Club youth sports teams: Why should anybody other than parents GAF?

Starman's tales are all too true. I can think of few three-sport female athletes in our high schools, outside of the small rural schools or Christian schools. The situation seems worse in girls sports, with volleyball, basketball, soccer, softball, water polo/swimming and SportsJournalists.com's all-time favorite, cheerleading, stretching the talent pool.

 

It's kind of a double-edged sword, because the 6-foot-2 girl who is a skyscraping spiker in volleyball and a board-pounding forward in basketball, may well also be a state-ranked discus thrower or high jumper, or a slugging first baseman in softball, and will probably be allowed to play whichever and however many sports she wants to.

But the 5-4 girl who is a volleyball setter, hoops point guard or softball infielder, and who loves all three sports, is probably going to be told at some point between 6th and 8th grade she better quit all those sports but one if she has any hopes to make the varsity when she gets to 10th-11th grade.

(Substitute 6-foot-6 and 5-9 boys as applicable.)

Which has been true for 100 years of course; the great natural athletes always have it much easier in terms of making the team. But the rise and prevalence of the club sports culture is allowing more and more high school coaches to use it as a 'pre-selector' for who is gonna make the team three or four years from now.

Frankly, if I had pre-school kids, I'd think long and hard about moving to a rural district, where playing two or three sports is still common -- but the encroachment of the club culture is happening there, too.

 

Oh boohoo. An entire system set up to glorify athletic success has morphed into something hypercompetitive where athletes are forced to choose the paths that will lead them to the most "success." Cry me a river.

 

The issue of specialization also plays into the recently-concluded World Cup, after which many supposed experts opined about what it would take to turn the U.S. into a world soccer power or a serious WC contender, and one of the most common suggestions was MORE specialization -- in order to become a real soccer power, the U.S. needs to follow the European lead and start funneling kids through soccer academies and 'full-immersion programs,' (basically conventional club teams on steroids and in operation 50 weeks a year), at even YOUNGER ages (early grade school).

 

Well, duh. Of course. Why do you think the U.S. has so many of the world's greatest team-sport atheltes? Because specialization works.

From prestige to scholarships to professional contracts, the entire setup is designed to reward the best athletes. So naturally the market has evolved to produce them.

 

Local team is going to the Cal Ripken World Series this weekend and seeds or gum is one of my questions for the player capsules!

 

Maybe its just my rural mindset, but I feel the opposite would make more sense. The ones who are better at a sport are more likely to focus on that one sport because COLLEGE SCHOLARSHIP, whereas the player who probably won't get college interest doesn't necessarily have to worry about perfecting their craft in a single sport.

 

My sister and her hubby have no illusions/delusions about college scholarships. None of the kids have the kund of frame you need for that. They're all very fast for their age, but when they fill out in HS, they'll probably lose that edge.


The main objective for everybody concerned, including the kids (who are in on some of the discussions) isn't a college scholarship; it's making the high school varsity at some point.

 

I think this is right. So much depends on the size of the school. I coached softball at a private high school of about 650 kids in suburb of a major US city. Even at a smaller school, every year there are 5-10 kids in our league who go Division I. I was fortunate to find a great athlete as a freshman and make her a good high school softball player.

This girl could play other sports. My Division I shortstop played basketball as well and she played on one of the top five travel teams in the country (think OC Batbusters or Corona Angels good for anyone who knows about travel softball).

However, I have a legit Division I athlete who is a catcher who has earned all-state honors twice who doesn't have a snowballs chance of playing Division I softball. She didn't specialize (she plays volleyball too) and she just hasn't played enough softball to compete at the DI level. To play multiple sports she played in a lower-level volleyball club and won't play DI volleyball either, although I am convinced that if she had specialized in either she'd be going DI. This is coming from someone who encouraged her to play multiple sports.

If your child is going to be at a high school with 1,500-plus kids, if he or she does not specialize he or she will have a very difficult team playing varsity in his or her sport. I hate it but it's reality, especially in sports that require more skill like baseball/softball/volleyball. A sport like football is much more conducive to playing multiple sports.

Also, some of the crossovers are very difficult because of travel exposure tournaments. A basketball/softball combo is possible. A volleyball/softball combo is virtually impossible because of fall exposure for softball.

 

Like anything, it's a mix. Covered a girl who was a D1 scholarship soccer player that played one season of HS basketball and was offered by a low level D1 team bball on the spot mainly for athleticism, with no bball specialization. Gave up bball to "specialize" in soccer, but did varsity track. Where's a track kid fall in with "specialization"? If a kid does football-track-track instead of football-basketball-baseball is he specializing? Sort of?

Another kid I think of was a middle school basketball specialist, did all the aau/travel stuff, pretty good player. Went out for volleyball as a HS freshman, decided that was the sport she loved and ended up getting a scholarship in that without ever doing the club circuit.

I think its more about the athletes than it is about the machine, personally. Cream rises.

 

We had a guy who was an outstanding tennis and baseball player. He went D-I in baseball and played a few years of minor league ball before injuries caught up to him.
In tennis, though, the stories of his matches were awesome. He'd been a great juniors player until he gave it up to focus on baseball around the time he got to high school. He didn't even seriously practice after about the age of 12, as far as I know, but he was still good enough to be a top-five player in the biggest high school classification in the state. Even made the state finals once.
He once played a practice match against one of the girls on the team and didn't lose a point -- while playing every shot between his legs. The best was one time when he forgot his racket. A teammate loaned him his grandmother's old wooden racket and he skunked his opponent 6-0, 6-0.
The tennis coach was smart enough to know how good this guy was and just let him show up for matches. The guy was just out there to have fun, pretty much, and he did. I don't recall him ever getting too upset over the rare losses that he had.
Not really sure how this fits into the bigger discussion. Just thought it was a neat story.

 

I did a bunch of research about 10 years ago on the best athletes to come out of our area, and it's amazing back in the 50s and 60s how many three-sport standouts there were in our city schools. Had one who was an all-state running back, scored 2,000 points in basketball and was a 24-foot long jumper. Playing multiple sports didn't bother him, he was the Heisman runner-up as a senior in college. We don't have anyone like that now from the elite athlete group because of the specializiation, through one kid, who is a D1 baseball recruit for a perennial top 10 team, has played basketball all through high school and is going back to football for his senior year.

This area has one of the better summer basketball programs. Two summers ago, the team had 2 kids from our area who were top 25 recruits and a third who was just inside the top 100. Because they were recognizable names, we followed them throughout the summer. Didn't care how the team did, but we concentrated on their performances. This summer ... nobody from our coverage area was on the team so we did one preview story before their local tournament.