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  1. #21
    Hall of Famer xu82's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Nigel Tufnel View Post
    This is an interesting conversation. I have a 10 year old boy, 8 year old girl and 6 year old boy. I'm torn on this subject. I was head coach for my oldest son's basketball team last year on the B team. He bumped up to the A team this year and I was an assistant. They played 37 games this season. And had practices twice a week. I played 20 games in the regular season throughout my varsity high school career. Insane. Thing is...my son loved it. I get pretty critical of his play sometimes....but then, I realize that in the 4th grade, he is playing at about the same level of competence that I did when I was in the 8th grade. He is so much better than I was at his age that it is mind boggling. I make sure I tell him that a lot.

    Now the 6 year old is starting to play basketball and baseball. And having an older brother, he is TONS better than his older brother was...because he has to keep up with older brother and his friends. He averaged double figures in his kindergarten basketball league and he kills the ball in tball. I'm sure he will be playing select baseball and basketball by the 2nd grade.

    On top of all of that...our 8 year old girl is on swim team, gymnastics and in a jazz dance class.

    I thought basketball season was crazy...but baseball games are twice as long....so time consuming. Right now, oldest in playing select baseball, youngest is playing rec tball and the girl is in 3 different activities. We have activities Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. The time involved each night is about 5:30 to 9:00 I'm growing weary of it. The kids love it...but I'm wondering if they are actually having the opportunity to be kids. Gone are the days of playing with the neighborhood kids from sun up to sun down. Whiffle ball games with the neighbors no longer seems to exist. Playing 2 on 2 or 3 on 3 in the drive way...nope. Its sad.

    And the politics involved is also annoying. Half the parents act like nutjobs....berating the kids when they make a turnover or an error. Thinking that its totally normal to have kids be in school all day and have 2.5 hour games baseball games three nights in a row and on the third game, the kids play sloppy. And they can't understand how or why it could happen. And then my wife is worried that other parents think our son made the team because of us and not on merits....even though we have absolutely no pull in our town. Its a lot of undue stress. I wrestle with it every day. But the only reason I do it is because my kids want to do it. And more importantly, they love having their dad coach them. Some of my best memories will be the rides to and from practices and games...just talking to them one on one.

    I really have a conflicted love/hate relationship with youth sports right now....and its only going to be worse. What the hell is my life going to be like when I have a 13 year old, 11 year old and 9 year old? We'll have to hire someone to drive them to their activities....oh...and my wife and I both work full time. Good God.....
    I went roughly a decade without seeing my wife on weekends. She was at the soccer/baseball field while I hit the hoops gym (air conditioned btw, pay attention) or vice versa. Any more than two kids and you're out numbered. Best of luck! And then before you know it you will miss it dearly. To be completely serious, I'm glad we were married 5 years before we had kids. It was important time before we took on the tough and wonderful task of having kids.

  2. #22
    Junior blobfan's Avatar
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    I hesitate to render an opinion given that I don't have children myself and will never face this dilemma, so I'll just share this observation.

    I know a family with 4 kids, 3 in sports, 1 on a traveling team, who spends so much on the sports that their budget is razor thin, even with all the time they put into fundraisers. One of the kids got injured last year and they accepted Christmas gifts from church to supplement the kids gifts because they couldn't afford the usual stuff.

    What kind of lesson is that for kids, no matter how much they enjoy the game?

  3. #23
    Supporting Member Fireball's Avatar
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    I have two girls, 8 and 5. They play Y sports, mainly because I just want them to have fun playing and learn the game. If they get into anything in particular, or start to get serious about a sport of two, we'll change to more of a competitive league, but for now, the Y is perfect. My girls get to play baseball, soccer, volleyball, basketball, and they have both done swimming, dance, and gymnastics through the Y as well. They're not serious about any of it...just having fun at this point, and I'm cool with that. I've even done a little bit of coaching through the Y, and have enjoyed that as well.

    I'll tell you now that my 8-year-old is nothing resembling an athlete, but she appreciates sports. She's now my buddy to take a X and Reds games, and is really starting to get into it. My 5-year-old is stocky and tough. If one of them is an athlete, it will be her, but it's tough to tell how interested she's going to be at this point. When she is engaged, she's good at her sports. That engagement doesn't yet come all that often, though.

