College athletics and your child

[TexasHusker]

I think this is getting a bit crazy
I remember when my son played sports in leagues ( YMCA and others) formed for youth. As parents of a 7-10 year olds it was suppose to be Fun and teaching kids teamwork and discipline to practice. Nope so many turned into some sort of boot-camp to create some super athlete.

What it becomes is a set of over zealous parents convinced that their little one is the next great one.
So they scream at volunteer coaches and referees, pull kids moving team to team because " that team had the audacity to let AVERAGE kids play. I mean really".

The pressure even on individual sports I have seen many cases cause many issues.
One of what I had hoped would be my best friend was pushed too hard by her parents. she cracked and acted up began doing drugs and ruined her life to where I could not even recognize her.
Not only did she give up a sport, at one point she loved, but her defiance of the constant pressure ended up very badly.

Parents are becoming marketing agents selling their kids talent to the highest bidder. So now not chosen by 9th grade you are now washed up. that is just SAD.

It is easy to blame the parents, but no one's hands are clean in the "sports is king" phenomenon. This all starts at the top. For example in volleyball, USA Volleyball is driving the train. At the top of the food chain are the Olympic teams, and they have a very extensive feeder program. At a number of the large tournaments around the country, USAV will have a High Performance Combine/Tryout. They take hundreds of girls and funnel them down, in a matter of 2 hours, to the 10-12 best players. Those players then will get invitations to the USAV High Performance training camps in the summer, and they are broken out by A1, A2, A3, and then "Skills." A1 is the best of the best, and out of all of those kids in A1, there might be only 1 or 2 that are invited to actually train with an olympic team (and there are several of those). (Oddly and as a side note, my daughter made it to the top court of a USAV HP Combine and actually did not get a camp invitation although she performed very well on that court - we are still scratching our heads on that one, but I digress).

The local high school coaches are paid to win, and they are going to put the best 6 on the court to do that. When you have 20 girls trying out for the team, and 10 of them have never played club ball, they stand out like a sore thumb and they usually have zero chance to make the high school team because their skills are not developed. Then you trickle down to the middle school years...same situation. Middle schools will often at least have an A and a B team, but the A team is mostly going to be made up of club players because of their skills. The B team is the rest of the kids.

So if you're a parent, and you want your kid to have at least the opportunity to play a minimum of middle school ball, and perhaps even high school, you've got to jump on things early to give them a chance. At my daughter's high school, if you survive and make the varsity team at some point, you are college material. It is harder to make the team at our school than it is to make many college programs.

Craziness.

[msomnipotent]

I think this is getting a bit crazy
I remember when my son played sports in leagues ( YMCA and others) formed for youth. As parents of a 7-10 year olds it was suppose to be Fun and teaching kids teamwork and discipline to practice. Nope so many turned into some sort of boot-camp to create some super athlete.

What it becomes is a set of over zealous parents convinced that their little one is the next great one.
So they scream at volunteer coaches and referees, pull kids moving team to team because " that team had the audacity to let AVERAGE kids play. I mean really".

The pressure even on individual sports I have seen many cases cause many issues.
One of what I had hoped would be my best friend was pushed too hard by her parents. she cracked and acted up began doing drugs and ruined her life to where I could not even recognize her.
Not only did she give up a sport, at one point she loved, but her defiance of the constant pressure ended up very badly.

Parents are becoming marketing agents selling their kids talent to the highest bidder. So now not chosen by 9th grade you are now washed up. that is just SAD.

Yeah, parents are nuts. One of my sisters has been coaching soccer for a small religious school for a few years. There are parents running up and down the field, screaming directions and calling their kids names. This is kindergarten to sixth grade! One of the guys routinely calls his kid an A hole in front of everyone.

[disneysteve]

Yeah, parents are nuts. One of my sisters has been coaching soccer for a small religious school for a few years. There are parents running up and down the field, screaming directions and calling their kids names. This is kindergarten to sixth grade! One of the guys routinely calls his kid an A hole in front of everyone.

This is a coaching issue. That parent should get one very solid warning. If it happens again, they should be permanently banned.

[disneysteve]

So if you're a parent, and you want your kid to have at least the opportunity to play a minimum of middle school ball, and perhaps even high school, you've got to jump on things early to give them a chance.

This is the really crazy part. Kids, and their parents, shouldn't have to know and decide at age 5 that they are going to want to play, or be good at, volleyball or basketball or field hockey when they're 12 or 16. What happens to the kid who goes to summer camp when she's 13 and finds that she really enjoys tennis. By then, it's probably "too late" for her start playing competitively. Something is seriously screwed up with a system like that.

[TexasHusker]

This is the really crazy part. Kids, and their parents, shouldn't have to know and decide at age 5 that they are going to want to play, or be good at, volleyball or basketball or field hockey when they're 12 or 16. What happens to the kid who goes to summer camp when she's 13 and finds that she really enjoys tennis. By then, it's probably "too late" for her start playing competitively. Something is seriously screwed up with a system like that.

If your kid likes athletics and is athletic (the two usually go hand-in-hand), it's good to get them playing all of it from 1st grade through 5th in the "pee wee" leagues just so that the can figure out what they like best and enjoy participating. My daughter never liked anything except volleyball - we tried track, basketball, golf, and tennis, as well as the violin. Middle schoolers can be multi-sport with no problem, and even at many high schools. When you get into the larger high schools - 5A and 6A, multi-sport is much more problematic.

Golf lends itself to later bloomers. Most of the other sports do not.

[txex86]

TexasHusker, The University of Texas at Austin has a great volleyball team. They have reached the Sweet 16 the past 13 seasons, and have gotten farther numerous times. Jerrod Elliot, their coach, is a great guy and hosts a bunch of volleyball camps during the summer: http://texasvolleyball.com/

[TexasHusker]

TexasHusker, The University of Texas at Austin has a great volleyball team. They have reached the Sweet 16 the past 13 seasons, and have gotten farther numerous times. Jerrod Elliot, their coach, is a great guy and hosts a bunch of volleyball camps during the summer: http://texasvolleyball.com/

We are quite familiar with Texas volleyball, as well as Nebraska. My kid is good, but she isn't that good.