competitive little kid sports

[Cartierfor3]

downside to reading McCormick is that a lot of youth coaches will tend to drive you insane

Yes the solution is to coach yourself


Which leads to parents driving you insane

Been coaching 5th grade girls soccer since they were in Kinder. I never played soccer and my knowledge before coaching was basically "don't use your hands". It's one of my favorite parts of my life. In the fall we went 5-3 and they worked their butts off. My daughter could totally go "competitive" but we're waiting another year to do that and sticking with rec until middle school.

What is your goal such that you would go competitive in middle school, but not now? I understand why you would rather have it be more relaxed now, but what is the goal in going competitive?

Kind of weird question.

Let her play on better team against better competition. I don't look at playing sports as something with a "goal" at the end (play in HS or college etc) but we as a family look at the value of learning to compete, be a teammate, be active etc. I watch folks who start travel sports and whatnot at a young age and it's just not for us. But if daughter really likes soccer as a 7th or 8th grader I'm fine letting her try to get on a good team that plays more games with more coaching etc. This year a lot of her old team went "competitive" and my daughter is the best player left, some of the games were frustrating to have her not playing on team with similar skill from other teammates.

For our family dedicating entire weekends and thousands of dollars to travel ball and junk is not for us, at least yet.

I understand just wanting to compete and not have a goal. I coach my daughter's U14 Girls team that won Division 2 of Heartland League in Kansas City (cross-post stud things thread). We will likely play Division 1 in the spring. It's a pretty remarkable accomplishment for a team from Manhattan. We homeschool, so my daughter won't be playing high school soccer and likely isn't going to try to play any college soccer, but we still like to see how high of a level she can play.

If you wait until 7th or 8th grade, you will be limiting the level your daughter is able to play at and the kind of team she is able to make at tryouts. Yes, there is catching up with the coaching and higher-level competition, but it takes a number of years to make up that gap. We had a girl that moved here from Utah and had never played soccer above a rec level. It has taken her a full year to really get up to speed with the rest of the girls and there are still some things where she can't play as intuitively as other girls. She was kind of lucky in moving to a place like Manhattan, because she was able to get on a high level team due to there not being many girls that tryout. If she had been somewhere like Kansas City, she would have been relegated to a much lower level team and not have developed nearly as much.

I'm not going to say you're making a mistake in waiting. I realize there are tradeoffs for everything and premier soccer can come with a large commitment of time and money. I'm just trying to give you a perspective of a coach and parent that would gently encourage you to consider playing competitive soccer sooner rather than later. I think it will give your daughter more of an opportunity to see what her ceiling is in terms of hitting her potential.

That's fine with us. This particular kiddo does piano and basketball too. That's plenty for her age. If the price is she's on a lower division team when she's 14, that's fine.

[Cartierfor3]

downside to reading McCormick is that a lot of youth coaches will tend to drive you insane

Yes the solution is to coach yourself


Which leads to parents driving you insane

Been coaching 5th grade girls soccer since they were in Kinder. I never played soccer and my knowledge before coaching was basically "don't use your hands". It's one of my favorite parts of my life. In the fall we went 5-3 and they worked their butts off. My daughter could totally go "competitive" but we're waiting another year to do that and sticking with rec until middle school.

What is your goal such that you would go competitive in middle school, but not now? I understand why you would rather have it be more relaxed now, but what is the goal in going competitive?

Kind of weird question.

Let her play on better team against better competition. I don't look at playing sports as something with a "goal" at the end (play in HS or college etc) but we as a family look at the value of learning to compete, be a teammate, be active etc. I watch folks who start travel sports and whatnot at a young age and it's just not for us. But if daughter really likes soccer as a 7th or 8th grader I'm fine letting her try to get on a good team that plays more games with more coaching etc. This year a lot of her old team went "competitive" and my daughter is the best player left, some of the games were frustrating to have her not playing on team with similar skill from other teammates.

For our family dedicating entire weekends and thousands of dollars to travel ball and junk is not for us, at least yet.

There is the rub.
The youth sports industrial complex is creating a generation of kids who are either highly trained, and often specialized, or just don’t play altogether because the quality and participation in “rec” sports just isn’t there.