    But especially for my two girls, the Y is perfect for now, and they're able to try out a lot of different activities through that.

  4. #24
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    Quote Originally Posted by Juice View Post
    I played in that Erie tournament. Good tournament but being in Erie sucked.
    Great fields, though.

  5. #25
    Senior Cheesehead's Avatar
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    My son has played AAU since the 5th grade and we have spent a fair amount of money on it over the years and traveled mostly in tri-state area. Both sides are right here. His goal was to play in college and he truly loves hoops. Probably could have played another varsity sport in HS but he made the decision on his own to concentrate on hoops. If you want to get looked at, then AAU tournaments and some showcase stuff is the best way. I also see some pretty shady stuff in the AAU circuit, there are good programs and sleezy programs and you see kids jump from one program to next in an effort to promote themselves. I know my son has a lot of good memories and this season will be the last for him in AAU. He met a lot of great kids, had some good coaches and saw some cities and he got better as a player due to talent lavel he faced, so it's not all bad. He may or not play in college; if he does it would most likely be D-3 or NAIA. He has also thought of walking on somewhere. We are still trying to figure all that out. The odds are most kids won't even play in college, so each family has to sit down and evaluate the pros and cons. I can tell you that for him, his AAU experience has been better than his HS experience and he seems to enjoy it more than HS team but that is largely a coaching/program issue that I won't get into here.
    Zip'em Up!

  6. #26
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    Quote Originally Posted by Cheesehead View Post
    I can tell you that for him, his AAU experience has been better than his HS experience and he seems to enjoy it more than HS team but that is largely a coaching/program issue that I won't get into here.
    This is an interesting point that I hadn't realized until right now. I am 29. My high school team won a state championship. My club team won 2 State Cups. Today, I talk weekly with guys from my club team. I rarely talk to guys I went to high school with. I don't know the reason. It may be because almost everyone on my club team played in college while fewer high school teammates did, so we had more smiliar college experiences. Whatever the reason, I'm more grateful to my club team for that.

  7. #27
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    AAU Basketball and Select Baseball has been and will slowly eliminate youth parish sports. I'm sure a new select football elague is somewhere on the horizon where someone will go for the money grab of knowing adults will pay for anything they think may land little Johnny a scholarship.

    The Archdiocese Charter on Youth Athletics is driving away people in droves as well. They're not willing to jump through the hoops when there's basically an unregulated (but corrupt) alternative.

    It just all feels very dirty to me, even though I have kids that do some of it. I've heard parents of third graders say "well, that's the path to playing at Elder" as their reason for their kids not playing at their schools and paying for select teams. As if athletic talent at 8 years old translate to a stud at 16.

  8. #28
    Supporting Member GoMuskies's Avatar
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    The only sport I really know anything about (or at least used to know anything about) in terms of how you go about becoming an elite player is baseball. There were four guys on my high school team who were drafted, one of them the #1 overall pick. None of them played anything other that Little League/Babe Ruth until 14, and three of them (including the guy drafted #1 overall) stayed with Little League/Babe Ruth through 16. I assume that path doesn't really work anymore (unfortunately), so I am interested to see how that system works now. My oldest boy is 6, so he's still playing at the Y, but the move to a "real" league is coming pretty soon. I'm hopeful (though not optimistic) that it will be like the leagues I played in as a kid, where it was not too crazy, but competitive enough that I played with and against a ton of kids who became pros/played in college.

  9. #29
    Senior Xman95's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tardy Turtle View Post
    Try growing up there... you have no idea.
    Try living an hour to the west in Ashtabula. Yeah, I win.

  10. #30
    All-Conference XU 87's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Nigel Tufnel View Post
    I get pretty critical of his play sometimes....but then, I realize that in the 4th grade, he is playing at about the same level of competence that I did when I was in the 8th grade. He is so much better than I was at his age that it is mind boggling. I make sure I tell him that a lot.
    So what you're really trying to say is that his mother is a really good athlete.

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