Travel (“select”) youth sports (travel subforum topic)

[Bammer]

Chris has to cancel a trip to Italy because his daughter got hurt playing travel soccer.

I got a buddy whose son is on a travel flag football team. Flag football.

One of the most un-athletic people I know was on a select/travel volleyball team. Really, you have to go to Minnesota to find a match? You can’t find one in … Tacoma?

My kids little league starts this week and half the kids are at a tournament in Arizona where it happens to be raining (in the weekend forecast).

Chris, how old is your daughter?

I’m just not sold on this whole concept. I think they start the kids out way too young with this stuff, and I know for a fact that the rosters are not made up of “select” talent but rather a mix of the talented kids and more importantly kids whose parents are willing to pay for everything that comes along with it. Specifically, for this thread, travel to places you would otherwise never wish to visit, roadside motels with empty swimming pools, and Applebee’s 3 nights in a row.

[tree_]

can you explain this to me like i'm in kindergarten?

[bada]

My youngest plays AAU basketball. Its a real time commitment. He loves it but my weekends are shot.

[Bammer]

Follow up: Chris I see that your daughter is in high school. I’ll allow it.

[Bammer]

My youngest plays AAU basketball. Its a real time commitment. He loves it but my weekends are shot.

I started AAU hoops as a teenager. It was great. Back when I was 8 though I did normal things like ride bikes around the neighborhood.

[Bammer]

can you explain this to me like i'm in kindergarten?

It’s a way to create multiple youth baseball leagues / organizations. Each one allowing/requiring a different type of aluminum bat (USA, USSSA, and BBCOR). So the kids all need multiple $400 baseball bats.

It’s basically a scheme devised to sell more bats (sponsored in part by Motel 6 locations that are a solid 100 miles away from anywhere you’d actually want to spend your time traveling to).

[tree_]

hard pass.. my wife can't even get me to go to church on sundays

[E.H. Ruddock]

My youngest stepson just started in a travel soccer league. His dad said he would do all of the traveling for it. He has not. it is a nightmare.

[tree_]

shit sucks bro

[Higgs]

When my Son was 11 we were living in remote Western Australia. 2,500 kms from our capital city (Perth). The population up there was 70% aboriginal and these kids LOVED basketball.

Usually only the seniors travelled to Perth for country week sport each year, which was all well and good, but essentially was just country towns playing other country towns at whatever sport they were in.

I grew up in Perth and played hoops at a pretty decent level. As a kid I loved the State Champs weekend we played every year. All the best metro teams playing over the course of a long weekend. Some of my best youth sporting memories were from those weekends.

So I decided I wanted to give these Broome kids a taste of this and lobbied the local basketball association hard to help us get some teams together to play the State Champs. My argument was simple. The state teams and rep teams were chosen from the State Champs, not Country Week BS, so let's give our kids a shot at playing against the best, and let them be seen on a decent stage.

I coached the U13 boys and we also took a U13 girls side and a U15 boys side down. I can't even begin to count the number of hot dogs my wife cooked fund-raising during the local regular season that first year.

We started try-outs in March, cut to the final team by May and travelled to Perth for the competition in November. We arranged for Andrew Vlahov (4 x Australian Olympian) to run a training session and played our U13 team in U15s for the whole regular season to try and get used to playing against bigger, better players. We worked fucking hard.

When we flew to Perth we had at least 5 kids who'd never been on a plane before. We arranged a training session at the basketball stadium where the comp was being played the day before it started. In all honesty the wide eyed looks of wonder on the kids from bum fuck nowhere as they walked into our state's premier basketball facility was already worth all the work we'd done.

But I still had no idea if we were going to even be a little bit competitive. We were an U13 team from Broome, half the kids were 11, and we were playing against the local state league teams who have played together since forever and even ran plays and set screens. I would have been devastated if we travelled all that way just to get blown out every game.

We lost the first game by 10 but signs were good. I literally cried after we won our 2nd game. It was SUCH a relief. These kids deserved it.

We ended up finishing 4th and making the finals. We got beaten by the Perth Red backs in the 1 V 4 crossover semi, but fuck did it feel good to make it to that game. I can't tell you how proud I was of my boys.

I've typed a lot here but I guess what I wanted to say is some travel for sport is cathartic. I couldn't do it every weekend like some of y'all do, but I wouldn't give up this particular experience for anything.

[Chris_H_2]

Chris has to cancel a trip to Italy because his daughter got hurt playing travel soccer.

I got a buddy whose son is on a travel flag football team. Flag football.

One of the most un-athletic people I know was on a select/travel volleyball team. Really, you have to go to Minnesota to find a match? You can’t find one in … Tacoma?

My kids little league starts this week and half the kids are at a tournament in Arizona where it happens to be raining (in the weekend forecast).

Chris, how old is your daughter?

I’m just not sold on this whole concept. I think they start the kids out way too young with this stuff, and I know for a fact that the rosters are not made up of “select” talent but rather a mix of the talented kids and more importantly kids whose parents are willing to pay for everything that comes along with it. Specifically, for this thread, travel to places you would otherwise never wish to visit, roadside motels with empty swimming pools, and Applebee’s 3 nights in a row.

i think it depends on the sport. with baseball in my area, most dads are delusional thinking that their kids are going to get drafted, and they figure the more reps and opportunities they make their kids do, the better. most of the kids get burned out by freshman year of high school, and they have a bunch of regret (not to mention the thousands of dollars spent and entire weekends burned).

my kid has been in travel soccer since the third grade. it doesn't require a ton of training or commitment, and it's something that she loves. she's not the best, and she's not playing beyond high school. but its manageable (usually and out-of-state tourney once in the fall and once in the spring) and, most important, allowed by kid to do other things (which baseball does not). she still plays travel because that's where the majority of girls go in the fall (girls soccer is a spring sport around here in high school). and it's definitely less expensive than other sports (i think the hockey parents spend on average $7-$9k a year).

[wease]

Our youngest did travel cheer for 5-6 years before stopping last fall. Thank god. It’s easily. $3-4k per year activity. Unfortunately, she’s talking like she wants to do it again next year. She has been talking about wanting to cheer in college, so we kinda have to do as much as we can to get her ready for it, but damn.

[spike]

apparently, snow sports are big at my kid's school. didn't see that coming since we're in fucking australia, lol.

my wife is desperately hoping the kid doesn't take any interest, as she's endured enough cold and snow living in the upper midwest the last 15 years. fine by me, as the mountains are a couple hours away, and i'm sure it costs a small fortune too.

[Monkey_Driven]

No travel or select teams until middle school (or never). That's the rule in our family. It just seems silly to commit to such a big endeavor for a 9 year old. Let them do a bunch of different things!

[spike]

No travel or select teams until middle school (or never). That's the rule in our family. It just seems silly to commit to such a big endeavor for a 9 year old. Let them do a bunch of different things!