Robert Malina, director of the Institute for the Study of Youth Sports at Michigan State University, says most parents would be better off putting the money they spend on travel teams into a savings account. According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, fewer than 1 percent of the kids participating in organized sports today will qualify for any sort of college athletic scholarship.
There is also the age old problem common to all forms of organized youth sports — the overzealous parent.
The changing world of youth sports leagues
Published February 25, 2008
On baseball fields from New York to California, there are young boys swinging bats and dreaming of becoming the next Alex Rodriguez. Likewise, there are young girls running up and down soccer pitches throughout the American heartland trying to emulate Mia Hamm.
This is hardly a new phenomenon. Almost every American child has dreamed of sports superstardom at one point or another. An estimated 40 million children between the ages of 6 and 18 are currently playing in some type of organized sports activity, according to the National Council on Youth Sports.
However, what has changed drastically is the way our youth, and their parents, have set about to realize this dream.
In ever increasing numbers, young athletes are joining private pay-to-play teams, sometimes called “select” or “traveling” teams.
Select sports is exactly as it sounds: Kids must try out for teams and the best players are “selected” to be members. Once selected, the child is required to pay a fee for the privilege of being on the team.
This system is a radical departure from the traditional recreational leagues that most adults participated in during their youth. The differences start with the coaching.
Select coaches get paid, sometimes rather handsomely. There are reports from the Austin area that have some of these coaches receiving salaries as high as $70,000 per year. For most, running their select team is a full-time job. These coaches are highly trained and more knowledgeable in their respective sports than their volunteer counterparts in the rec leagues.
This, in turn, leads to another controversial characteristic of select sports — the cost of participating. Most select teams charge their players a fee of between $1,000 and $3,000 per year. Expenses can swell to triple that amount, particularly if the team goes to frequent out-of-town or out-of-state tournaments. In Dallas, it has been reported that some parents spend as much as $25,000 per year on soccer.
In addition to the financial cost, select sports also requires an investment of another sort — time. Playing on a select team is a year-round proposition. Soccer and basketball are usually an 11-month commitment. Baseball and softball have fall and summer seasons in addition to the traditional high school season played in the spring. Select volleyball seasons last at least six months. On top of that, most teams practice three or four times a week.
Almost every sport you can name has some form of a select team. Soccer, softball, baseball, basketball and volleyball have the largest number of participants. However, there are pay-to-play youth programs for tennis, golf, rowing, gymnastics, fencing, cheerleading, dance, martial arts, lacrosse and other sports as well.
The lone exception appears to be football. Mark Cousins, the athletic director for the University Interscholastic League, has been quoted as saying, “I believe we haven’t seen the development of select, non-school football yet because of the costs associated with equipment and insurance. But there are people talking about it.”
Not surprisingly, select sports has its fair share of proponents and critics.
Paul Hayes is the head coach of the men’s soccer team at Schreiner University. In addition to coaching at both the high school and collegiate level, he has also headed several select programs. He is also the founder of the Hill Country Crush Soccer Academy, which currently has select teams playing in four different age groups.
Hayes believes the select system has decided advantages.
“The big advantage to playing select is the year round, professional instruction these players receive,” Hayes said. “You just don’t get that in a city league.”
With the time, the travel and the cost involved, many of the select players and their parents are looking for a big pay-off — a college scholarship. However, the odds of that happening are long.
Robert Malina, director of the Institute for the Study of Youth Sports at Michigan State University, says most parents would be better off putting the money they spend on travel teams into a savings account. According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, fewer than 1 percent of the kids participating in organized sports today will qualify for any sort of college athletic scholarship.
There is also the age old problem common to all forms of organized youth sports — the overzealous parent.
Prior to starting the Hill Country Crush Soccer Academy here, Hayes coached one of the largest select soccer programs in San Antonio. His experiences with the parents there were not always positive.
“Some parents were ruthless,” Hayes said. “They wanted to win at any cost, even at the expense of player development. There were actually parents who would walk up and down the sidelines, keeping their kids statistics on their Blackberrys.”
Hayes is quick to point out that he has not run into that problem in Kerrville.
“The parents here are awesome. They realize the most important thing is teaching their children to do the right thing,” he said. “The idea here is to not only teach them to be better players, but to be better people.”
NEXT: An indepth look at the disadvantages and possible harms of the select system.
