The College Bound Athlete (share, ask, boast)

[Dan T.]

4 hours ago, skinsfan_1215 said:

 

Awesome. Got some videos I can share already. He's 15 months old and cute as hell, got a nice little arm on him and doesn't favor either left or right yet. Figure he's bound to draw some early interest.

 

[Dan T.]

On ‎4‎/‎25‎/‎2017 at 10:35 AM, PeterMP said:

I have two nephews that played D1 college sports.  One in a sport where going pro in general is a realistic option.  The other, in the US at least, the best top out as Olympians.  I think at one point, they both had hopes of playing beyond college (and one realistically still might as he's still in college, but the odds have to be way down). Both picked schools based on scholarships/playing the sport, and it didn't work out for either one of them.  Both ended up transferring to other schools.

 

 

My cousin was a three sport high school star athlete and played football at Michigan State. He played a demanding position, probably the most important position of the sport, and did very well. So well that he is able to make a living at the pro level.  He had to sit behind another player for a couple of years before that player flamed out and was dropped. 

 

So now my cousins has started for the team for two years in a row, but for some reason the team refuses to give him a longer term contract.  Could it be because he didn't focus on only the one sport in high school? Who knows. The team recently fired the general manager, so maybe now there will be some progress on his contract.

 

 

 

[TMK9973]

Love this thread..I could use help if anyone has advice.

My son is a baseball player.  10th grade. I would say above average fielder, avg hitter, and way above avg speed (Best time on 60 is 6.7 right now..can do 6.9 regularly).  Hes also below Avg height but still growing. 

 

He is on a showcase team now that are doing national tournaments (including 2 perfect game events including the major one in Atlanta). But he is not hitting Home Runs and he doesn't pitch - so he isn't going to draw attention just by playing.

 

His expectations are reasonable (I think).  DII, DIII...He did have a D1 coach tell him last summer that he thought he could play D1 - but not in 3 years. He told him because of his size and still growing he might consider Jr College first then transfer to a D1 if he really wanted to play D1.  

 

(And yes -We are telling him to pick a list of schools he would want to attend even without baseball since long term - he still will be going to that school. And yes - We are telling him he needs to get in academically to the school before he can even look at baseball).  

 

SO the questions / Struggles I have - how to get the coaches attention. I know about writing the "letter" to different coaches and include a video resume. What I struggle with is 1 - What to say in the letter.  2- How to make the video!  3- When these should be sent out.  

 

Also -still struggle on how to get him to narrow his focus on what school.  

[dchogs]

@TMK9973

 

I think now's the time to get onto coaches' radars, so writing a letter/email is perfect.  My daughter's email was something like:

 

Dear Coach xxxxxxx,

 

After doing some research online, I am excited by the prospect of attending XXXXXX.  I am a member of the Class of 2019 at _______ High School, a rigorous college-prep boarding school in ____________. I have a 3.9 GPA, am a 3-sport varsity athlete, and would like to continue playing basketball at the collegiate level.   I've been a starter on my high school team for the last three years (8th, 9th, and 10th grades) playing primarily at the 2, 3, and 4 positions.

 

I would be very interested in learning more about your program, what you look for in a prospective student-athlete, and if you are offering camps over the summer (or even during the school year) that I could attend. 

 

Thank you for your time.  I have included my athletic resume and tournament schedule below.  My first tournament is this upcoming weekend, the Deep South tournament in Raleigh, NC.  

 

Sincerely,

 

 

 

Depending on the division, the coach may or may not be able to respond until Sept 1 of his Junior year (that's what it is for basketball/soccer).  That being said, they can send you camp information, so that is a little bit of a "back door" to the contact rule.  My daughter got good responses from the D3 schools on her list; the D1 schools were radio silent, which wasn't surprising.  We'll see if we start getting things in the mail (make sure to include your mailing address on his athletic resume).

[Redskin-All-In]

Fantastic thread!

 

A couple of resources I've found helpful:

 

Overview of scholarships by sport:

http://www.scholarshipstats.com/default.htm

 

 

Odds of playing in college:

http://www.scholarshipstats.com/varsityodds.html

 

 

What the kids should start doing. Take with a grain of salt--if I suggested this stuff to my daughter (9th grade) she's throw me out a window.

http://www.scholarshipstats.com/recruiting.html

[AsburySkinsFan]

4 hours ago, TMK9973 said:

SO the questions / Struggles I have - how to get the coaches attention. I know about writing the "letter" to different coaches and include a video resume. What I struggle with is 1 - What to say in the letter.  2- How to make the video!  3- When these should be sent out.  

