Travel Ball insanity and Parents training their Kids to be Pros......

I have a very different perspective.

It was a very niche sport, but I did that in high school and into college. It was a good bit of travel, national level competitions, Junior Olympics, a World Cup, travel to train with coaches who had Olympic medals and world records, etc.. It was kind of "what I did" for about 5 years. (No, it wasn't soccer - there are world cups for most olympic sports.)

I was practicing, training, or competing ~6 days/week for most of the year, less but not zero during summers. I was also in the top hundred or so to top couple dozen in the US at different points in time.

Yes, it obviously impacted my life. My parents were very involved, eventually as licensed officials, and obviously facilitating travel and paying for everything. Both of them ended up volunteering for high-school and some national level matches for years after I had quit to focus on College (it wasn't possible to do both, and I picked a "better" school instead of one of the ones that offered me a scholarship....which I now believe may have been a mistake).

But, it was always my choice. I was never forced into it.

I guess you could call it negative that I didn't socialize or date all that much outside of it. I still had friends outside of it, and we still did stuff together....just not during the week or on Saturday mornings. It was also a co-ed sport. I dated a bit, but the only actual girlfriend I had in high school was a teammate. Fortunately, it didn't create any drama...somehow. Most of my close friends were also teammates, but I'm under the impression that's kind of normal.

I also got two state championship rings and a giant pile of medals out of it. And I tried out for the Olympics in 2004 (I wasn't going to make it; I finished that match in like 18th place, IIRC. They took 2.)

I look back on those years very fondly. The only reason I don't still do it as a hobby is just that after training and competing at that level, if I'm not training at least 30 hours/week and competing at that level, it feels like a complete waste of time. I still do somewhat related things, just not exactly the same, and I have fun with them. But, I don't have that kind of time.

If you're going to do it, IMHO, you need to start when you don't have real responsibilities.

Parents forcing kids into something like that....I have an issue with that. But letting them do something they're interested in and taking it as far as they want to and can....I'm all for it.
 
An additional perspective....

I played baseball through college and later, when my son started playing, I was asked to coach. I started coaching the 9U city travel team which migrated into a club team after 12U and I stayed on until 18U season was over. The entire coaching staff stayed together for 9 years. Having played as long as I did, I understood the odds of making any kind of career out of it was about the same as hitting the Powerball. I also understood that highly organized team sports offer a lot of benefits to development of kids if it's done right and can offer benefits later on. Out of the 16 on the 18U team, 7 got scholarships to play in college. 2 were D1, the others D2 or less. Keep in mind that this allows these kids to go to college at a greatly reduced cost in most cases which is a great thing considering how much it costs these days.

The bad side....yes, the assertions that it's just a money maker are true in certain situations, I've seen it. The overzealous parents and team leaders that sell the kids and parents on the D1 or pro ball dream is wrong and maddening. Again, the odds are NO. There's a lot of bad organizations, bad coaches and wasted money. Many of the club travel teams are just a business venture. Many of the kids lose interest or find something else.
However, it is also a proven path to development of physical skills, teamwork, emotional and physical health. Our boys got to go places they may never have gone and met a lot of people and had a lot experiences that they wouldn't have gotten otherwise. The camaraderie and competition helped them develop solid mental and emotional health. They don't expect something for no effort and learned that you don't always win, there is always someone "better" at what you do and yes, even working your a$$ off at something doesn't mean you'll get what you want. The value of that is subjective to the individual though I tend to see it as very little in life is free and the potential and real benefits for the kids has a cost, but a very high value. Travel sports or Playstations...time spent playing a physical sport or sitting around playing mind numbing video games....Which is more beneficial? Neither of them is inexpensive but I'd argue one offers a lot more in return.

The travel, expenses and time investment is a lot, no doubt. It's not for everyone. But if you think about it, it's not much different than all of us spending thousands of dollars on music gear and thousands of hours practicing when most don't and will never have a hit record/song or a million streams, or are/will be a well known musician, or even do this for more than side thing or hobby. Yet, here we are.....
 
Shredology said:
I'll give the grumpy old man answer. I was born in 1970 back when your parents didn't have much to do with you. They had no concept of driving us around anywhere to participate in anything considered entertainment.

The most I got was "go outside and play and be home when the streetlights come on"

The parental equivalent of "piss-off"
Click to expand...


Interesting take. I viewed it as giving us freedom to go out and explore, build things out in the woods, jump bikes, have BB gun fights, make up games, and do 1000 things that kids today will never get a chance to do; because they're not even allowed to walk to school unsupervised.

If I had expressed interest in something, the piano for example, my mom would have been over the moon and gotten me lessons or driven me anywhere. Same with my dad and sports. I just mostly wanted to fuck off with friends and do my own thing though.

