Maybe this should not be a rant. I am not really sure what to think of it.
When I was a kid there was nothing of the sort. At this age You signed up for a league some required try outs some did not.
All the players were given a number and coaches picked numbers at random with no name or knowledge of who the kid was or their abilities.
The coach’s kid was the only one they knew who they were getting.
The teams were essentially picked at the inception. Once you were on a team you stayed on that team. Granted a few exceptions when coach/player issues arose. Any new players or vacancies were filled by the anonymous lottery as well.
You recruited kids to play in the league not a specific team.

Yes, I am biased he is my kid and I am aware. But that does not mean he is not very very good. At times uncomfortably good.
We are talking soccer guess I should have mentioned that he has played in this league for 3 seasons now. Todays game was the first game where he scored less than 5 goals. He scored 3, it was also a 1:30 game, 89*, and being the last game of the season had no players to sub.
My boy gets approached every week by parents and grandparents of the kids from the other team telling him how good he is.
You can hear them talk about him during the game.
He can hear them and he has some friends on the team that aren’t as good and there are times where he feels bad because his friends aren’t all as good especially when they are on the other team.

Well, today I was approached by a coach wanting Aaron to come to another league team. It is a far more competitive/skilled league semi traveling league.
I have looked into the league but recruiting kids at 7 just not sure how I feel about that. Maybe I m out of touch or not up to date or maybe a blanket invitation to the league for the whole team to try out may have been more appropriate?

Welcome to childhood sports! Happens a lot! Wait until you starting playing on travel teams and end up paying big bucks to have your kid on the team!

You are out of touch. Baseball is this way now. Hockey my 7 yo plays with kids from as far away as Dallas. We live in Columbus Ohio.

What I would say is that as long as he is having fun that is what matters most. The team trying to recruit him will make him a better player. I think that is fine as long as the parents are not dicks which they usually are and he is having fun and enjoying himself.

My kids all enjoyed sports none got a scholarship. My two youngest might. My concern is overuse injuries from coaches like this.

quote:

Originally posted by Black92LX:

Well, today I was approached by a coach wanting Aaron to come to another league team. It is a far more competitive/skilled league semi traveling league.
I have looked into the league but recruiting kids at 7 just not sure how I feel about that. Maybe I m out of touch or not up to date or maybe a blanket invitation to the league for the whole team to try out may have been more appropriate?

It was a while ago, but we had a similar situation.

My oldest son was about 8 or 9, and he dominated on our local rec soccer team. He scored most of his team's goals and usually sat out the second half so that the other team could try to make a game of it. Being a rec league, the focus was on fun and learning.

My son got recruited to play for a travel team. We were pretty excited at first, but things quickly soured. The coach turned out to be a flaming a$$hole who would punish kids for making mistakes by benching them. Several of the parents would gladly slit your throat if it would get their kid a few more minutes playing time. Add in the cost for the league and uniforms, mandatory practices, weekends spent out of town traveling to games and tournaments, and the season became an ongoing nightmare.

When the season was over, we pulled our son out and planned on going back to the rec league the following season. But, the travel team experience was so bad that he lost his enthusiasm and didn't want to play soccer anymore.

I think a travel team *could* be a great experience, but I would ask around about the coaches, teams, parents, etc. before letting your son join a travel team.

I would not let my 7 year old join a travel team like that. Not at 7. Too many variables and things you may have no knowledge of or control over.

There are a lot of people who have made youth sports into a business. This is built on the mostly unrealistic hopes and dreams of parents who think they can tell that their 4 year old has potential to play professionally.

I made it a point to avoid such people as much as possible and tend to have a low opinion of the business in general. Thankfully the city we lived in had a very good public football and baseball program and he was challenged enough without paying too much for him to play. Had I been in a different area perhaps my opinion would be different. Not to inject politics into a non-political thread, but based on my experience and having talked to a lot of friends and family, the more liberal the area the less competitive programs offered by the city are.

As others have posted, youth sports has turned into a business. You say your son is being "recruited", but what I hear a coach trying to sell you something. Just how badly does he want your kid for his team? Will he substantially discount or waive team fees?

IMO, at 7 y/o, a travel/select team is worth looking into if it doesn't cost much more than playing in the current rec league, but I suspect that isn't the case, b/c as written above, people depend on this stuff as their full-time jobs.

I feel your bewilderment. I’ve had both ends of that stick: where he’s been invited on a team where “no else is to know”, and been left behind on other opportunities. It’s uncomfortable either way. I’ve declined a couple things simply because I didn’t like the feeling of anyone else being left out, but that certainly isn’t the norm for most.
Most want in, because it’s another opportunity for their kid.. and I don’t blame them, either.

What WILL get really uncomfortable is the politicking. The guys here have heard my bitches, so I won’t redress.
I will say I think the single digit ages are too young to start picking out kids for this or that..and I don’t think I’d do a traveling team at age 7. Are any of his friends on it? What’s the avg age? How much traveling? If it were a close knit group, and close in age, then maybe. If not, well, I think I’d keep him with friends. Good luck to you in this. It’s not for the faint of heart.

The league/team that he is on now is very good. They play at the same complex every week, it is limited to 1 practice and 1 game a week unless makeups just stack up from weather. They don’t play or practice over the summer or spring break, they start each game with a prayer, and each practice has a little Bible story/lesson, girls only play with girls.
The first thing they tell you at parent orientation is that your kids aren’t going to play professionally nor are they going to get scholarships to play in college.

