Podcaster drops harsh truth on travel sports, gets pushback

Not a good take. Some people, no matter their skill level, just want to compete so they can be given an opportunity at the big time. Whatever happened to America being the land of the underdog?

So stupid.

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Pretty stupid statement. There's kids playing rec ball that just eat dirt in the outfield, what if one of them were involved in a car crash on the way to practice?

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I get it, but apparently these kids were coming back from a pay to play national showcase type event, one that was meant to make money, not showcase talent.

It was a stupid statement to make after the crash Keep those thoughts to yourself when someone dies, but I do believe that there are people exploiting young athletes and their families.

Stupid statement.

I have my own feelings about travel ball, dance, cheer, whatever culture but it stems from adults with unrealistic expectations of success that causes stress on the kids. I have never been critical of kids who want to compete and maximize their abilities.

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I have my own feelings about travel ball, dance, cheer, whatever culture but it stems from adults with unrealistic expectations of success that causes stress on the kids. I have never been critical of kids who want to compete and maximize their abilities.

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How do you differentiate between the two?

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It was in response to a popular figure skating podcast, "The Skating Lesson" saying that some of the kids that lost their lives in that plane crash probably weren't talented enough to be giving up their life and education to figure skate. They were being taken advantage of by people trying to make money.

Maybe it was harsh, but it was condemning to the travel sports scene. There are more athletes than opportunities.

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Some travel sports parents have unrealistic expectations and think their kid is going to make millions as a pro athlete someday. Other parents have their head screwed on right and just do the travel ball thing because the kid enjoys it and the parents have the means to pay for it.

And for sports that don’t have a rec ball option, parents paying for coaches and/or some sort of pay-to-compete / travel competition system is the only option if thats the sport their kid is interested in. Tennis, gymnastics, swimming, figure skating, tons of Olympic sports…are mostly going to be like that and involve at least some level of travel for competitions because there just isn’t enough youth athletes in those sports to have everything localized like rec ball at local playgrounds.

ETA: my point is there’s no good reason to just shite on travel sports as a whole. Especially a sport like figure skating where there paying for coaching and traveling for competition is literally the only way to participate in that sport.

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As long as the kids are the focus it checks out. But when you see firsthand the other side of the coin, it becomes clear how it can go from a positive to a negative.

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I have witnessed the same things, and I agree.

That was a horrible way to express it, but the fact remains that a lot of travel ball kids and their parents are being exploited for money.

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Suburban people would be full communist if Marx supported subsidizing travel ball

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This board has a MASSIVE misunderstanding of travel ball.

Rec ball:
1 practice per week
1 game per week
End of season tournament is the highlight of the year.
To many, this seems not enough activity to learn a game difficult as baseball.

Travel ball:
2 practices per week
3-5 games in a weekend only on weeks where you play a tournament. Winner gets a trinket, but tournaments are just fun.

This board likes to point at the most extreme side of travel ball but for the vast majority it’s very tame. 99% of the “travel” is within an hour of home.

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And that really has nothing to do with a plane crash.

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Well you are overlooking the point. Instead of being on that plane, if they weren't being exploited, they could have been somewhere doing something infinitely more risky like riding in a car, or just being outside, since lightning strikes are more common than plane crashes.


.........Wait

man some of yall have gone off the mother fricking rails with the ignorance...jesus christ.

simple solution...dont like travel or competitive sports...dont participate, not that fricking hard and not that hard to not come on here and whine

and sure as frick aint hard to not come on here and celebrate the death of kids and use it as some gotcha to put down competitive sports...because in the end...that is all "travel ball" is...competitive sports. rec is uncompetitive.