you'd be surprised as in NJ this isn't the norm but in some other states, elite athletes don't play on their HS teams. This by the way, is not new as it was like this Cali at least 15years ago
OT: HS Coach fired for expecting players to go to offseason weight room sessions…
- Thread starter tico brown
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I would say that finding a college that is a good fit for you academically and culturally is likely to help you succeed in life long term, not only in a profession, but as a healthy, happy person. I would say that my observation is that the sports component of college does not necessarily provide that same payback. If someone wants to try to land on a college roster good for them, but everyone who is telling these kids and their parents that they NEED TO SACRIFICE EVERYTHING to get on a college roster are trying to sell them something or use them for something.
You make it like you can’t find a college that fits you academically, culturally and athletically. And I don’t know anybody who’s telling kids and families they have to sacrifice everything to get into college.
It’s very common in NJ with soccer. Every HS kid who plays school soccer is a worse player in November than they were in August.
I can believe that as I've a friend who's kid plays for a team that doesn't allow him to play on hs team
I've held discussions with 2 orgs for baseball to adopt this approach where you create super regionals given the HS months are functionally a waste for development now.
Doesn't playing for your high school and town something? Doesn't playing with your best friends mean something? Doesn't hitting that winning shot to beat your rival in front of a crazed student body mean something?
I would think so but not everyone has the same experience, opportunities, circumstance etc. so maybe maybe not. In some counties in California for instance, you can play at any high school in the district so you can go to one school by day and play for another after classes. I wish they had that here to be honest as it would open more opportunities for athletes.
I think it comes down to opportunity, circumstance and ability to go to the next level.
No, in many sports it doesn’t. Especially, if you have big time goals. I know soccer players who spent the fall traveling the country and playing with professional clubs. You think a HS game in front of 25 students is better?
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Because these kids have so much on their plates. When can they just be kids and students? This is why numbers are way down because the percentage of kids willing to do that is small.
Football is not the only sport. Let’s look at the flip side. What if the basketball team wanted off season lifting two days a week and the baseball team wants batting practice twice a week? Now you have a student every day having four morning sessions a week, practices or games 5 nights a week and one practice on Saturday. How about this. Would the football coach be ok if the wrestling coach made Wednesday and Fridays mandatory conditioning at 6 am?
This is why these self important coaches are ruining high school sports.
I think just blaming the coaches is not fair. If coaches are not winning, parents are complaining to the admin and board. Coaches feel the pressure to be successful so have to create these off-season workouts because it is an arms race.
We come back to the same issue of parents being allowed to dictate the situation, and very few admins are willing to keep the parents in check.
Do you have access to any teenagers because you are way off here. The HS baseball coach doesn’t need to have hitting practice in the off season because the kids club teams practice regularly from May until March. The wrestling coach doesn’t need to have additional practices because his kids are doing club from March until November. Football is the only sport that doesn’t have a club treat for the 7 down months.
And what does it even mean to just be kids? Please elaborate and tell me what they are missing out on by lifting 3 days a week
I do. Winning a state or county championship for your HS is a memory they will last forever. You won't remember a random weekend club tournament in Houston or Orlando. Kids who taken three months to play soccer for their HS and play club the rest of the year will be fine.
In the same situation with a 8yo son and 7yo daughter.
Thr problem is the sports themselves are now playing all year round.
Travel soccer is fall and spring (option to opt out).
Travel baseball/softball are fall and spring (separate tryouts/sign-ups so don't have to play both).
But of course my want to do it all and not opt out. It's hard to tell them "no you can't play. You have to pick a sport for the season."
My kids missed every Saturday soccer practice this fall because they had baseball/softball games.
Let's kids be kids......
My kids ask to play both soccer and baseball/softball in the fall and spring.
All winter (when not at basketball) they practice inside fielding a ball off the wall or kicking a ball shaped pillow off the wall.
You can say "just go play pickup".
At 8 and 7, they are seeing their friends at practices everyday.
My kids ask to play both soccer and baseball/softball in the fall and spring.
All winter (when not at basketball) they practice inside fielding a ball off the wall or kicking a ball shaped pillow off the wall.
You can say "just go play pickup".
At 8 and 7, they are seeing their friends at practices everyday.
That's only if you win a state or county tournament and it's a ho hum tournament.
My son's spring town baseball team went 2-9.
His fall club team won their Columbus Day Tournament.
His club team voted to give him the game ball when they won their semifinal game.
You can guess the bigger memories.
Funny enough, his club team is going to play his town team this Spring.
He said he wants to play for the Club (because they are better) but also to beat his school friends.
