High school vs. club team

To me, that's the bottom line: if the child truly enjoys it, then it's worth spending the money.

If you're doing it because you think years of club sport will turn your kid into a full-scholarship player, whether he or she wants to be one or not, then that's a problem.

 

DING-DING-DING. This sounds very familiar.

As some of you know, I coached first my son, then my daughter, in soccer. My son was a goalkeeper with college-ability. He had the size, the ability, the wingspan of a 747 and -- most importantly for that position -- the brain, to play at the next level. But the game stopped being fun for him in HS. So he quit.

My 12-year-old daughter, on the other hand, doesn't quite have the natural talent my son has. But she wants it far more than he ever did. She's gone to camps each of the last three years, sees a personal coach to work on her footwork (for $20 a lesson, it's an absolute steal) once a week and told me last fall, she wanted to blow off AYSO and play club. Three of her friends were on this team and the coach was recruiting her.

I told her to play one more year of AYSO because: 1) I wanted her to get the feeling of being one of the best players in the league and get her confidence up, and 2) from a purely selfish standpoint, I wanted to coach her one more year. She did, had a great year working on a heretofore underdeveloped element of her game, and started playing club in January.

At the same time, she was playing for an AYSO travel team with a bunch of her friends, because I was worried if she didn't make the club team, she'd have no place to play. Turned out, it wasn't an issue, but she had a blast with her friends and got better.

Like Micro, I view it as money well-spent -- no matter what it leads to down the line. We enjoy traveling to tournaments and she's playing a sport she loves with friends.

Someone mentioned the scholarship issue above. Especially for Californians in sports like soccer, there's so much talent there the big schools can't scoop them all up. So a decent player with great grades has a chance to catch on somewhere in the Midwest or East. If a Division II or III school wants you, they'll find a way to get you there.

 

Expound a bit on that. The scholarship limitations for D-II and D-III are pretty well spelled out. If they're getting the athlete there, how are they doing that any differently than for any non-athlete with decent grades who wants to get through school -- loans and grants?

 

Partly that, yes, with emphasis on the grants.

But I was speaking as much for admissions to select schools as well. I've seen it and chronicled it in my past life. A smart athlete from the West Coast can get into schools, yes, even the Ivies, with grades/test scores that would get a regular student laughed out of the admissions office.