The team possibly looking forward is an offshoot of that league and does a much better job of keeping things in perspective is my understanding.
Details I know are that costs are about a quarter of what true traveling teams are. The farthest distance travelled is an hour and a half. While it is a business from the outside it does not appear to be a league that eats your soul like many have described above.
That is the way all the baseball leagues are here. 4 practices a week, optional batting practice, and 2 games. That is why my kids don’t play baseball and that pains me a bit. As I did excel in baseball a bit more than soccer.

Like I said at the get go. Not sure it is exactly a rant or even really what to feel about it. They are little kids and sports are about fun and if anyone really thinks they know the path as kid at this age is on, is joking with themself.

My little dude is really good right now but in a season or two he could fizzle out and pop as well.

A guess I feel at this age the coach should have just a blanket invite to the team as a whole to come and try out.
Though I could be wrong. Just kind of weird as this is not the sport outlook I grew up in playing baseball and soccer myself.

Sounds like you’ll do what’s best for your family.
4 practices a week for a 7 yo in baseball? My, they don’t want him in any other sport (or anything else, for that matter, huh?). Geez.

If I understand correctly, our local hockey club is about to get split up this fall, so we are into a whole new realm now, too.. and they’re dividing these kids up by skill set, instead of mixing skill sets and keeping them local. We may drop hockey (which is dear to my heart, but wtf? Take him away from his local rink? He’s just transitioning to squirt this year)..
It’s getting wild out there. Again, good luck in your decision. The way you’re presenting it, the choices actually both sound decent.

And I agree, a blanket invite to your team to try out would’ve been more my comfort level as well- what that coach did can create animosity and dissension among parents, maybe even kids, imho.

quote:

There are a lot of people who have made youth sports into a business. This is built on the mostly unrealistic hopes and dreams of parents who think they can tell that their 4 year old has potential to play professionally.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Exactly. I know a local kid who was quite skilled at baseball. Played with a traveling team, and was good enough to get a partial college scholarship.{The full ones are for football and basketball.} The team played in the NCAA college world series. He was drafted by the Yankees. He spent two years in the minor leagues making a little more than minimum wage and staying in crappy hotels. He said the kids from the DR and Venezuela were tough competition and often moved up. He is now trying to figure out what to do. He is coaching kids to improve their batting. He is not happy.

My youngest son played baseball . Now he has an 8 yr old that plays and was recruited to play on a team . My son said that they will not get involved in any of the tournament or traveling teams . Glad to hear it .

quote:

Originally posted by irreverent:
My, they don’t want him in any other sport (or anything else, for that matter, huh?). Geez.

This is another red flag for anyone looking for youth sports teams for their kids. Any coach who doesn’t encourage kids on his team to play multiple sports is not looking out for the best long-term interests of the kid. Pretty much every study and professional athlete and coach will agree that playing multiple sports makes better athletes.

Obviously if your kid doesn’t want to play other sports you shouldn’t force them, but encouraging them to play other sports can help them in many ways. Coaches who want a kid to focus only on one sport are looking out for themselves and trying to squeeze everything they can from the kid without regard to their future. Lots of kids burn out under such coaches.

Currently Our kids swim one day a week, have church choir practice once a week during school months, and play one sport per season. So far has been soccer and basketball for 2 of them, and martial arts for the other.
We are not looking to adjust or change that setup.
Still looking into what the time requirements for this league are.

Every kid should play some kind of sport if possible . Anything . I despise Soccer but if my kids had wanted to play Soccer then that would have been fine with me . When parent's or Coaches get too invested in the process it can turn out bad .

Our older son was a very good HS soccer player and got “recruited” to play in an international travel soccer team.

At first we were interested, that is u til we heard that we had to give the coach a credit card and he would “just charge” all of our sons expenses to it…then I found out from talking to other parents that this team spends a month in Sweden every summer and the Bill’s run about $40K for the season…

I told my son that he was good but not THAT good and would not be able to play professional soccer. Ten years later he’s now in SF and actually enjoying the experience.

Just no. Not at 7. It'll be a giant time suck for you and your wife.

My 7 year old is doing coach-pitch baseball this year and is pretty good and really enjoying himself and that's all we care about; if he's having fun at it.

Some of these parents are WAAAY to wrapped up with the notion their Little Johnny is going to be the next Babe Ruth or something, this one douchebag father on the opposing team was barking at and berating his poor kid from the sidelines the entire game a few weeks ago.

The poor kid was clearly not enjoying himself and not that great at it and I wanted to tell this guy to chill the EFF out.

I mean, is "recruiting" any different from asking him to come play? They're not taking him out to dinner and explaining the benefits of their team, are they?

If your kid is scoring that many goals and is that much better than his competition, then he should step up to a more competitive league if he wants to be more serious about it. It sounds like the league you're describing is an Upward league, or something very similar. They are very non-competitive, in my experience.

And yeah, I realize he's 7 so maybe he, and you, don't think he should be more serious about it. That's your decision to make, certainly. I don't want my kids on travel squads at that age, either. But I wouldn't have an issue with someone asking.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:

Some of these parents are WAAAY to wrapped up with the notion their Little Johnny is going to be the next Babe Ruth or something, this one douchebag father on the opposing team was barking at and berating his poor kid from the sidelines the entire game a few weeks ago.

All 3 of my boys played soccer. One time at a game, the ref issued the coach a yellow card and told him if I didn’t stop yelling at my son, he’d issue a red card and the team would forfeit.

I thought the ref was overreacting because, while I was loud, I was offering encouragement and not criticizing him. Later, however, I thought it was generally a good idea because I’ve seen way too many parents screaming abuse at their kids.