re: Kirk Herbstreit slams Travel Ball culture

Sports are just more technical now than they once were. Specializing early gives you an advantage…if the focus is always increasing technical skill and strength and not just winning. The business of it all has created insane competition levels so you have to figure out where you fit in…are you the best kid in the city, state, country? Just gotta go compete and see. You wanna be the best in the country…you’re going to sacrifice.

With old data, maybe.

There's a couple ways to look at it...Wife and I loved travel ball, and my kids loved travel ball. We scheduled tournaments in Orange Beach, Pigeon Forge, Cooperstown, Broken Bow, Dallas etc. Played Alex Box several summers, USM, ULL, Rice, and many other college parks which is amazing for a 13 year old, We kept the team together , with kids who were decent ball players and had good character, and their parents who were awesome to hang out with. We may have lost more than we won some seasons because we weren't chasing the best kids that may have been available in the off season, but I promise you our kids loved every minute of it, and so did we. Yes it was expensive, yes sometimes it got in the way, but most weekends were spent with our kids..in a fun town, eating out and cutting up with folks we loved. What is the problem with that? Both our kids played high school ball and that was the end of it, and travel ball helped with that. We never got lessons on the side, we let our kids earn what they got by the work they put in at practice, and they were both successful. No college ball, and that was never a goal as we all were realistic about their talents. We all just loved the game and it created some amazing memories. I wouldn't trade one minute of it. I get whay its not for some folks Sorry Kirk, you are an elitest, and get why you didn't have the same experience we did..God forbid you have fun with other non-elitest folks who love their kids. Why anyone would care what this sniveling weak minded liberal cuck would say is beyond me.

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He does well on the little US kids tour he plays but there are kids that only play golf and take multiple lessons a week that he absolutely can’t compete with. I would think though that’s just making them the best 9 year old, it doesn’t necessarily matter as between ages 12-14 he would catch them if he truly was better

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A guy just won a pro event that played one year of college golf and had a scoring average of 79

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The largest organization in Louisiana doesn’t let any team play from November thru March. Not allowed for their youth teams

They also have to finish before July and can’t start again until September

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Thats literally what I said....and the Knights are a joke

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and the Knights are a joke

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The fact that there are “organizations” and people are making careers out of coaching 9 year old is a joke and, honestly, disgusting

I’d get him the best training absolutely possible…then it’s on him to implement it through practice. My son was professionally coached in the 8th grade…and years working that form paid off in the big competitions…or it was just natural talent…who could ever know? I wasn’t going to risk it though.

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and people are making careers out of coaching 9 year old is a joke and, honestly, disgusting

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The coaches are a dad volunteering for all the teams I know of

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I mean, the entirety of Catholic high baseball are knights

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Damn, really excited for those future Kappa Sigs

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Damn, really excited for those future Kappa Sigs

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Or lsu and mlb players

ETA: and when did Catholic guys stop being Lamda Chi?