 

Also -still struggle on how to get him to narrow his focus on what school.  

Baseball is much different especially for a field player, I'll gladly defer to those closer to that discipline, but I would concentrate on the videos. I'm being told game highlights and practice drills. I've also been told that a video of nothing but "best of"

plays is fine but efforted fails are telling too, and help represent the player.

 

In speaking with the local DIII coach about the letters, "If a player doesn't care enough to write me himself then why do I want him playing for me?" That said it all. Also, no spam or group emails.

 

Video timing: Freshman year intro video..."Hi coach, here's me, I'll be ready in 20xx. I'd love to attend X-Univ and play for your because..."

Sophomore-Junior season vids highlight reels sent focused on preferred schools. 

 

How to make video, lots of video editors out there, you're not doing production work on Star Wars Episode X so relax a bit.

[Springfield]

Didn't think I'd find this thread interesting.  I did, so thank you.

 

 

I have two boys, 2 and less than 1 year.  At this juncture, I'll just plan on exposing them to any sports they want to try.  I think, at a young age, they'll have to be the best on their team in whatever sport it is in order to put any stock to D1 aspirations.  Otherwise for me it will just be so they can enjoy the sports they play.

 

 

I like the discourse in this thread.

 

For those a who have kids with collegiate desires, at what age did you realize that this was a possibility?  Did you go above and beyond to give them an advantage at whatever sport they chose?  Did you have any collegiate or professional background in said sport?

[PeterMP]

9 hours ago, AsburySkinsFan said:

@PeterMPI recently read a very good article on college selection for student athletes, it covers a lot of what you've mentioned. 

 

I think the most frustrating thing for me is the comments I hear from other parents regarding student athletes, "living through their kids" "pushing too hard" "everyone thinks little Johnny's gonna go pro" etc etc. And yeah there's truth to that, spend enough time on the sidelines and you'll see it. But, it ignores the reality that some kids just want to play, and for whatever reason they hit a genetic code that matches perfectly with what they have a pasdion for. I'm not saying I think my son will ever hit the MLS, but I'm going to keep putting quarters in that ride until he wants to get off. He has an opportunity to do something a lot of others don't. Just like the kid who nails a 36 on his ACT, do other parents make comments about the amount of hours spent in advanced math textbooks? Hardly, but the giftedness and passion combination is no different. Should the engineering student conform to the expectations of others? 

 

I'd suggest 3 things to you:

 

1.  He didn't come about his passion on his own.  Parents and society affect that, especially in young kids.  I strongly suspect your kid was not a member of a science or math team or club as a 5 year old, and I also suspect it wasn't because as a 5 year old he told you he didn't want to be or that he wasn't passionate about science and math.  I doubt his passion is actually tied much to his genetic code.  I suspect as a young kid there was a lot more positive feedback from society, culture, and peers about soccer when he was very young than math and science and that shapes kids interest.

 

2.  Releatedly, even today I suspect your response to his passion isn't really simply about it being his passion.  You are supplying your own biases.  I suspect that if he came home and said he decided to stop playing soccer and had made some new friends and that his new passion was Satan worshiping and he wanted $350 to go to a summer camp to learn some new satanic rituals that the quarters for his passion would drive up PDQ (even if he was still doing well in school, wasn't getting in trouble, and what they were going to learn to do at the camp was 100% legal).

 

3.  The fact of the matter is that historically society has needed a lot more engineers than soccer players and that isn't likely to change any time soon. If you are in about the 10% range of engineers at 21 years old you are going to have a lot easier time finding good meaningful employment than if you are in about the 10% range of soccer players.  For society and parents to treat the two things equally when kids are young, doesn't make sense.

[HOF44]

I gotta agree with PeterMP. Unless you have a shot to be a pro/Olympian seems high level college sports just interfere with your education.  So just go play, enjoy the sport, and if you are that level you will be found without much promotional effort on your part required.  

[PeterMP]

10 hours ago, Elessar78 said:

See if she can instead just do a quick workout for a GK coach instead of sitting through tryouts. Goalkeepers, good/decent ones, are in-demand. Say something like you can't make the regular tryout. I bet even if you go to them over the summer or next fall and say you have a GK that wants a tryout—I think they'll accomodate you. 