Imo, the goal of youth sports should be to keep as many kids active and enjoying as many sports as possible for as long as possible.

There are no solutions, only trade-offs.

Totally agree.

[Justwin]

when you say "divisions" is that like tiers?

And there are 11??? It almost seems like rec isn't much of an option.

My kids soccer until like 3rd grade when "Rec" honestly became too competitive. For basketball, their "rec" league had kids that played AAU year round. It was a mess.

Each division is typically 9 teams and those are the teams you play for your 8 league games each season. There is promotion and relegation between the divisions, so it is like the English soccer pyramid.

There are 11 Premier divisions. There are also some Rec divisions. Heartland Soccer is the largest youth soccer league in the country. There are over 30,000 players each season. There are teams from Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa and Arkansas in the league. At tournaments in Kansas City, we have played teams from those states plus South Dakota, Minnesota, Illinois and Oklahoma. I have seen teams in other divisions at tournaments from Texas, Arizona and Colorado. There are also probably teams from some other states, but I haven't seen them.

[Justwin]

@Justwin I’d probably do the same as you, and have. I’m not questioning your parenting. I’m questioning the system and the trade-offs surrounding it.

I question the system a lot, too. In youth soccer I think there are a lot of problems with the number of kids that play lower-level competitive soccer. They would be better off just playing recreational soccer, but their parents love the idea that their kid plays on a competitive team. Heartland Soccer has 11 divisions in some age groups with 9-11 teams in each division. If you are playing in Division 5 or lower, you should really be asking why you are playing competitive soccer. If you are playing in Division 8 or lower (and are not moving up each season), you should not be playing competitive soccer.

I have no idea what Division my kid is in but the better coaching was for sure the reason we left rec. I didn't want to coach and the level of coaching was really bad and my kid was the best kid in the rec league, he is average on his premier league team and is pretty far behind the better kids in terms of skill and touch. I thought it would be more of a pain in the fall, but it ended up being pretty fun and I like it now and think it is worth it.

Does your son play with Puma or SKV?

[Kat Kid]

@Justwin I’d probably do the same as you, and have. I’m not questioning your parenting. I’m questioning the system and the trade-offs surrounding it.

I question the system a lot, too. In youth soccer I think there are a lot of problems with the number of kids that play lower-level competitive soccer. They would be better off just playing recreational soccer, but their parents love the idea that their kid plays on a competitive team. Heartland Soccer has 11 divisions in some age groups with 9-11 teams in each division. If you are playing in Division 5 or lower, you should really be asking why you are playing competitive soccer. If you are playing in Division 8 or lower (and are not moving up each season), you should not be playing competitive soccer.

I have no idea what Division my kid is in but the better coaching was for sure the reason we left rec. I didn't want to coach and the level of coaching was really bad and my kid was the best kid in the rec league, he is average on his premier league team and is pretty far behind the better kids in terms of skill and touch. I thought it would be more of a pain in the fall, but it ended up being pretty fun and I like it now and think it is worth it.

Does your son play with Puma or SKV?

Puma

[Justwin]

@Justwin I’d probably do the same as you, and have. I’m not questioning your parenting. I’m questioning the system and the trade-offs surrounding it.

I question the system a lot, too. In youth soccer I think there are a lot of problems with the number of kids that play lower-level competitive soccer. They would be better off just playing recreational soccer, but their parents love the idea that their kid plays on a competitive team. Heartland Soccer has 11 divisions in some age groups with 9-11 teams in each division. If you are playing in Division 5 or lower, you should really be asking why you are playing competitive soccer. If you are playing in Division 8 or lower (and are not moving up each season), you should not be playing competitive soccer.

I have no idea what Division my kid is in but the better coaching was for sure the reason we left rec. I didn't want to coach and the level of coaching was really bad and my kid was the best kid in the rec league, he is average on his premier league team and is pretty far behind the better kids in terms of skill and touch. I thought it would be more of a pain in the fall, but it ended up being pretty fun and I like it now and think it is worth it.

Does your son play with Puma or SKV?

Puma

I would encourage you to learn what division his team is playing in and what levels of teams are available at other clubs.