Which does go to your point about rivals.
Not at that age. 7th or 8th grade, sure but at 7 years old just play
My oldest won multiple county and state championships. She never speaks of high school. She talks about national events playing in front of 300 colleges and or scouts. And sits and watches pro soccer and all the girls she competed against
Holy crap you’re about to get blasted by some here for saying that kids should play in whatever HS they want to play, not in their home school.
It’s funny, back when our son was in 8th grade, DBP was pushing hard for him to come play there. For us, it would not have been an inconvenience anyway as his HS and DBP are about a mile or so from each other.
But his take was that he had been in the Mahwah schools his whole life and all of his friends he played football with and hung out with we’re going to Mahwah HS. So, he told DBP no…
They did try to tell us that he is most likely giving up a chance to get a D1 scholarship and our 8th grade son said that he was going to be good enough that it didn’t matter where he played.
So, he starred in football- and played offense, defense and ST’s and starred in basketball and just had a ton of fun with friends.
Mandatory can be difficult especially in schools where kids work during their off seasons to help support their families or maybe just pick up a little spending money or start learning how to work. I coached HS in an area where a lot of kids had to work. We would do off season work outs and some kids would always be there, some made best efforts to be there and some didn’t really care. When the season rolled around the kids who were there a lot and the kids who did a lot on their own generally were most prepared and played the most. You don’t need to be at a mandatory off season workout to prepare maybe even more than the kids who are there
This has been going on forever. I know a guy in my town who is 50. He was all state in basketball, was an outstanding athlete and also loved playing baseball.
His sophomore yr he was backup SS to another kid who was great. His Jr Yr, the other kid broke his leg. So my friend played the entire season and was all conference.
Coming back for his sr year, they figured they would have a great season because the kid who broke his leg was also coming back. But instead of the coach moving my friend to 2B or CF or 3B, he just didn’t play him at all. The other kid was just better and the coaches philosophy was players had one position, the best kid at that position played and that was that.
I busted his chops that maybe he wasn’t as good as he thought he was or maybe he was a prima donna and if the coach was winning he’d rather do it with kids who weren’t annoying and telling him how to do his job. He laughed and said they finished under .500.
The team morale was terrible because the kids all knew the 2nd best player was on the bench and there was no logical reason for it.
Suffice to say, it still upsets him.
The funniest part of the story is he ultimately went to play basketball at FDU, which is impressive in its own right since he’s only like 5’10”. He said one day the FDU lacrosse coach came up to him and found out he was from Long Island. The coach said you should play lacrosse for me. My friend said, I’ve never picked up a lacrosse stick in my life. I loved baseball growing up. Coach said, I guarantee you are better at lacrosse than most of the kids on this team from just growing up on LI. He said what the hell, did a workout and played 4 years of college lacrosse.
Some kids are just better athletes.
And some coaches are just dumb.
These are hard lessons to learn for most parents, especially if they’ve forked over thousands of dollars and countless hours into private training for kids ever since they were 7.
Always reminds me of my neighbor a few years back when our son was playing football. Good friend who we knew forever- the Dad had played soccer at Hackensack and earned a scholarship to ASU. His son, was a really good running back in pop warner and wrestled. But the kid was 5ft5 at best.
We were over their house BBQ pool party- and I don't remember if Kevin was at Rutgers at the time or NFL - but he stopped over and was hanging out with everyone.
So, the Dad is telling us how he is sending his son to DBP to play RB and go out for the wrestling team. Kevin just starts laughing, tosses the kid a nerf ball and tells him to try to run past him, full contact.
Kid and his Dad are looking to see if Kev was serious, and he was. Kid says- that would be crazy, you would kill me.
Kev tells him- well for your Dad's $40k next year - you better be good at wrestling because with DBP's football schedule- you will be facing defensive linemen bigger than me. - for this kid- good thing he also took up wrestling.
lol
We were over their house BBQ pool party- and I don't remember if Kevin was at Rutgers at the time or NFL - but he stopped over and was hanging out with everyone.
So, the Dad is telling us how he is sending his son to DBP to play RB and go out for the wrestling team. Kevin just starts laughing, tosses the kid a nerf ball and tells him to try to run past him, full contact.
Kid and his Dad are looking to see if Kev was serious, and he was. Kid says- that would be crazy, you would kill me.
Kev tells him- well for your Dad's $40k next year - you better be good at wrestling because with DBP's football schedule- you will be facing defensive linemen bigger than me. - for this kid- good thing he also took up wrestling.
lol
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all of this private training at such a young age is crazy too. Most of the best players I have seen in any sport, just liked being kids and playing.