I have to wonder how much of the travel/training sports, and especially shit like the beauty pageants, is just the parents trying to live vicariously through the kids.
 
We as kids just to "play out" and do our own unsupervised things. We had freedom.
I was never into sports as such, but I was fit.

In my case, I asked my Dad for a guitar which he duly bought as he played in bands and was a great singer. Initially, he supported me by teaching me new chords as I became a bit more proficient with my Am, C, D, and G chords. I would go to school and tell my friends I could play such and such a song and they would all say, "Cool!". My Dad's support did not last long once I got myself an amplifier. "Dad, where is my guitar lead, I need it to plug into my amp...?" He used to hide my leads so that I could not make a noise.

If I had been into sport, let's say running, he would have driven me 10 miles away, dumped me out of the car, and said, "I will see you eventually get home". Bye. Just get on with it.
 
marsonic said:
What's wrong with competition?
Click to expand...

To clarify what I mean by hyper competition:

I am not a competitive person myself but I am not anti competition. I like watching sports and I want them to keep score and win and all that.

Seeing young kids get hyper competitive bothers me. When everything is about winning and being the best from a young age, it takes some of the joy out. Playing sports and being in band at its heart is about community, creating something together that is joyful and rewarding with other people.

I am a teacher and my “essential question” in all my units boils down to this: where do you draw the line? A lot of what I see goes over my line between fun and rewarding and cutthroat competition. Lines vary of course, such is life.
 
Tremonti said:
I am 45. I played soccer, baseball, basketball, football, tennis and powerlifting growing up. Normal league stuff and then also at school. Now all kids/parents do is Travel Ball. "Hey lets play 5 games a weekend, 4 hours away with a hotel and also have 4 practices a week". Who wants that? Not cool for parent or kid. All these pay training facilities, on top of the required madness mentioned above. When did everyone start training their kids to be pro athletes? It is absurd and a million to 1 shot. I just don't get it....... Life balance matters and I do not think it is healthy.
Click to expand...

I was that Parent. You almost have to these days. When all of their friends are doing it, not doing
it becomes a horrific method of ostracizing your child socially? It's not even a choice, to be honest.
If they are into athletics and their closest friends are then you better connect with those other parents
and kids and make it happen to some degree.

I would joke with my Son (who is 18 now) that I would love him just the same if he was not athletic,
was chunky, and liked to draw pictures and write poetry in a journal. It's true. 🥳

I love him the way he is, though, and part of that was sucking it up and putting horrific miles on to
shuttle him to 7 on 7 Tournaments. It's insane. The $$$ are just nothing my Parents would have ever
done.

The worst part of it is we are demanding them (and they are, too! and the entire culture and system is!)
to perform year round. That is not sustainable. My Son tore his ACL at a 7 on 7 Tournament in May
of 2021. Had to sit out his Sophomore and Junior years. Was excited to play again and tore it again
last August of 2023. I am beyond crushed for him, because he worked so hard to get back to playing.
Now he just needs to focus on having a healthy limb to walk around on.

He's actually scheduled for major reconstructive surgery tomorrow morning at U of M. We had to find a
qualified surgeon to do it, and took months of consultations, since this is his second ACL reconstruction
and he is just 18. I am a bit beside myself about it, while staying upbeat and light-hearted with him about
it all.

So, yeah, poetry and writing short stories. Play the guitar. Hell, go jump out of airplanes. Anything but the
madness that is Youth Sports in 'Murica. 🤦‍♂️

As if we have much of a choice. When in Rome. :trophy::rugby::basketball::baseball:
 
grandinq said:
To clarify what I mean by hyper competition:

I am not a competitive person myself but I am not anti competition. I like watching sports and I want them to keep score and win and all that.

Seeing young kids get hyper competitive bothers me. When everything is about winning and being the best from a young age, it takes some of the joy out. Playing sports and being in band at its heart is about community, creating something together that is joyful and rewarding with other people.

I am a teacher and my “essential question” in all my units boils down to this: where do you draw the line? A lot of what I see goes over my line between fun and rewarding and cutthroat competition. Lines vary of course, such is life.
Click to expand...

Yup. Do you know how many horrible car rides home hundreds of miles with an ornery
group of stinky young men was and is?? You'd try and remind them that it was just a "game"
and then the smoke would really come out of their ears. :oops:

They invest so much of themselves into it, and their closest friends are on the team, and
when a weekend goes bad, and there is not ultimate success, then even the little wins and
magic moments get lost in the shuffle.

Competitiveness can be toxic and cancerous. No doubt about it!

"It's about the journey not the destination."