[ben ji]

Just want to give a shout out to all of the kids team coaches here. When you are growing up as a kid you never really think about the extra time/BS your coach has to put up with.

I had the same coach for baseball and basketball from like 2nd-8th grade and he was great. This was basically rec league with some minor travel tournaments thrown in, he would always get some local company to sponsor our uniforms and did all of the coaching. (I still buy Art's Mexican Products at the grocery store because they were our sponsor for a couple of years)

3 Years ago I ran into him on the Vegas strip of all places and this conversation ensued

Ben Ji "Coach, hows it going! Cant remember the last time I saw you"

Coach "I know exactly, you made 2 free throws with no time left to send the championship game into overtime" (8th grade)

I had kind of forgotten about that game but definitely walked around with my chest sticking out the rest of the day. I'm also glad that he got that much satisfaction out of it that he still remembered it 15 years later.

Rick Reynolds was his name and he was a great coach growing up. Hope all of you coaches out there can have the same impact on these baby zoomers growing up.

[steve dave]

Well said Ben Ji, we (me) truly are the greatest


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[Sandstone Outcropping]

Just want to give a shout out to all of the kids team coaches here. When you are growing up as a kid you never really think about the extra time/BS your coach has to put up with.

I had the same coach for baseball and basketball from like 2nd-8th grade and he was great. This was basically rec league with some minor travel tournaments thrown in, he would always get some local company to sponsor our uniforms and did all of the coaching. (I still buy Art's Mexican Products at the grocery store because they were our sponsor for a couple of years)

3 Years ago I ran into him on the Vegas strip of all places and this conversation ensued

Ben Ji "Coach, hows it going! Cant remember the last time I saw you"

Coach "I know exactly, you made 2 free throws with no time left to send the championship game into overtime" (8th grade)

I had kind of forgotten about that game but definitely walked around with my chest sticking out the rest of the day. I'm also glad that he got that much satisfaction out of it that he still remembered it 15 years later.

Rick Reynolds was his name and he was a great coach growing up. Hope all of you coaches out there can have the same impact on these baby zoomers growing up.

That's pretty cool. When I was in middle school (we called it Junior High in those days), I had the same coach for FB, BB and track both years. Coach also taught most of my 7th grade classes at Tinytown Junior High but he was just there because he liked coaching. He would talk with us about all sorts of stuff that happened to him in life and sports. He played a big role in my love for sports. He died from cancer a few years ago.

Before last month, I had always avoided coaching any of my kids' sports. The coach for my daughter's bball team (has tons of experience coaching BBall, volleyball and softball) asked me to be her assistant because she thought it would be good to have a male assistant (I don't know why she thought that). It has been a lot of fun so far and hopefully I haven't confused anyone too badly with my occasional teaching during drills / games.

[Sandstone Outcropping]

Our lil kids b-ball team wrapped their season this afternoon. Was my first season to help coach one of my kids' teams and I'm glad I did it. The team made some strides - esp with man-to-man defense as the season went along. I feel like we threw too much at them in terms of different offenses and specific plays on offense -- feel like that practice time would have been better used to develop fundamental offensive skills -- like it doesn't matter if an average/good/great play is drawn up if the players don't have the fundamental skills (quality screens, passes, cuts, pivots) to execute the play. If I get asked to help coach another 'cropping in the future, I think I will do it. Good reminder that basketball is an awesome game.

Props to all of you who are head coaches and do this stuff on a regular basis.

[MakeItRain]

My 3 year old started basketball today. It's 2 months of skill building practice. The first 15 minutes of dribbling made me rethink all my life choices and he knows how to dribble. Chest passes, shooting, and defense were on point though.

[steve dave]

My 3 year old started basketball today. It's 2 months of skill building practice. The first 15 minutes of dribbling made me rethink all my life choices and he knows how to dribble. Chest passes, shooting, and defense were on point though.

we had our first session game today for our 6Us. crap IS WILD THAT WE DO THIS RIGHT!? but irl we are working at catching the ball/rebound with our hands and not our face/body.