 

She actually likes to go to try outs.  It gets her much touches (and yes, she's 11 and will talk about getting more touches).  A lot of times she has friends that are going so part of it is social for her.  She likes to see how good the other players trying out are and she likes to get a sense of how the girls already on the team are and interact.

 

We've left tryout and she's said, I'm not playing for that team.

 

This is where as a parent, it is hard.  There is a lot of societal, peer, and cultural positive re-enforcement with respect to sports, and she's gotten so that she values things that she thinks are going to make her better.

 

It is nice to see kids have something they like and are willing to work hard at, but at the same time, for the vast majority of them, it isn't something that will have much of a long term impact.

 

(I will say one thing that I like about it is, it gives them an identity in that middle school/junior high time when I think kids sometimes struggle with that (I know I did, and I see that in some of her friends already).  My daughter doesn't have that issue.

 

And in terms of figuring out how good they are and how impactful it will be on their futures for as hard it is to do something like that with a sport, it is even harder for something like dance.  My other daughter doesn't play sports, but she dances.  She's younger and we're already getting that "She's really good at this.  This could be her thing, etc." from her dance instructor.  At least with soccer, I can watch a game and be like, okay my daughter is better than that girl.  There the issues with, how does that scale over the whole country and even world and that might be true at 11, but is it going to be true at 18 or at 22.) 

[AsburySkinsFan]

1 hour ago, Springfield said:

 

For those a who have kids with collegiate desires, at what age did you realize that this was a possibility?  Did you go above and beyond to give them an advantage at whatever sport they chose?  Did you have any collegiate or professional background in said sport?

We began to realize that college sports was a possibility around the 6th grade. When he startedas GK on his high school JV team as a 7th grader then it started to set in. At that point I was thinking "any school would be great", but when his coaches called me up for a "talk over a beer" (never shared anything more than coach/parent relationship with either of them). That was the discussion about whether he was ready to start varsity as a freshman, that's when it got real. After his freshman season his coaches were the first ones to speak about being a D1 prospect. That's where we are now.

 

Ethan has ALWAYS been an active kid, he was always up playing something. He really took to team sports and in elementary he three-sported (baseball, basketball, soccer) at 10 he dropped baseball and basketball even though he had success in both. He's tried archery and a couple other sports but he grows bored quickly with them. I constantly fight the football coaches off with a stick though! He started playing GK at 10ish, and I was shocked. He was the one who told me "Dad I love playing up front and I can run with those guys but they out turn me, I want to try GK." He'd been a striker/attacking midfielder for years. His first couple seasons he succeeded at GK because of guts and determination, he was willing to sacrifice his body in ways others weren't. He also had an instict for timing and he's aggressive and not afraid of making hard contact. Once he started getting REAL training things really got fun. 

 

Ever since he started playing club soccer we've started focusing on making sure that opportunities were available if he wanted them. We've never pushed or forced him to a single sport or practice. If it were up to his mother he'd be playing basketball looking at UK! Broke her heart when he said he didn't enjoy playing it.

 

I have not played anything other than three years of soccer in middle school back in 1985-88. Best we ever did was tie ONE game, and I was fairly awful.

41 minutes ago, HOF44 said:

and if you are that level you will be found without much promotional effort on your part required.  

That is, according to nearly every source I have in relation to athletics, simply not true.

[AsburySkinsFan]

@PeterMP

1) The intersection of passion and skill. I get what you're saying, and yes we live in a society that gives but Ethan would play and compete if he handed him a stack of pencils. He actually found greater success and significantly greater societal feedback while playing basketball. For three seasons his team went 33-3 and were threepeat county champions. In Kentucky there's NOTHING that compares to the societal feedback from winning at basketball. He rejected basketball in favor of a 4th tier sport that he loves. I believe that there is for every person an intersection between their natural giftedness and things they enjoy. I constantly think about how many Michael Jordan's ever walked this earth that simply didn't like athletics.

 

2) Constructive passion and destructive passion. One gets nurtured one gets discouraged.

 

3) to put someone into engineering who doesn't like it, but can "learn to do it" IMO is awful. Certainly your financial ROI may be higher going where the money is but to train a child to settle for strategic life choices seems contrary to the values I have in life for how life should be lived and enjoyed rather than calculated. From where I sit, when you have a shot at a brass ring that you value, then you stay on the horse and reach.