And a lot of talented kids, who left alone that young could develop into top drawer players, get sick of the supervision and pressure and drop out.
Private training is actually counterproductive because it often demotivates the child by taking away responsibility for their own success. (Now it's someone else's job to make me good.) I coach a lot of hockey and parents ask me how their kids can get better at edges and I say here are some you tube videos they can watch...now give them seven bucks and drive them to free skate and tell them the rest is up to them. Kids HAVE to take responsibility for their own improvement.
A blanket statement of "let kids be kids" isn't accurate either.
Depends on the kid.
I can see it if parents are forcing kids to do things.
And there are definitely parents forcing kids into stuff.
But there are also kids who want to train and practice and play ball all the time.
Depends on the kid.
I can see it if parents are forcing kids to do things.
And there are definitely parents forcing kids into stuff.
But there are also kids who want to train and practice and play ball all the time.
Not if the coaches are clueless and there for the stipends or the facilities have more mold than seats like some places who lose kids to better programs.
Maybe true. But some places who have admin who will do anything to have things done their way instead of having coaches do things the right way for the kids.
One of my kids was a really good soccer player but around 7th/8th grade- he was "required" to do travel or he would have no shot of even being considered for the HS team.
So, he did his first year of travel and it made him just hate playing.
Our youngest, who was following in his older brother's footsteps at Mahwah HS - he played one year of football but hated the comparisons. And while his brother was 6ft5 300lbs, he was 6ft 140ish lbs. lol But super fast and athletic- so, he gave up football. So, the basketball coach was also trying to get him to do that because at 6ft, he could just stand under the basket and easily just jump up and hand on the rim. But, he wanted no part of it either. But, just to piss of the coach, every time he saw him, he would do something like that.
He wanted to find his own thing- as a Jr in HS- he decided he liked to jump and joined track- triple jump, long jump and high jump.
With just 2 years, he broke all of the school records and finished 4th in the state on the triple jump.
The point is- he could have been forced to play football or basketball and most likely would have good just based on natural ability, but he found what he liked to do and became better that just good and he loved it.
Agree with this...but if it is a 7 or 8 y/o - then I would be pretty sure that desire to train all the time was not 100% their own decision...
it's a reality is some states and I see towns here that would benefit from it
100%
I even think travel ball at this age is a huge waste of money
Glad he found what he wanted. I'm admittedly biased, but super fast and athletic but short on football heft screams lacrosse to me.
Everything is so overdone now its hard for kids to be kids. I have an inlaw who was a talented soccer player and may have had a scholarship offer but was burned out from non stop soccer and just quit. Smart and talented kids have a lot of sports, meaningful activities, college prep, jobs, school work, and life to cram in, all while having to constantly stay up to date on social media.
Seems it would be better to require a certain reasonable level of fitness to start the season, and let kids get there however they can. It's one thing to want players to be in good shape. It's another to be manufacturing body types to fit a coaches wish list.
I know one girl that played at another HS in her district as the kid in front of her was just too good and highly recruited. This girl need the extra time to develop her game with reps etc so she played for rival school. fast forward she got a schollie to a great school and is now being recruited, among others, by two BIG schools being MD and our beloved RU. That would not have happened without that ability.
NJ is full of NIMBY and regionalism which needs to stop
However, some (the most successful ones?) do not.
How many sports did Dylan and Ace play in HS?
Everyone romanticizes “he’s been dribbling a ball since he could stand”.
Reflects on videos of a kid kicking a soccer ball as 2yo or doing a gymnastics cartwheel.
So it can work out by “specializing” earlier.
It’s not a set thing.
so- Ace is like 6ft10 and I am sure was very tall and lanky at an early age- Mom/Dad both played college BB and his aunt was in the WNBA...Do we even have to go into Dylan's background...These are sort of 2 bad examples.
But the average kid in america and some who will go on to play at least college sports or maybe into low minors in baseball- well, they typically fall into the baseball/football/soccer/lacross size of player. Maybe a few get growth spurts...but with these kids - playing mult sports will almost always be beneficial.
Look at a lot of football linemen- offense and defense. Wrestling and Basketball...The balance and footwork from those sports puts any football lineman ahead of a counterpart that only played football.
Reading the article now though, the coach seems take by surprise and it looks like the issue never really reached the point of being a serious conflict between the coach and district until the district went nuclear, and this is more about appeasing PITA parents or other issues. It's hard to know how difficult the coach was really being, but if the district agreed with the parents that this was too much, there should have been a conversation with the coach before this.
