OT: good read on lack of participation/gbb...

[whoopdeedoo]

i am sure many of you have read articles on participating in multiple sports. i have always been a big proponent of participating in multiple sports in hs. 

 

http://www.omaha.com/neprepzone/basketball/white-fewer-prep-participants-becoming-bigger-concern-in-girls-basketball/article_3b96d9d8-d197-5c26-b979-735a0c06912c.html

[redsteve]

The club team thing has pretty much ruined the school and local league play in most sports. Now a kid in Omaha, grade school age, can go play baseball or basketball, soccer, etc, etc, and play 50 or 60+ games in a season. In the 90's there were only 3 or 4 club teams in many sports...now there dozens.  They see it as ....why play for a grade school/ middle school team, and play 10-15 games, when I can be cool and play on a club team with cool uniform, and be elite and play 50 games.

 

All the club team play creates an illusion for many...and their parents. Some of the problem has become many of these "club" kids later on, aren't good enough to make high school teams...weren't good enough player to make a "good" club team to start with. And some parents just don't get it, and they go nuts because their club athlete is cut from school teams.

 

And by the time their cut from school teams early on, they say to heck with it and quit all together. ...and some kids burn out by the time their ready for high school...have played a sport (s) since their maybe 7 or 8, and hundreds of games later...that's enough for me. And injuries occur from many years of play...even at 12 or 13.

 

All of this stuff detracts from playing for their school, and staying on the school team, like it was prior to the advent of the whole club thing.

 

So there's lots of reasons...it's pretty complicated anymore. And now days there's just so much other stuff to detract from sports.

[huskerchode]

I do think a lot of clubs are out of control.  But we also had less than favorable experiences with HS coaches.  My daughter played soccer, basketball, and did track and field, and also slipped in softball and swimming for a few years.  When she got to middle school, she was told by the HS coach that she needed to drop the other sports and start coming to open gym with the HS kids.  He absolutely did not want her wasting time on soccer (a sport her school did not have so club was the only way she could play) and definitely not on track and field in the summer because he wanted her playing summer league and tournaments with the HS kids.  She switched schools prior to HS and was told by the HS coach at her new school that if she wanted to play HS ball in Lincoln, she had to drop her other sports and focus exclusively on basketball.  She liked basketball and was a solid player and could contribute, but after freshman year she had had it with the coach and his demands so she dropped it.  And she was much happier after that.

 

She would have loved to continue to play, but the threats of being benched for missing an open gym in the off season to attend a track meet got old very fast.

[Cazzie22]

AAU is going to be the ruination of HS sports except for football.  Kids pay more attention to their AAU Coach and shoe company than to the High School coach.