I had the pleasure of connecting with V.J. Stanley, author of an eye opening book called Stop the Tsunami in Youth Sports and representative of sport consulting service, The Frozen Shorts Training Method. He's in demand as a guest speaker and has penned some insightful articles including the 5 Myths of Playing Elite Travel. Check out his blog and check out his views.
5 Myths about playing “ELITE” travel
youth sports:
by V.J. Stanley
The Money Myth
Because you pay a
lot of money, you believe your child’s athletic ability has a quantitative value. Oh boy! I have
heard this comment in many forms over and over. People brag about how much
money they have spent on their child’s youth sports experience. I have heard
parents brag/complain about how whipped they are from the brutal schedule their
child has in youth sports and how far they had to travel in separate cars last
weekend. Parents bragging about how many times they have visited their child’s
Orthopedic surgeon or personal trainer. I have heard parents say “they got cut”
from a team “My son signed his first contract to play junior hockey. (Even though they paid $10,000 to play
on that team). I have seen
children go play on an “elite academy team” with their families paying
thousands of dollars and bragging about it only to hear that they regretted the
decision when no scholarship offered ever appears.
There is no correlation to the money you spend on your child’s
athletic “elite” travel team and their ability to play at a higher level. You
can’t buy talent. If this was true, how do poor kids reach their athletic peak?
Think of this example. Your child has a cold. You take her to the Pediatrician
and they give you a prescription for some medicine. You are done. You are not
sent to a specialist and pay more money are you? You go to a specialist to get
special results. It’s just a common cold for a common child. What if
this is not a special situation? You would be spending and wasting money
needlessly. Then wouldn’t you get frustrated when you did not get special
results? Over and over again we hear the disappointment in the end game of this
monetary path. The money spent far outweighs the money the families receive in
scholarship. There is a tangible hangover to this paradigm. We see it every
day.
On our website frozenshorts.com we
have a form to fill out that will tell you what it cost per hour for your child
to play elite travel sports for a weekend. The cost, about $230.000 an hour
should amaze you!
The One Sport Edge Myth
Your child should play one sport year round to get an
athletic scholarship. One sport year round is needed to make your child a
better athlete. Really? Let’s take a look at the reasons this is happening.
There are many many children playing one sport year round. It certainly is a
paradigm that has taken hold and grown over the last thirty years. More and more youth sports
organizations, including USA Soccer, adhere to this policy of having children
commit to this level of participation. They actually ask for the family to
submit a calendar of their “outside” activities and make sure that the parents
know that their child, if he or she does not want to fall behind, needs to make
this commitment to a year round “training” program. It is also inferred by some
of these coaches that failure to make this level of commitment will cause the
child to be benched. Interestingly though, it is never the star player that
receives this sort of demand. Excuses are commonly made for this player.
“Mandatory” camps are held during the “off” season. While not being exactly mandatory, it is made clear you
better attend if you want to keep your spot. Families are told that the team
must stay together and play together if they want to win. It becomes a partnership with the
parents and the children, a “lifestyle” I am told.
I would much rather be home, with a home
cooked meal. My family eats together 6 times a week and I am confident it is a
major reason we are such a close knit family. Plus it would save a lot of
money.
Let's insert an interesting fact
hare. ALMOST all these teams and organizations speak this mantra and yet many
of them don’t win as much as they would lead you to believe with the importance
they put on winning. Oh sure if you play enough games, go to enough tournaments
you will eventually win or get “close,” thus providing the impetus to play
fewer kids and to go out and recruit better players. Few parents realize when
this is happening that their child may be losing playing time to the new kid. AND this new kid, the new “chosen one” comes
in and is given ‘cart
blanch” and special treatment by the coach on many occasions, thus undermining
the team concept and the mantra that we must stick together and play together.
Sometimes I hear that the parents allow
this because the children really “love” the sport and the parents are letting their
children “take this as far as they can.” I LOVE ice cream. But I can’t eat it
every day, it’s not healthy for me.) Other times I hear that the “pros” do it
this way so should I. The athletic
scholarship mantra is repeated where this child got a scholarship playing one
sport year round. My kid is as good or close so why not, more is better. BUT IS
IT? Let’s look at the science, psychology and data. First there are two to eight times more
injuries for those who play one sport year round. Health, according to Dr.
James Andrews considered being the TOP Orthopeadic sports surgeon in the
country says the most important thing for an athlete’s success at each level,
is their health. Next, children change their mind all the time. So having them
do something, anything year round, is against their nature and will begin to
wear on them and they won’t continue to grow and benefit. It’s called the law
of diminishing returns. That may initially want to play the sport year round.
They may even enjoy it. But soon, it will wear on them. They are kids, and kids
want to do different things. They will continue on to please their parents and
avoid the stigma of quitting, but then injurious start to pop up and their
bodies and minds tell them that they need rest and soon you have a child not
having any fun.
Lastly the drive for athletic scholarships
or a pro career is not dependent on one sport year round according to
professional teams. The Minnesota twins look for multi sport athletes.
