mentioned above

  • Although some don’t - my son played Little League at least to his junior year of high school even though he made the varsity team. Some of his Little League teammates were not on their high school team. And it doesn’t necessarily apply to certain sports that are either individual sports or a different type of team - for example, non-school connected bowling leagues are either singles leagues or people form their own teams.There isn’t any team to “make” and if you are an individual who wants to bowl on a five person team league ,the bowling alley will match people up to fill teams.
19

Among other things, sports where it’s not necessary to be on the winning team to be able to play lets us clumsy people have more physical play than if you’re not just chosen last, you’re not allowed in. And this in turn gives us a chance to get better: the physical games in which I did have time to get better were stuff that so far nobody has made a league for (I actually ended up being one of the best players for a couple of them, but that took time; time that nobody would give me at volley, soccer or basket (with good reason, mind you; the world spun if I took my glasses off)).

20

I agree with all of the above.

Even for kids, there is far more pressure now to participate in a sport at an intensive level, and to pick one sport to focus on. Decades ago, when I was in school, kids played football in the fall, basketball in the winter, baseball or soccer in the spring and summer, etc., and most of the kids who were athletically inclined played in a range of sports. Now, it seems that, from a fairly early age, if a kid shows promise in a particular sport, they’re channeled into that sport, and focus on it more-or-less year round (thus, potentially limiting them from playing in other sports).

And, there’s the issue, as you note, of the increasing focus on identifying the kids who have the potential to excel at higher levels, with (as I see it) a discouragement of those kids who aren’t that talented to even participate.

And, getting back to the OP’s point about the cost of participating – sports should be something that all kids who want to play are able to play, regardless of their family’s income. No, not every kid is going to be good enough to play on a travel team, or on the varsity team, but when schools put a hefty participation fee on sports, it’s one more barrier to participation in society for the poor.