quote:
My nephew is on some travel/tournament teams. They played at 10 Saturday morning, again at 2:15 that afternoon. Had to wait until all the games were played that day to know if they had to be back at 10 on Sunday or later. If they had to play again at 10 on Sunday and won, they would have to turn around and play at 1:00.

I just don't think these things should be interfering with an entire weekend. I went to a couple of them last summer, and watched two of his games on a Sunday afternoon. I think it was like 1:30 and again at 4:00. They had played a game Friday night, 2 on Saturday, and then the 2 on Sunday that I went to. Basically spending your entire weekend at the ball field. He was 8 back then, 9 now. Just seems a little young to be doing that type of competition. Plus I go to Church on Sunday mornings, so I would never put my kid in something that would eat up the entire weekend.

You have some good points. When I was growing up, we played baseball in baseball season, basketball in basketball season and the same with football. Today, with school and travel ball teams, kids are working on 1 sport 6-10 months a year which doesn't really allow for much multi-sport participation unfortunately. My daughter plays high school volleyball, then travels all over the southeast with a travel team, and finally participates in beach volleyball training and tournaments (mainly for conditioning). This is her choice, but it's tough on both her and her mom and me.
She's played since she was 12, but in some areas of the country the kids start at 6-7 years old (usually Catholic school teams), and you wouldn't believe how good these kids are, so there's something to be said about starting them early.

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Posted by TU Rob

Birmingham

Member since Nov 2008

12763 posts

Posted on 4/4/16 at 10:37 am to coachcrisp

quote:
When I was growing up, we played baseball in baseball season, basketball in basketball season and the same with football. Today, with school and travel ball teams, kids are working on 1 sport 6-10 months a year which doesn't really allow for much multi-sport participation unfortunately.

Same here. I sucked at little league, enjoyed HS football, and played in some basketball leagues every now and then. But to have a kid start baseball in February, play in a league for a couple of months, then make all-stars in that league, while also playing travel ball, and then fall ball, just seems a bit much. I think he enjoys it, and from what I've seen he is pretty good. I just wouldn't want my entire family to have their weekend sucked up by one activity that my child was participating in.

A good friend of mine helps coach some church league soccer. His boys are close in age and on the same team, and his daughter is a few years younger. Last spring, his boys were on my daughter's team. It was only one game a week, on Saturdays, but he would be up there at 8:30-10:30 to coach his daughter's team, back at 11:30-2:30 for our game. And not get back home until after 4:00 on some days. Basically an entire day. But they were always free on Sundays. Even that sounded like too much for me.

I couldn't imagine legit travel teams and going all over for games or meets. Most of the so-called Travel teams around here have the luxury of a large metro area, and all of them are within 30 minutes of here. Down in South Alabama, you might have to travel a few hours for a tournament, just to get knocked out on day 1. Most are double elim, but it would suck to drive a dozen kids a couple hours away and be stuck in a hotel with nothing else to play for the next day.

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