[dchogs]

1 hour ago, PeterMP said:

It is nice to see kids have something they like and are willing to work hard at, but at the same time, for the vast majority of them, it isn't something that will have much of a long term impact.

Wow.  I totally disagree with this part, Peter.  The lessons of work ethic, teamwork, leadership, grit, time management, etc that are learned through sports are immeasurably valuable long term.  Were you ever a serious athlete?  No snark- just curious if your biases were showing. 

[PeterMP]

1 hour ago, dchogs said:

Wow.  I totally disagree with this part, Peter.  The lessons of work ethic, teamwork, leadership, grit, time management, etc that are learned through sports are immeasurably valuable long term.  Were you ever a serious athlete?  No snark- just curious if your biases were showing. 

 

I played sports in high school.  I could have played basketball in college, but by that time I had figured out that I wasn't going to make the NBA and doing science at a high level and playing a sport in college weren't (and even less so today) very compatible.  At 44, I can still compete against undergrads pretty well.  I can't shoot or defend like I used to, but I still handle the ball pretty well for somebody my size and I see the court well, and I can still score in the post and still play on a regular basis.

 

The problem is that you are acting like those are the only or even the best ways to learn those things as compared to other activities that teach those things as well as other skills that are likely to be useful through out life.  That those things aren't learned as well doing a team science fair project (which also then teaches basic concepts related to science and statistics) or working on a school newspaper (which also then teaches basic writing skills).  And especially those things can't be learned through sports+other things as an equal emphasis of parent/societal involvement and interest that still takes the focus off of sports.

 

(I'll also point out that I think the focus on sports and the resulting organization has greatly diminished the amount those things are learned through sports.  When I was in middle school, I played indoor soccer.  The high school soccer coach supervised it, but there were multiple teams playing at a time and there were no coaches.  We played something like 6 on 6 with 2 subs, but realistically, the kids made all the decisions.  Meeting a bunch of kids at the middle school baseball field over the summer to play a game and work on playing baseball as a middle schooler taught those sorts of things.  Stepping onto the court of the best local pickup game as a teenager for the first time and playing against adults taught those sorts of things.  Those sorts of experiences taught teamwork, leadership, communication, etc much better than today's regimented teams, games, and training sessions, and those sorts of things don't happen as much any more.

 

I'm not at all sure sports today, with the organization and adult control, are even particularly good ways of teaching many of those things.)

[PeterMP]

1 hour ago, AsburySkinsFan said:

@PeterMP

1) The intersection of passion and skill. I get what you're saying, and yes we live in a society that gives but Ethan would play and compete if he handed him a stack of pencils. He actually found greater success and significantly greater societal feedback while playing basketball. For three seasons his team went 33-3 and were threepeat county champions. In Kentucky there's NOTHING that compares to the societal feedback from winning at basketball. He rejected basketball in favor of a 4th tier sport that he loves. I believe that there is for every person an intersection between their natural giftedness and things they enjoy. I constantly think about how many Michael Jordan's ever walked this earth that simply didn't like athletics.

 

2) Constructive passion and destructive passion. One gets nurtured one gets discouraged.

 

3) to put someone into engineering who doesn't like it, but can "learn to do it" IMO is awful. Certainly your financial ROI may be higher going where the money is but to train a child to settle for strategic life choices seems contrary to the values I have in life for how life should be lived and enjoyed rather than calculated. From where I sit, when you have a shot at a brass ring that you value, then you stay on the horse and reach.

 

 

You've lost the big picture.  The situation is complex and in terms of basketball, maybe there was something about the coach or the teammates or even there was too much pressure.  My own daughter has also rejected basketball (at least for now), which is my preferred sport and I suspect long term her best shot at playing a sport.

 

But the fact of the matter is that people are willing to show up and watch kids at 5 practice and play sports and that affects where they put their passion.  For the most part, that doesn't happen with other activities.  Chalking his passion up to genetics as if society and culture aren't equally (and IMO likely more) important is nonsensical.

 

I'm not talking about forcing kids (and people in general) to do things they don't want.  I'm talking about creating situations and culture where starting when they are young that puts them on a track where that's the brass ring they are trying to grab.  Your son (and all kids) like what he likes partly based on what he was shown as a younger kid and how people reacted to him in that activity.

 

If there was a local science/math club/team for young kids, it might not be a matter of settling for it as the strategic choice, but it might actually be the thing he has passion for.  Right now as a society and a culture, we seem to have set up a system that creates brass rings for kids to reach for that most of them aren't going to reach and no immediately obvious and connected fall back when they fail.  That doesn't make a lot of sense.

