I'm not even good at that....

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But you're old! Train them while they are young and imagine the pride you will feel after watching one of your kids scarf down 80 Nathan's Dogs on the Fourth of July.

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Let's hope it's my son. The idea of one of my daughters wolfing down wieners in front of a crowd of cheering people doesnt make me feel good.

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I am sorry I cannot offer a real explanation for the parents kowtowing to their kids in these travel things? It is across the board though. Hockey, soccer, baseball, softball and also gymnastics and competitive cheerleader. I know people that blow tons of money. Even buying timeshares and using all their vacation time for this crap.

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Elections have consequences.

The real question is, what is gained for a kid to travel several state lines to play in a tournament.

I'll take baseball as an example. You don't get better at baseball by playing better competition. You get better at baseball by practicing and perfecting.

but you don't get a shining trophy for practicing, which a coach can then use as proof of what a good coach he is and charge 1,500 a kid

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Hockey is a different animal. Most areas don't have enough players or teams to have a local league.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

That's true for Kids but pros and colleges want to see how well the player performs against the very best before they offer money/scholarships and the very best play on travel teams.

This is coming from a parent of a house league baseball player, so no bias towards supporting travel, in fact I think they're nuts.... But if your kid wants to get better (or you're a parent that thinks your son is the next MLB stud...) travel definately makes you better. I coached a "rec" league team last summer. Our entire schedule was about 3 weeks of 2 to 3 practices followed by 12 games with maybe 1 practice a week followed by playoffs with a max of 3 more. One of the local travel teams also played in our league. Their schedule was close to 70 games for the summer, not counting our 15. They also practiced almost every day they didn't have a game. You could argue that a kid could practice that much on his own without the travel, but we know that's not going to realistically happen.




I agree with this completely. Regardless of his talent, my son has no desire to play a 70 game MLB type summer schedule. At the same time, with our house league 12 games, by the time some of the slow starters begin to figure things out, the seasons almost done. My town has about 50k people and I think 4 or 5 travel baseball teams. Add in that there are 2 house leagues and it's a struggle to put together a 6-8 team league of kids and the bottom of the rosters can be bad to the point of worrying about their safety.

We had one daughter qualify for four years and was All State twice.

The State track championships were awesome. In our old age my wife and I will go just to sit and watch again.

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Daughter #2 decide to try track last year to do something when basketball and soccer are off. She loves it. Runs various length hurdles races (joke about my avatar coming).

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Elections have consequences.

It is sad how many parents don't realize there is not that much money out there. Even worse is the fact is the parents should know their kids don't have the measurables needed to be a scholarship athlete at a D1 or even D2 school. BUt there are plenty of club teams willing to take their thousands.

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Baseball improvement is about repetition and just playing a lot of games (easily done without travel)

Fall ball and regular season should be fine

Bernsie thinks Moms and CTE are reducing football numbers but not true. What I see absolutely is growth in Fall Baseball.

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Elections have consequences.

Which will lead to more blown out arms and shoulders. Some of these kids never stop pitching since there are
"showcases" all winter long to.

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Screw that.

Baseball is all about never, ever playing the game - then stepping into a cage, seeing a couple pitches to get your timing down..........and turning around 95+ mph heaters. It's easy.

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Damn those showcases. Allowing players to show their talant so those evil scouts can give them hundreds of thousands of dollars to play a game they love. Evil bastards.

I'm with Keyser. The demonizing of travel and high level sports is a little overboard in this thread.

Yes. It costs more money and the kids play more. That's not exactly the end of the world.

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Yeah Spanky if you got it do it. Sad for people that mortgage shit or use all their family vacation on this stuff.

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Elections have consequences.

http://www.prepbaseballreport.com/illin ... -9-14.html


Who benefits from this?

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As a future parent, I would probably have better odds blowing all of that money on lottery tickets.

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No one. I'm talking high school and college players.

I think the misconception is that everybody (parents) spend the money/time/energy solely for the purpose of getting a scholarship after 10+ years. Conns and others are railing on that - that's a small % of parents in my experience.

The more common reason is: kid starts a sport, kid is decent at it for his age, kid keeps advancing, parents don't want to cut the kid off in the middle of his youth. I don;t see a lot of downside in that really.

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If your paying the money with goal being fun and the experience then thats a good reason to play. If your paying a ton of money for the hope of someday receiving a 1/4 scholarship to Lewis or UIC your an idiot.

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Why? Are Lewis' and UIC's baseball programs so great that it is out of the relm of possibility that a Kid can get a scholorship to play baseball there? How much does it cost to go to Lewis and UIC? What does a 1/4 scholorship pencil out to?

We have obviously had much different experiences then.

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I've never met a parent that has expressed this type of sentiment simply through playing "travel sports". I know it exists somewhere, but that is just not what the majority of what kids and parents are doing. There are short term situations that are set up for potential college exposure - but that's not a secret. People know what a "showcase" is. But that is way different than paying for travel sports for years. If anything - more people get their kids in "travel sports" for the social aspect than the potential scholarship. Some families live for the weekends at away tournaments. That's crazy to me. I do not look forward to that.

My kids are fairly heavily involved in baseball/softball and hockey for their age. I've coached volleyball, basketball and softball at the high school and middle school level - the softball was a pretty hardcore and quality team in high school. I've never seen a parent say - "we gotta pay all this money and spend all of this time to get a scholarship in a few years".

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For most yes.

The point is if parents understand the thousands of dollars a lot chose to pay will more than likely not pay off monetarily with college money than I would have no issue. But I haven't personally seen that.

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Honest question - not trying to play the "where did you play your ball" type of thing:

Where are you experiencing this? What sport(s)? What level? What organization?

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Maybe being in the area I am is different. But when I hear kids or parents tell me how their 12/13 year old kid needs to focus year round on something to become this elite athlete I want to start laughing. No one knows how these kids are going to develop in high school. Kids and parents who are pressured/talked into dropping everything for this great hope is what I see more often than not.

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On that website you posted there is a list of close to 200 kids and their future colleges who would beg to differ with you.