High school vs. club team

My daughter played both club and school lacrosse. The Club season ran from May thru June and again in the fall. Lax coaches can't scout high school games as it coincides with their season, so the only time she could be seen was during club. She was actively recruited for DIII schools. Because she started club late, 10th grade, she never had the chance to be seen by DI and upper Division DIII. If you're not on a club team by the time you are in 8th grade, you're slotted in a lower level club.

She was All County and All Conference, yet no college recruited her based on high school games.

As a side note, and a story idea for a real sports reporter, girls lacrosse tournements are a sight to behold. THousands of girls between 12-and 17 years old playing 4-7 games over a weekend in 90+ degree weather. Not a boy insight. They are playing an exciting sport, decent physical contact and good skills. The competition is better than most high school games. There are no pro leagues. most girls will not even play college lax. Yet thousands of them are playing in the hottest weather for the love of competition, in a team sport where they sweat, get bruised, dirty and injured.

Also, check out CLub Lacrosse in college, these girls pay there own way and Club level lax at DI schools are on par with DIII competition.

Thank You Billy Jean King.

 

I don't know how it is outside of the bigger sports, but until the coaching gets better, AAU and USSSA bullshit teams will not replace high school teams. Most of these coaches have no idea what they're doing and will end up hurting more kids than help.

I see it all of the time in baseball. Pitchers being taught poor mechanics, poor defense and lack of sportsmanship really hurts them.

 

That may be your opinion and you may be right with regard to the coaches in your area, but the simple fact is no kid is getting a college scholarship or a slot in the major league draft via the high school track.

 

It was probably the Festival - it was Santa Monica vs Kane County.

And my daughter's hs soccer coach said the same thing - I am not telling you you have to play club... but you have to play club.

The high school coach gets girls who are well coached, experienced, and in shape - which is all great... until we get to the kickoff dinner (before the first game) - and five girls out of a squad of ~55 girls (frosh/soph, jv and varsity) have casts on their legs from ACLs, MCLs, or broken legs.. all occurring in the club season that runs before high school.

 

What it's also doing is killing off multi-sport athletes, which is harming the sports that aren't as heavily infected by the club/travel bug.

Nowdays, if kids don't see a reasonable chance to play varsity as a freshman, they quit, even if they could be a pretty good role player down the line. It kills their depth and numbers, and puts their programs on life-support. There are once-good big-school programs in our area that barely have enough kids to field a varsity team because their role players are playing softball in a pole barn at 2 a.m.

 

I was at a school a few years ago that had an amazingly bad football team during a preseaon practice. This team was so bad they actually celebrated scoring points. Not winning, just scoring points. They would barely have enough warm bodies to field a team, but I saw five kids running around the track. Big, good looking kids, all 6-1 or taller.

I asked the AD WTF these kids were doing out here and not in pads. He said they were training for basketball. Mind you, the hoops team sucked and none of these players had any chance of playing at the next level in hoops.

 

In fastpitch softball the coaching at the travel level is much better than at most high schools, and I say that as a high school coach. The coaching at the in-house/park district level is, in most cases, beyond brutal.

 

Yeah, this was my point. If HS sports basically become a well-organized version of intramural and all action is with AAU/club, why not cover that over HS.

Believe it or not, Average Joe doesn't give a shit about what Bullshit HS did last weekend. They will read a feature on Timmy that plays for BHS, but he doesn't care what the team did. (IMHO, gamers are a dead end, lazy route to good coverage of prep sports)

 

Club teams, and in turn coverage, will never surpass high school sports ... maybe in larger cities, but not in middle America. As noted earlier, it's really My Town vs. Your Town or My Side of the County vs. Your Side of the County. The particular sport is just the vehicle for that rivalry on a given day. It's not a regular thing, but it's not unheard of for some schools around here to play home-and-home in football because the gate is so good.

I have a hatred of club/AAU stuff because of what it does to high school athletics. I've seen it more than once where a talented high school player goes about half speed for their high school team or will backtalk their coach "My AAU coach says I should be doing this, that's what's best for ME." We had one in particular this year. She was 6-1 maybe, one of the bigger players in the league. The best thing for her school was for her to never set foot outside the paint. She'd start there and as the game went on, moved farther out until she was a wing player by the end of the night because that's what her AAU coach told her to do. Her folks made a big deal out of her being named to an AAU McDonald's All-American list or some crap. She didn't even make all-conference on her high school team.

 

He did play East Cobb, but I don't remember anything about him missing high school games. Scouts watched him in travel ball because the competition there is better than it is in high school play, and nobody pitched to him in high school. If they went to his high school, it was to have him take a round of bp with a wooden bat. What I remember from that article was that most of them didn't stick around to watch the games.

As for the club stuff ... club soccer in my area has outpaced hs soccer for years, which is interesting because most of the hs coaches also are club coaches. This is not the case everywhere, though. The kids I've talked to about this said that while the competition is better on the travel teams, the hs games are much better attended and their classmates not involved in soccer get to see them do their thing. And, there's still some status with getting a letter.

Who cares? Well, I read somewhere that the U.S. has more youth participating in soccer than any other country in the world. Sheer numbers in China make me question this, but we're still talking about significant numbers of people involved. Which means the sport will grow. What that means for high schools, I don't know.

I had a hs football coach tell me several years ago that football was the only true scholastic sport left, mainly because the logistics and equipment involved make it cost prohibitive to do on a club level. And there isn't any level at which it's played year-round.

 

To the posters who responded to me above:

I was trying to say I don't know what it's like outside the major sports, i.e. Baseball football, basketball. I have no doubt that club level volleyball and softball and track have better coaching, but I don't officiate those club sports, so I don't know firsthand.

I DO call baseball and football and am the PA announcer for my wife's HS hoops team. I also am involved in clubs and travel ball officiating. And, in general, the school coaches are far superior to clubs/travel.

And until that changes, they won't be overtaken.

Personally, I'd like to see a European-like club thing, where the top-tier pro team is affiliated all the way down to the youth levels.

 

"And let's hear it folks...for the Shitsville High Potters football team, sponsored by the Oakland Raiders!"

Actually, some junior hockey clubs have some affiliations with pro teams (Jr. Rangers, Jr. Bruins, etc.)
MLS is doing this with club soccer as well.