 

As I've said, as a parent it is hard and once you get to the point in time that sports is your kids passion and the brass ring he wants to grab for, I'm not sure what can really be done.  The issue is the system that gets (too many) people to that point.

[AsburySkinsFan]

@PeterMPI'm not sure you're aware but you just created a contradiction or a curcular reasoning I'm not sure which yet.

 

First, my son's passion for soccer is driven by societal rewards, but then his lack of passion for basketball was from the societal rewards? The fact is that if your societal rewards theory were true then he should have went for basketball. There were no coach/player dynamics that pushed him away from basketball, he was a starter all three years, the coach is and was a family friend with a good and healthy relationship with the team. Ethan even had a hero he met (Josh Harrelson) who taught him to really appreciate playing the forward position. There was nothing other than the fact that he preferred soccer more because of the game. You can keep psychoanalyzing this from a 100 yards to find a theory that fits or you can accept that he went against societal rewards and chose to pursue a sport that he has a passion for over two sports that would have garnered him greater societal rewards.

 

Anyways, I'm not here to play a Freudian chess match. I'm just trying to do the best by my son to help him pursue his dream and passion. 

[PeterMP]

5 hours ago, AsburySkinsFan said:

@PeterMPI'm not sure you're aware but you just created a contradiction or a curcular reasoning I'm not sure which yet.

 

First, my son's passion for soccer is driven by societal rewards, but then his lack of passion for basketball was from the societal rewards? The fact is that if your societal rewards theory were true then he should have went for basketball. There were no coach/player dynamics that pushed him away from basketball, he was a starter all three years, the coach is and was a family friend with a good and healthy relationship with the team. Ethan even had a hero he met (Josh Harrelson) who taught him to really appreciate peelaying the forward position. There was nothing other than the fact that he preferred soccer more because of the game. You can keep psychoanalyzing this from a 100 yards to find a theory that fits or you can accept that he went against societal rewards and chose to pursue a sport that he has a passion for over two sports that would have garnered him greater societal rewards.

 

Anyways, I'm not here to play a Freudian chess match. I'm just trying to do the best by my son to help him pursue his dream and passion. 

 

If you don't think society, parental and peer pressure and biases, and culture influence kids decisions especially when they are young, then you're just being delusional.  (And let's face it, you aren't even really going to argue that's wrong, even for your son.  You've created this whole basketball vs. soccer thing, but even you recognize if you would have introduced your son to other activities when he was 5 years old with the same peer, cultural, and societal attention, he'd likely have some passion other than soccer.)

 

If you don't see that for whatever reason your son has decided to pursue something that is unlikely to have a very large impact on his adult life (i.e. he's not likely to become a professional soccer player just because of the odds involved) and he's losing out on gaining skills and experience that more likely would by pursing soccer and that doesn't concern you as a parent, then I think you should reassess your role as a parent.

 

Yes, letting people to chase their dreams is important, but as parents we also have to be concerned about the long term future.  Somebody should be thinking about how is the most likely required transition from soccer to something else going to go and what can be done now to ease it.  How are you going to deal with "failure" (where realistically being considered to play a D1 sport means you were highly successful) and transferring how is his passion for soccer and the motivation that's given to him going to transfer to something else?  If these aren't things you are thinking about as a parent, then you are failing your son.

 

And as somebody that deals with D1 atheletes on a regular basis, I can tell you that I see very few that can successfully juggle the demands of being a D1 athlete, succeed academically, and pick up the career training (i.e. summer internships) that really sets people up to be successful in competitive career fields not associated with their sport.

[AsburySkinsFan]

@PeterMP, I think I get what you're saying now. Train my son to be something he doesn't want to be in order to succeed in something he doesn't want to do in order to be a success. BTW, outside of the beltway bubble yoo don't have to be in one of the top competetive fields in order to find success in life outside of athletics. 

 

But, then this is far from the point of this thread. You're an academic and as such you want students and parebts to think like you, but I love the line from Mona Lisa's Smile:

Bill Dunbar: (speaking to the headstrong agent of change professor) "You didn't come to Wellesley to help people find their way. You came to Wellesley to help people find *your* way."

[AsburySkinsFan]

In case you haven't guessed it @PeterMP I'm not interested in a lecture here about how my parenting has gone wrong according to an academic. The purpose of this thread is not for you to come here and tell us all we're wrong. You're free to start your own thread about that. 

