(10-18-2017 11:13 AM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  

(10-18-2017 04:38 AM)The Cutter of Bish Wrote:  

(10-17-2017 03:48 PM)Wedge Wrote:  For college sports other than football and men's basketball, I could understand that because the resources for recruiting are very limited. They recruit from travel teams because they are getting athletes who have competed in the sport for several years at progressively more competitive levels. Also, because coaching staffs are stretched thin, it's efficient to have a coach spend a weekend at a large tournament of travel teams, because the coach can watch many potential recruits in 2-3 days.

That's a tactic happening in soccer, volleyball, and lacrosse, too. Can't forget camps.

Where it comes to limited resources, I'll sell. There's more money and larger staffing lines running through football and basketball; the ever-rising salary lines aren't for increased responsibilities but for retention. I'd argue the expansion of staff in football and basketball programs is due to responsibilities taken off of your head coach and top coordinators and assistants and the need for their address elsewhere among the staff.

And camps, if coaches get in on that action, is frosting for compensation. It also looks like a pay-for-play scheme. You pay money for your kid to be seen by coaches and assistants because it's likely they won't bother coming out to see your kid otherwise.

So as a father of several toddlers, what should I do to give my kids the same type of athletic experience I had?

I was athletic but a late grower. Freshman year of high school, I was 5'2" and 120 lbs. But I played on my high school football team (didn't see the Varsity field much, but played a lot on Frosh and JV teams the first 3 years). I played organized organized basketball and baseball all the way through 12th grade.

We don't plan on doing travel teams because we want to have a lot of kids - there simply won't be time. Is there any hope of finding opportunities for my kids to play on an organized team sport?

There are definitely opportunities. I think it's more about the expectations of what level you want them to play eventually at. This could also be impacted by local circumstances (e.g. how large your high school enrollment is). Our district's high schools have over 3000 students each, so it's extremely competitive to get one of 12 spots on the basketball team. It's going to be a lot different at a much smaller school that still has the same 12 basketball team spots.

This is just my personal experience: when my kids were toddlers, we simply let them try lots of different activities at an intro level (e.g. baseball/softball, basketball, karate, dance, gymnastics, piano, tennis, swimming, etc.). From that point, your kids will generally figure out what they like to do and what they don't like to do and then go from there in terms of how you want to focus. I totally understand the time aspect, as my son would play 8 sports at a time if he could, but there are only so many hours in a day (or even a year). They're in third grade now and it has become more focused where my son is playing essentially one team sport per season (baseball in the spring/summer, soccer in the fall, basketball in the winter, and low intensity flag football sprinkled in), my daughter has dance and gymnastics during the school year and then softball in the summer, and they both have piano lessons every week. It's definitely a busy schedule, but they're doing these activities because *they* want to do them specifically and it took a few years for them to figure out what they actually liked to do.

Separately, it's really about expectations. If you're looking for recreational opportunities, I think those are widely available for many sports and many different levels. Going back to my son, he's playing rec league soccer simply because he likes running out there and his coach is great, but it's definitely a weak sport for him compared to the others. In contrast, we're starting travel basketball for him this year for the first time because he's showing more talent in that sport and he (*not* me or my wife) told us that he wanted to get much better at a higher level. I think he'll eventually want the same for baseball (which he also loves), but he can also end up playing in the more rec-based Little League if he wants to, as well. Regardless, if the idea is to play organized sports and you're not really concerned about whether they're making a varsity high school team (much less a college scholarship), then there are lots of good programs out there. You can definitely still play organized sports without needing to engage in the frenzy of club or travel team sports.