[MakeItRain]

My 3 year old started basketball today. It's 2 months of skill building practice. The first 15 minutes of dribbling made me rethink all my life choices and he knows how to dribble. Chest passes, shooting, and defense were on point though.

we had our first session game today for our 6Us. crap IS WILD THAT WE DO THIS RIGHT!? but irl we are working at catching the ball/rebound with our hands and not our face/body.

He did 3 year old basketball, soccer, and t ball this year. I really don't believe in youth sports for kids this age but we gotta get this dude out of the house and in organized activities as much as we can, otherwise he'll tear the house up, he's got way too much chaotic energy. We literally call him mayhem.

I don't know if I can do 10 more years of this though, with these sports, it was way less stressful with the girls.

[star seed 7]

Just want to give a shout out to all of the kids team coaches here. When you are growing up as a kid you never really think about the extra time/BS your coach has to put up with.

I had the same coach for baseball and basketball from like 2nd-8th grade and he was great. This was basically rec league with some minor travel tournaments thrown in, he would always get some local company to sponsor our uniforms and did all of the coaching. (I still buy Art's Mexican Products at the grocery store because they were our sponsor for a couple of years)

3 Years ago I ran into him on the Vegas strip of all places and this conversation ensued

Ben Ji "Coach, hows it going! Cant remember the last time I saw you"

Coach "I know exactly, you made 2 free throws with no time left to send the championship game into overtime" (8th grade)

I had kind of forgotten about that game but definitely walked around with my chest sticking out the rest of the day. I'm also glad that he got that much satisfaction out of it that he still remembered it 15 years later.

Rick Reynolds was his name and he was a great coach growing up. Hope all of you coaches out there can have the same impact on these baby zoomers growing up.

BIG fan of art's corn chips

[Cire]

in non competitive sports news, BOTH of my daughters won bball games and EACH made a free throw this weekend

[Sandstone Outcropping]

in non competitive sports news, BOTH of my daughters won bball games and EACH made a free throw this weekend

awesome

[steve dave]

my daughter (6 yo) is now hardcore into "tumbling" which I believe is a mix of gymnastics and cheerleading. so, because it's kinda both, we now do BOTH. she's in a weekly class with a club that does "tumbling" but the place is cheerleading? and we do another one with an actual gymnastics one that does like floor and bar and all that normal olympic stuff. so obviously we now have personal lessons set up with them both ($80 an hour). I just spent $700 on a "rolly" and a "cheese" and a "mat". The mat is a mat. the roly is a big hexogon tube thing. the "cheese" is a wedge mat thing. it's less expensive than baseball anyway.

[MakeItRain]

I'm so glad my daughter in dance and cheer never took to tumbling.

[wetwillie]

This season will be my last year of travel baseball. Going to soak it in, it’s the best.

[michigancat]

I am currently in California for a water polo tournament. Great sport!

[MakeItRain]

woah

[MakeItRain]

Any of you dudes play intertube water polo at the nat back in the day? I couldn't imagine doing that without something to help you float.

[michigancat]

Any of you dudes play intertube water polo at the nat back in the day? I couldn't imagine doing that without something to help you float.

I did not but I think my parents did. It's really crazy how exhausting the sport must be. (I can not tread water by eggbeater-ing so I can't really say how exhausting it is.)

They took the club to see Stanford women play and holy crap that's a level of Georgia football vs TCU intensity. I think they had 3 Olympians on the team and were up 13-2 in the 4th and still eating faces. An intimidating joy to watch.

[steve dave]

my daughter (6 yo) is now hardcore into "tumbling" which I believe is a mix of gymnastics and cheerleading. so, because it's kinda both, we now do BOTH. she's in a weekly class with a club that does "tumbling" but the place is cheerleading? and we do another one with an actual gymnastics one that does like floor and bar and all that normal olympic stuff. so obviously we now have personal lessons set up with them both ($80 an hour). I just spent $700 on a "rolly" and a "cheese" and a "mat". The mat is a mat. the roly is a big hexogon tube thing. the "cheese" is a wedge mat thing. it's less expensive than baseball anyway.

omg



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[steve dave]

We can irl do tons of incred non-gymnastics stuff with these things. I’m stoked. if I had had these things as a kid we'd have done incredible parkour bone breaking moves under the basketball hoop, onto the roof, into the grain pile, you name it. sick AF.


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