re: "Not Good Enough" Documentary about youth sports

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Local rec leagues are horrific now. Pathetic. It’s a waste of money and time. Most modern “travel ball” trans don’t travel

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Which sucks because it creates a barrier to entry for some. Growing up in Metairie, the model was great - play rec at your local playground and if you were good enough you made all stars and played the other playgrounds' best. Then at 13, there was 1 team per playground and the best made the JPRD squad for travel ball after the season.

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People without kids in the last 15 years “shite on travel ball” but they have no clue what “travel ball” even is anymore. I ignorantly used to be in this group

Local rec leagues are horrific now. Pathetic. It’s a waste of money and time. Most modern “travel ball” trans don’t travel

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this

people shite on travel ball but if you get with a great org it can be a great experience. IMO kids should be playing multiple sports and dads shouldnt coach. fall should be about training, not really situations and only play 1 or 2 tournaments. Should be bat speed, long toss and strength training even at young ages. in spring/summer, play about every other weekend from march until end of june. the trying to play 100 games a year is insane, especially after 8.

as far as travel at 7...you highlighted the problem. if everyone played together in rec with no travel...you would have teams in coach pitch where some kids are throwing 50mph and hitting the ball with 50+ exit velo playing with kids that literally cant throw from 3rd to first and can not catch at all and only out there cause mom and dad are making them.

so what ends up happening, atleast in LA, is the tball all star kids leave and go play travel cause they dont want to play with kids that its literally dangerous to play with. In texas they just start travel at 6u.

Its unfortunate its like this and i get the whole barrier to entry thing but most teams will work with you with fundraisers etc

in the end no matter how good your kid is, you need to remember that grades and being a good person is way way more important. chase success in all things in life and strive to be the best. if your kid wants to be good at youth sports, tell him he has to out work the competition.

i will say its crazy some of these parents continue to put their kid in travel when they have no desire to do lessons or work on their own. My oldest was like this and had to have a talk with him. he liked being a part of the travel team and liked team practice but he wasnt willing to work hard at all outside of practice because he liked the idea alot more than actually playing the sport. finally got him to understand that not being a baseball team didnt define him and he needed to embrace the sports he really liked. Turned out to be a great decision for him that i led him too but he made himself.

now my youngest two...is there a secret to get them to not like baseball so much and not liking to work so hard cause this shite is exhausting now with 2 in it. between the 3 boys and MS football, flag football, baseball, lessons, MS basketball, MS track.......Im exhausted!!!