Better duck because they might throw something at you. 🤣

I'd still say it. Kids don't know what they don't know. Even if they denounce and denigrate
the "perspective" we offer it is still healthy for them to hear it---even if a bit dangerous to
deliver it.

And yes, it is just a fucking game! But a game through which they experience and value so much. 🤘
 
la szum said:
I was that Parent. You almost have to these days. When all of their friends are doing it, not doing
it becomes a horrific method of ostracizing your child socially? It's not even a choice, to be honest.
If they are into athletics and their closest friends are then you better connect with those other parents
and kids and make it happen to some degree.

I would joke with my Son (who is 18 now) that I would love him just the same if he was not athletic,
was chunky, and liked to draw pictures and write poetry in a journal. It's true. 🥳

I love him the way he is, though, and part of that was sucking it up and putting horrific miles on to
shuttle him to 7 on 7 Tournaments. It's insane. The $$$ are just nothing my Parents would have ever
done.

The worst part of it is we are demanding them (and they are, too! and the entire culture and system is!)
to perform year round. That is not sustainable. My Son tore his ACL at a 7 on 7 Tournament in May
of 2021. Had to sit out his Sophomore and Junior years. Was excited to play again and tore it again
last August of 2023. I am beyond crushed for him, because he worked so hard to get back to playing.
Now he just needs to focus on having a healthy limb to walk around on.

He's actually scheduled for major reconstructive surgery tomorrow morning at U of M. We had to find a
qualified surgeon to do it, and took months of consultations, since this is his second ACL reconstruction
and he is just 18. I am a bit beside myself about it, while staying upbeat and light-hearted with him about
it all.

So, yeah, poetry and writing short stories. Play the guitar. Hell, go jump out of airplanes. Anything but the
madness that is Youth Sports in 'Murica. 🤦‍♂️

As if we have much of a choice. When in Rome. :trophy::rugby::basketball::baseball:
Click to expand...
Best of luck in his surgery tomorrow. Hoping for a quick recovery as well.
 
Tremonti said:
I am 45. I played soccer, baseball, basketball, football, tennis and powerlifting growing up. Normal league stuff and then also at school. Now all kids/parents do is Travel Ball. "Hey lets play 5 games a weekend, 4 hours away with a hotel and also have 4 practices a week". Who wants that? Not cool for parent or kid. All these pay training facilities, on top of the required madness mentioned above. When did everyone start training their kids to be pro athletes? It is absurd and a million to 1 shot. I just don't get it....... Life balance matters and I do not think it is healthy.
Click to expand...
I'm right at the beginning stages of this right now and I'm having concerns much like you've mentioned.
My oldest daughter is 9 and she's on a competitive dance team. This is her first year, and I think they expect too much from the kids.
Spending an entire weekend at these competitions, not just dancing multiple times, but watching hundreds of other acts perform. The days are super long and I don't see why they make such huge events EVERY WEEKEND.

She loves to dance, and tells us she really enjoys being on the comp team. But I believe she just likes being 'included' more than anything. That's all any kid craves - being part of something, fitting in, etc.

My cynical side says - this is going to burn her out (and/or all burn all the kids out)....and it's all the fault of the adults that create these competition/leagues/events. Kids don't create these teams/events/leagues. Kids don't schedule 10hr events every weekend.
The uber competitive creation is all done by adults. (and here is my super cynical side) - it's done by adults that will profit from it.
The cost of these competitions is insane. Absolutely insane. My loose math on the cost to create/hosting these events vs. the revenue they make per event...tells me that is a big driver. I guess that's the driver with anything...$$.
 
grandinq said:
To clarify what I mean by hyper competition:

I am not a competitive person myself but I am not anti competition. I like watching sports and I want them to keep score and win and all that.

Seeing young kids get hyper competitive bothers me. When everything is about winning and being the best from a young age, it takes some of the joy out. Playing sports and being in band at its heart is about community, creating something together that is joyful and rewarding with other people.

I am a teacher and my “essential question” in all my units boils down to this: where do you draw the line? A lot of what I see goes over my line between fun and rewarding and cutthroat competition. Lines vary of course, such is life.
Click to expand...

I'll agree at least so far as it needs to be the kid's choice.

I got as far as I did because I trained a lot. But, I trained a lot because I wanted to do it. I also won a lot. But, it always felt like the winning, the medals, the rings, etc., were all side-effects of me wanting to put that much work into getting better and better at something I enjoyed.