[dchogs]

7 hours ago, PeterMP said:

The problem is that you are acting like those are the only or even the best ways to learn those things as compared to other activities that teach those things as well as other skills that are likely to be useful through out life.  That those things aren't learned as well doing a team science fair project (which also then teaches basic concepts related to science and statistics) or working on a school newspaper (which also then teaches basic writing skills).  And especially those things can't be learned through sports+other things as an equal emphasis of parent/societal involvement and interest that still takes the focus off of sports.
 

i'm really not acting that way.

 

you stated that sports don't have a long term impact.  i disagreed and pointed out some of the benefits.  you said those benefits don't count because they could also theoretically be derived from other academic pursuits.  i don't disagree that yearbook, newspaper, choir, etc also teach leadership, grit, etc, but stop pretending that sports are a black hole that suck kids in and ruin them.  you're presenting a pretty binary situation; it isn't a zero sum game.  one kid that likes sports can learn valuable lessons through sports, the next kid from band, and the next from chemistry club.  who cares how the lessons are learned?  and who says a kid can't like and do multiple things... do sports and science fair, newspaper, or choir? 

 

in a perfect world, yes, there would be as much cultural weight put upon chemistry club and sports.  and teachers would be paid more.  and big money wouldn't influence politics.  and people would get along.

[AsburySkinsFan]

@dchogsnot to mention regarding the fact that a whole lot of those kids who are playing at the D1 level would never have a opportunity to even step in his classroom otherwise.  Also he's disregarding the fact that in this country we have an athletic industry where athletes, former athletes, coaches, talent valuators etc. can be quite successful without having to have an engineering degree.  My kid doesn't go onto the MLS play professionally I'm not gonna be brokenhearted, if he can leverage his skill on the pitch to get somebody else to pay for his college then I'm fine with that.  Often times athletics grant opportunities to students who wouldn't otherwise have those same opportunities. And, do you know they call the guy from med school?.......Doctor

 

And none of this even addresses the issue that the vast majority of these college graduates will not continue working in the career in which they've even studied. If you want a first hand account of someone who worked 10 years through higher ed to now be working in an entirely different field then let me say "Howdy."

 

You also bring up another important point, what about those band kids, are they going to be the next Doc Severson? The hours they spend on their instruments are comparable to the hours our kids spend on the field. Should they give up the trumpet because it's not engineering? Worst part for them is that the scholarship dollars just aren't there to reward their efforts.

[dchogs]

@AsburySkinsFan ha, me too!  nice to meet you!  for the record, you have to graduate from med school to be called doctor... i went and dropped out, so people just call me mister.

[Burgold]

I think the other notion is that of the value of the well-rounded student/person. 

 

It may not be a thought that belongs in this thread, but there is more to life than a paycheck and there is a bit more to university than a job factory. In fact, universities are pretty bad at job training. Most of those who love athletics, arts, etc. will not make a living in it. Some may not even be able to make a sideline out of it. Non the less, there is something about joy, camaraderie, discipline, teamwork building, and engaging creativity that is important. That part of the job interview where you connect with your future employer can be about your outside life... we can connect on painting, soccer, woodworking, etc. Networking is hugely important and lord knows those D1 athletes have a leg up on networking that many others do not have.

 

That said, I don't mind a shout out to realism and pragmatism. Nurture the athletic, the artistic, the genius in you, but don't neglect that which may be necessary drudgery. You need a foundation and more than a foundation in writing, math, and science to survive in most fields. Heck, how many pro athletes would be better served if they had an above basic understanding of contract law and accounting?

 

Edit: I think that Peter is correct that for some sports, D1 athletics takes as much time as a job. Given the constraints of that reality, a student will be hard pressed to really max out their academic potential. There are only so many hours in the day and only so much time we can be fully focused. There is a trap there, but there are many advantages to being an athlete at the university level and they are given many benefits that the rest of us mere mortals don't get.

[TMK9973]

This Topic jumped a bit.

Peter -  Not sure why you are even posting? Whats you goal?  Some of the generalizations you make are just incorrect.  You have this theme that sports will not lead to "Success in life". How do you determine success?  There are 200,000+ HS Sports coaches out there. Are their lifes not successful? There are prob close to 100,000 college sport coaches out there.  How about the guy who played HS ball and college ball and now feels comfortable coaching his kids teams?  Running camps?  Are their life not successful?  Did playing sports not have a impact on their life?  How about the hundred of thousands people that work in the sports industry (Working for teams, journalism, stats, trainers, etc...) a overwhelming majority played sports.  No impact?  

