Trending

Quick Links:

SEC Rant

•SEC Recruiting

•More Sports

•Coaching Changes

•Politics

•SEC OT

•SEC Tickets

•Outdoors

•Travel

•Food/Drink

...

Kirk Herbstreit Names 'Biggest Problem' With Youth Sports Today

by Larry Leo

August 10, 202544 Comments

Calvin Mattheis/News Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK

ESPN college football analyst Kirk Herbstreit did not hesitate when naming the biggest issue with youth sports today...

quote:
"After the game, it was a race to the concession stand to get your treat. Then you hung out at the park, and maybe you went to the creek and the pool. And it was summer. And we're stealing that from kids and families," Herbstreit said on the "Try That In A Small Town" podcast.

"I wanna go down to 30A, I want to go down to Rosemary with my kids when they're 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. And it's like, well, we've got a tournament in Indiana, and we gotta do that one, and then we gotta go down to Atlanta. And I'm like, they're 9. It's like, why are we taking away family experiences for a tournament in Atlanta for our 9-year-old?"

Link here.

Filed Under: NCAA Football

Kirk Herbstreit Is Officially Fed Up With Accusations Against ESPN

Notre Dame's 2026 Football Schedule Goes Viral After Playoff Snub

Wild Alleged Leaked Audio of Penn State AD Pat Kraft Speaking To Their Players

Bill Belichick’s Family Issues ‘Ultimatum’ About His 24-Year-Old Girlfriend

Originally published on TigerDroppings.com

44 Comments

Top Recent

You must be logged in to comment. |

DownSouthJukin•4 months

He’s right. Youth sports are stealing childhood.

108

Giantkiller•4 months

This is like a bat sign to the travel dad's. They'll be here soon enough to tell you how the $300K they've collectively spent on their kids baseball all paid off when they got that scholly to Bethune Cookman, Centenary, Belhaven, etc.

Koach K•4 months

There is nothing more pathetic than the lottery ticket mentality.

HoustonGumbeauxGuy•4 months

My oldest son played soccer in high school and his best friend was on the baseball team, his family. He literally did the baseball thing year-round, tournaments near every weekend during the summer, yes, he got a scholarship to a division to college to play baseball, but literally between sixth grade and his senior year of high school, they never went on a single vacation

HoustonGumbeauxGuy•4 months

Did voice text, sorry for the bad grammar.

Jizzy08•4 months

It’s an industry. Follow the money.

Joe_Dirte•4 months

yep. money hungry adults ruined youth baseball

Bige11•4 months

My son plays travel baseball and I agree with this 100%
The bottom line is you have to say no and prioritize time with family. Travel ball is fun, but it can take over your life. Boundaries, like anything, are the key.

LemmyLives•4 months

Travel ball hardos fixin to get triggered.

TFH•4 months

Me and my buddy went fishing every day we weren’t playing.

WhoDatNC•4 months

Not stealing as much as the psycho parents on the sidelines. That’s what’s robbing the kids.

LemmyLives•4 months

The worst, at least in lacrosse, are the attack dads. The amount of shite I've heard, "You can get around him, he's slow," "Come on Braxtyn, your coach told you to hit the five hole!" For 10-13 year olds. STFU, clap, and say Yay Braxtyn. If you want to be a coach, be a coach. The attack dads are typically so big of assholes (not as bad as hockey it seems), I listen to podcasts and stand near the goalie so I don't have to listen to their useless crap. Years of this, and I've thanked one attack dad for not being a douche like the rest. Years.

But, the willingness of parents to permit ridiculous amounts of travel (Texas has many millions of people. We don't need to go to New England "for competition") is entirely the parents fault. Imagine "travel ball" for football in Houston. Whut? They're just vacations for parents to get drunk in the hotel lobby. It makes it easy to not have to make decisions for your non sports life, because you forfeit your agency to the kids dance/ball schedules. Lazy.

BoogaBear•4 months

Travel ball isn't directly the problem. The problem is parents thinking it matters when they are 6-14 years old. It doesn't, scouts aren't looking at a 12 year old. Let the kids be kids and if they are good enough in that 14u or 16u age, then get serious

tigerfoot•4 months

100% correct. IF your kid wants to play, it takes a little effort at 14ish to get him where he needs to be. Like it or not, the baseball landscape has changed dramatically. Four years ago if you told me a kid had a JC offer only, I wouldve said (to myself), time to hang em up and go get smart. Now you have this entiere culture of JC, even D2 ball that allows kids more time to develop. Have a buddy, son just went to Sun Belt team to play following a JC stint, they signed 4 freshmen and 14 JC or transfers. And these JC staffs dont have the bandwidth to find kids, kids have to play the game for better or worse if they want to continue to play. But again, this is not at 12 years old. Herbstreit is dead on.

GetmorewithLes•4 months

Amen to that!!!

udtiger•4 months

He's not wrong.

Tigah5555•4 months

he aint lyin

trident•4 months

Bring back your local rec!!!! All of us loved it, no reason why our kids wouldnt

Hamma1122•4 months

He’s 100% correct!

HagaDaga•4 months

So true. We would ride our bikes to the town park complex with my older brothers. We’d watch each other games if we weren’t playing at the same. Hit the concession stand, play catch and just f around between games. Maybe catch a rivals game. Then head home. No one played travel ball, and one of my brothers was a teammate of a future hall of famer. I can’t imagine how the other kids feel about so much attention time end money going to one child’s sports.

Buck Magnum•4 months

He is completely right. I've had multiple teams ask my son if rather ask me if he could be on a travel team each time I said no because I have three other children who don't wanna spend their whole childhood at a ballpark where they're not playing a game. It's not fair to them.

Dam Guide•4 months

So don't sign up for travel ball, there are plenty of local leagues to choose from, you don't have to play travel sports. The talented kids will still come out on top when they get older.

scottydoesntknow•4 months

hes 100% right

CTtiger30•4 months

My cuz did the year round baseball growing up, they spent a fortune traveling for all that on average family income only for him to get burned out on baseball by 17.

Champagne•4 months

He talks like a fat old boomer whose 9 year old son has no shot at making it to the Bigs. Unlike my boy Spike whose fastball touches 85 mph

Load More Comments