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SWOH | Here's what we did. All of our kids were/are into soccer pretty heavy and luckily we have a pretty good hometown soccer association. They still travel to other local towns but not anything more than 15 or 20 miles away. My kids played spring soccer or baseball and fall soccer locally and then so far 3 of them have played high school soccer. They are all fairly good players, not great...but pretty good. Not good enough that they're going to play college ball or make a living from playing soccer, though. Usually around the time they turned 10 or 11, the local coaches would start putting together travel or select teams and wanted our kids to be on their teams. They took the better players from the local association. Or at times whoever could afford it. And then those players usually end up playing in high school. I can't really tell a difference between the travel kids and local ball kids on the high school teams. Our kids were interested in travel ball when they were pre teens, most of their friends were playing travel ball. My wife and I briefly discussed it, but decided 1) we weren't spending that much money on sports, 2) neither one of us had the time and we didn't feel right about them tagging along with other families all the time and 3) the kids just wanted to play soccer, and they could do that locally. So we decided no travel ball. I think they probably would've learned some soccer skills they didn't get locally, but I don't think they would've gotten as much playing time either. I think they would've enjoyed the social aspect of being with friends, but a lot of those friends came back to local ball after traveling for a year or two.
From what I've witnessed, there are a few good coaches. But the practice time, travel time, and playing time is non stop. The kid's life is sports. We didn't want that for our kids. Right or wrong, we didn't want that. We wanted them to have a childhood other than sports. Sports are fine, but we didn't want it to be all sports. My son that graduated who played 4 years in high school and my son that will be a senior next year who has played 3 years and started as varsity goalie last year have said a few times they're glad they didn't play travel ball. My daughter is a freshmen this year and lives soccer but she's starting to have other interests and soccer isn't the main one anymore. And my youngest son is a 7th grader and decided last year that he was taking the year off, no baseball and no soccer and that really surprised me. He's pretty good at both but said it's not fun anymore. So we're kind of glad we didn't spend the time and money on the travel stuff. Some parents and kids are all in on sports, and that's fine, but it's not for everybody. My advice would be to not do it just to be in that circle. Unless you think he's the next LeBron. But in my opinion, 3rd grade is a little early for travel ball anyway and at that age learning fundamentals and just getting playing time is the key. Rec ball or community ball is good for that in most places.
We know several parents that got involved in that kind of stuff. They had some good times and experiences. But that's how they spent all their time and occasionally they'd complain about not being able to do other things. There is a definite trade off. And the money is ridiculous in my opinion. | |
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Youth traveling basketball