We had people on my high school team who very much embodied what you describe - they were important contributors and were very much "better than average", but they all hit a plateau that they were never going to break through without a lot of work. They struck the balance you seem to promote, and that gave them what they wanted to get out of it. I never shamed them for it, and I never pressed them to put more in. They were always welcome to show up and do the "extra" training that the super-committed people were doing, but it wasn't required. To us, the super-committed group, it still wasn't exactly required, but none of us considered it optional either. It was just part of it.

You would have said that I was over the line into cutthroat - but putting in that much work is when it started to be rewarding. Like I said, I don't do those exact disciplines at all anymore....doing it casually holds literally zero appeal for me.

Ironically, guitar is the opposite. I'm not as terrible of a player as I joke that I am. But, it's always been a hobby. I play when I want to, and I learn things when I get a bug in my ear about it. I'm probably going to start taking lessons again at some point. But the idea of being any more than a "filthy casual" at guitar doesn't really appeal to me. I get the difference. I just think people should make up their own minds about where they fall. And limiting people because you don't think the sacrifices are going to be worth it in the long run is just going to limit them to mediocrity.
 
BBN said:
I'm right at the beginning stages of this right now and I'm having concerns much like you've mentioned.
My oldest daughter is 9 and she's on a competitive dance team. This is her first year, and I think they expect too much from the kids.
Spending an entire weekend at these competitions, not just dancing multiple times, but watching hundreds of other acts perform. The days are super long and I don't see why they make such huge events EVERY WEEKEND.

She loves to dance, and tells us she really enjoys being on the comp team. But I believe she just likes being 'included' more than anything. That's all any kid craves - being part of something, fitting in, etc.

My cynical side says - this is going to burn her out (and/or all burn all the kids out)....and it's all the fault of the adults that create these competition/leagues/events. Kids don't create these teams/events/leagues. Kids don't schedule 10hr events every weekend.
The uber competitive creation is all done by adults. (and here is my super cynical side) - it's done by adults that will profit from it.
The cost of these competitions is insane. Absolutely insane. My loose math on the cost to create/hosting these events vs. the revenue they make per event...tells me that is a big driver. I guess that's the driver with anything...$$.
Click to expand...

Much luck and blessings on the journey. There are no copy and paste easy decisions.
 
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marsonic said:
I'll agree at least so far as it needs to be the kid's choice.

I got as far as I did because I trained a lot. But, I trained a lot because I wanted to do it. I also won a lot. But, it always felt like the winning, the medals, the rings, etc., were all side-effects of me wanting to put that much work into getting better and better at something I enjoyed.

We had people on my high school team who very much embodied what you describe - they were important contributors and were very much "better than average", but they all hit a plateau that they were never going to break through without a lot of work. They struck the balance you seem to promote, and that gave them what they wanted to get out of it. I never shamed them for it, and I never pressed them to put more in. They were always welcome to show up and do the "extra" training that the super-committed people were doing, but it wasn't required. To us, the super-committed group, it still wasn't exactly required, but none of us considered it optional either. It was just part of it.

You would have said that I was over the line into cutthroat - but putting in that much work is when it started to be rewarding. Like I said, I don't do those exact disciplines at all anymore....doing it casually holds literally zero appeal for me.

Ironically, guitar is the opposite. I'm not as terrible of a player as I joke that I am. But, it's always been a hobby. I play when I want to, and I learn things when I get a bug in my ear about it. I'm probably going to start taking lessons again at some point. But the idea of being any more than a "filthy casual" at guitar doesn't really appeal to me. I get the difference. I just think people should make up their own minds about where they fall. And limiting people because you don't think the sacrifices are going to be worth it in the long run is just going to limit them to mediocrity.
Click to expand...

And yet mediocrity will always be the majourity of people. It's a number game. 🤔

Those who elevate to rarefied air will always be the few.
 
This is a good thread, I think several people have touched on it but if your child wants to do something competitively and its within your means, you should be all in as a parent. However, if you are a parent wanting to raise a professional athlete, dancer, actor, etc,..you have a better chance of winning the lottery and ruining your relationship with your kid. It will become evident fairly quickly whether your child has the skill or natural ability to compete at a professional level. Then your duty as a parent is to ensure they love what they do and don't burn out or get hurt. Both of my boys are enjoying playing intermural, competitive, coed soccer in college.

Funny story, my daughter who was a figure skater; joined the skating club in college. Since they participated in a couple competitions during the year, they were eligible to participate in the NCAA competition. She won a silver medal in her skill class and gives her brothers trouble that she is a NCAA medaling athlete :tearsofjoy:
 
Hi Dave
Was just reading about your son and wanted to just say I hope your boy does well with his surgery. And I wish him a speedy recovery. Man that sure is a tuff break to get another injury like that.
Anyway just wanted to let you know we wish him a speedy recovery.

All the Best
Fred
 
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