Anarchy99
Footballguy
I was discussing with someone yesterday the evolution (?) of youth sports compared to "back in the day." I grew up in the late 70s and early 80s, and there were noticeable differences in how sports were handled then vs. now. For starters, where I lived, you couldn't even play an organized sport until you were 8 years old. On top of that, every sport was pretty much seasonal only. You played baseball for 3 months or basketball for 4 months and then moved to another sport when that sport season ended. I ended up playing on our town's first travel / tournament baseball team and our first club / travel soccer program, both of which met with more dirty looks than anything else because we were playing "out of season." Whatever sport you played, you practiced once or twice a week and had a game or two each week, but the schedule was not hectic from what I remember.
Flash forward until today. It seems like any competitive sport is now played 12 months out of the year. There is a soccer season in the fall AND spring, along with indoor soccer and futsal in the winter months. And there are a million and one organizations and teams. In our town, there are soccer programs for 3 year olds. Football wise, the kids start playing now at 5 years old.
Basketball has year round AAU, travel teams, camps, clinic, never ending skills and drills, etc. Our son played baseball and there were leagues, AAU, American Legion, etc. to the point where they played even if it was snowing. And a week after the season "ended" in winter, they were already starting indoor practices and wanted pitchers and catchers to report ASAP.
Don't even get me started with hockey, as my nephews played and would have to practice at 4 or 5 in the morning, ended up playing on inline teams because they could never get ice time to play or practice, and generally had a nightmare schedule.
The saddest part being that if you don't enroll your kids in a lot of this stuff, it gets held against them and they won't make the next level team or school team.
So my big question is, with kids starting younger and younger and playing the same sport almost 365 days a year (and by extension having parents shell out thousands of dollars), has the quality of play gone up any vs. generations past? I ask because I just don't see an improvement. In some instances, my eyes tell me the quality of coaching and play has usually gotten worse. Do others feel the same way, or am I in the minority?
Flash forward until today. It seems like any competitive sport is now played 12 months out of the year. There is a soccer season in the fall AND spring, along with indoor soccer and futsal in the winter months. And there are a million and one organizations and teams. In our town, there are soccer programs for 3 year olds. Football wise, the kids start playing now at 5 years old.
Basketball has year round AAU, travel teams, camps, clinic, never ending skills and drills, etc. Our son played baseball and there were leagues, AAU, American Legion, etc. to the point where they played even if it was snowing. And a week after the season "ended" in winter, they were already starting indoor practices and wanted pitchers and catchers to report ASAP.
Don't even get me started with hockey, as my nephews played and would have to practice at 4 or 5 in the morning, ended up playing on inline teams because they could never get ice time to play or practice, and generally had a nightmare schedule.
The saddest part being that if you don't enroll your kids in a lot of this stuff, it gets held against them and they won't make the next level team or school team.
So my big question is, with kids starting younger and younger and playing the same sport almost 365 days a year (and by extension having parents shell out thousands of dollars), has the quality of play gone up any vs. generations past? I ask because I just don't see an improvement. In some instances, my eyes tell me the quality of coaching and play has usually gotten worse. Do others feel the same way, or am I in the minority?