Its a major generalization.

 

Anyway -Moving on to other questions - Someone asked for those of us who beleive our kids will play college - When did we start noticing.  I have 2 different answers.  

1 - At a young age athletic kids are good at every sport.  At age 8, the kids who is good at football is also prob good at baseball is also good at soccer etc.... My son played football, soccer, and baseball - and early on we knew he was really good at baseball.  (I never played, nor even liked baseball until he was born.  But he fell in love with the game at age 4, watching Red sox vs O's on TV and seemed to find it magical. We learned the game together.  But while he loved all sports, and loved football the most, it was clear he was better then most in baseball right off.

But to be honest -I never thought about him playing in college until right before his freshman year in HS.  He always knew I was against year round sports and encouraged him to play more then one sport but at 13, he told me he wanted to focus only on baseball, he wanted to play the game as long as he could, and he wanted to figure out how to play in college.  

I told him I would do what I could, but he had to make a choice, and remake it every year. I told him he could play baseball in HS and just have fun with it.  Go to practices, enjoy the team, play hard and whatever happens happens.  And i was perfectly ok with that (And yes Peter -Also told him I was 100% ok if he decided he was done with sports).  OR - he could decide that he was gonna play after HS and he would do year round, travel, showcase, workouts, recruitment, etc...But that would take a lot of work and dedication and would 100% effect other aspects of his HS life (Social).  

He told me he wanted to find out how good he could be and how long he could play.  And was willing to do whatever it took.  I told him I was in but that he could change his mind anytime.  

Since then - he has done what he said.  and it DOES effect his social life.  Very often he has to decline some social event because he of a tournament, or early batting practice, or whatever.  However -He is also still having fun with Baseball.  His BF's are all on one of his teams.  He is the happiest when he is on the field playing.  

And when his grades dropped in HS (Because he got a GF, not because of Baseball) it was his HS coach who sat him down and said "Your grades will stop you from playing college ball" that turned it around.  Not anything his mom or I did.  

 

 

 

 

[PeterMP]

51 minutes ago, dchogs said:

i'm really not acting that way.

 

you stated that sports don't have a long term impact.  i disagreed and pointed out some of the benefits.  you said those benefits don't count because they could also theoretically be derived from other academic pursuits.  i don't disagree that yearbook, newspaper, choir, etc also teach leadership, grit, etc, but stop pretending that sports are a black hole that suck kids in and ruin them.  you're presenting a pretty binary situation; it isn't a zero sum game.  one kid that likes sports can learn valuable lessons through sports, the next kid from band, and the next from chemistry club.  who cares how the lessons are learned?  and who says a kid can't like and do multiple things... do sports and science fair, newspaper, or choir? 

 

in a perfect world, yes, there would be as much cultural weight put upon chemistry club and sports.  and teachers would be paid more.  and big money wouldn't influence politics.  and people would get along.

 

I said they don't have a MUCH of a long term impact, and I question how much the youth sports movement in this country today really teaches those things.  I didn't say that they suck kids and ruin them.  I specifically wrote a post saying it was nice for kids to have things that they are willing to work hard at to get better at and it is good that it gives them an identity when they are young.

 

But to ignore the negatives in terms of time, effort, and expense and change of focus doesn't make sense.

 

And yes kids can do more than one thing, but the fact of the matter is that most kids chasing the D1 scholarship are not.

 

ASF, what extra-curricular activities does your son do beyond play soccer?  Is he in choir, band, part of a science club, work on the school newspaper?

 

I can tell you my two nephews essentially had none and that   I have niece too.  She did science fair growing up, she did scientific olympian growing, and she played a sport, but when it came time to came time to go to college, she wasn't good enough for D1.  She ended up going to D3.  The better rounded kid wasn't good enough to play D1.  There are a few kids that can pull off being a well rounded kid and meet the demands of D1 sports, but that kid is rare.

 

Today, she's settled into a nice career and still enjoys her sport on the side, while her older brother who was a D1 athlete struggles to find his footing 

 

And at the college level, I deal with D1 athlete.  By and large, they aren't involved in extra circular activities beyond their sport.  By and large, they don't do the research, they don't do summer interships, they aren't going to workshops, etc.