Their top prospect, Byron Buxton, and the #1 prospect in ALL of minor league baseball was a basketball
star in high school also. Three out of the four quarterbacks in this 2013 AFC and NFC championship game were drafted by
MLB teams. And Peyton Manning, the one
quarterback who wasn’t drafted, played shortstop in high school through his
senior year and continued to play baseball in the summer. Ryan Callahan,
captain of the New York Rangers played soccer growing up and advocates time
away from hockey in an interview with me at frozenshorts.com. Brian Gionta,
captain of the Montreal Canadiens takes three months off from skating after
every season. See his interview also, at frozenshorts.com.
Absence does make the heart grow fonder. Abby Wambach,
considered to be the top female soccer player in the world, was a high school
basketball star. Besides, doing something year round for 20 hours a week is
considered a job.
The
Elite or Bust Myth
Your team and the kids who
play on that team benefit by playing other “elite” teams more than playing
recreation level. Now there are some truly elite teams. The national team, a
major junior team, etc. I believe that a truly elite team should be sending
most if not all of its players to a Division 1 program. I have watched over 200
of the so called “elite” teams play and to say that it is much better than a
recreational team is true in most cases, but hardly fits the definition of
elite.
Let’s be clear here. Most teams are only elite because someone put a
title on it. In fact most elite teams consist of a group of kids whose parents agreed
to pay an outrageous fee for your participation on this team. The members of
this team were picked from a pool of participants that excluded anyone who
could not afford to pay the fee and or did not want to give up everything else
they were doing in that time frame to play on this team. The league in which
you play has the same criteria as you do. In these criteria there is no way you
can expect true elite completion.
Most recreation level youth sports
are not as good as “elite” level because of desire. I have watched many of
them, well over a 100, and I can say that just like elite there are a couple of
kids who stand out, a couple that aren't very good and the rest are about the
same talent level. You could certainly make a case that you could switch some
kids from either team and not see much of a difference in either teams play.
Being around children we all know
that they change their minds all the time, daily, hourly, sometimes minute by
minute in what they want to do. In this case, pushing a child to play on a team
they don’t want to inhibit their fun and quality of participation. I have seen
on many teams, before, during, and after games a disgust, lack of enthusiasm,
and disinterest from many children being pushed to play at this so called elite
level.
Also, since children don’t
fully develop physically until they are in their early to mid twenties, and
mentally even a bit later. However, and research is starting to come out , that
being a great teammate far outweighs the advantage or perceived advantage of
playing with a group of kids whose parents “paid to play.” I have talked to
many kids who passed up playing foe their high school and I will tell you that
most. Publicly, say they wouldn’t change what they did. But behind the scenes,
and in growing numbers,
kids are either being asked to play, and say no, are going back to their high
school teams, and quietly to, some family and close friends are regretting
their decision to play elite sports.
You
see, there are only so many spots on college teams and they are getting filled
by a global pool of talent. This talent comes from all sorts of places and
teams. While it is true that some college coaches only recruit form the
pedigree tree, many are looking for multi sport athletes, that are really great
teammates and high quality character people first and foremost.
The Showcase Scholarship
Myth
Showcases are a big step towards your
scholarship goal. Here is my definition of a showcase. An elite, truly elite,
program sends out specific individual invitations for you to attend. The event
is only for children above the age of 15. The coaches just let the kids play, minimal
instruction. The parents of these children playing pay a nominal fee. The
showcase is not there for the main purpose of funding a team, program, or
organization.
I understand that college coaches
sometimes get paid a fee to attend these showcases. They also get an advantage
watching a lot of kids in a short time. They can only attend these showcases at
certain times of the year according to the NCAA. Because of the plethora of
these money making showcases, there is a watered down aspect starts to
arise at these showcases. Many may not have the talent you think there is.
Lastly, in some cases, kids go to these showcases, tired, not at their peak and
try to impress the college scouts with their “stuff” and they can get injured.
80% of a college coach’s job is recruiting.
If you have talent we will find you. It’s our job and we like our job, a lot.
We want to find you when another coach can’t. Let me relate to you the last
showcase I went to for my 15 year old son. We traveled six hours by car to Virginia. He played four games against the same
level of competition that he normally played against in his ‘elite” travel
league.
After the first game when everyone was
headed back to the hotel I told my wife I was going to hang around for awhile.
I watched every team I could get to, a total of about 600 kids. I saw two
children that I considered to be D1 material. So, in essence, the other 598
families were paying for these two kids to be seen. I then went and found the
person running the tournament. I told him I was a college hockey coach and
would like to meet some of the other college coaches there scouting. He
immediately asked me to sign in. There were six other coaches on the list and I
did not recognize
any D1
schools. He played in four games against
four teams with about the same scores as there was in his normal league. We
paid $600.00 to go to Virginia and sit and watch soccer for the weekend. I understand
that some people refer to this as their social lives and have and maintain
friendships after the children stop playing. But the point of this article is
this was supposed to be a showcase for college coaches and perspective student
athletes for college bound children. It was not. It was the last showcase we
went to. As a side to this story it was also the last season my son played
travel soccer, and he still played and started for his high school team his
senior year.
