We came from a relaxing week of vacation and then were thrown unceremoniously into the thicket of high school sports. Yes, the school doesn’t start until September 9th, but the sports insanity starts now.
Jonah is trying out for the high school soccer team this week. He has two hours of running trials in the morning and then in the late afternoon, they have another two hours on the field kicking the ball around. He’ll find out if he made the team on Saturday.
Jonah probably won’t make the team. He has very good footwork, but he is just starting his growth spurt this summer, so he’s a good 50 pounds lighter than the other boys. They did a public weighing of the kids and Jonah topped out at 106 pounds, while the other kids were in the 160-170 pound range. When I picked him up from the early trials on Monday morning, he said, “Mom, we have to go to Burger King RIGHT NOW. I have to gain 10 pounds by 4:00 today.” Not likely, kid. On Saturday, 35 kids will get narrowed down to 17, so the odds are not in his favor.
I’m “meh” at the suburban sports craze and really don’t care if he makes the soccer team or not. The cross country team will take even the skinny short kids. But I’m sad for my boy who loves the sport. He may have to hang up the cleats for good.
Apt. 11d 
He may have to hang up the cleats for good.
Are there (more) recreational leagues he could play in? I’ll admit that making sports increasingly competitive seems like a big negative to me.
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Good luck to Jonah, but I think Matt is likely right. We have lots of leagues around here that aren’t with the schools. Of course, maybe that’s because lots of high schools here don’t have good soccer teams.
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Maybe there are recreational leagues. I’ll have to look into it.
Yeah, the increasingly competitive sports scene isn’t wonderful. 35 kids really, really want to get exercise and run around. Why can’t the school set up an A team and a B team?
These kids are being trained at ridiculous levels. We didn’t send Jonah to a soccer camp in July, because I thought the kid needed some time off. Probably an error on my part. The other kids were running miles and miles every day to prepare for tryouts. My neice is also starting high school and trying out for a team at a nearby elite Catholic school. Some of the girls have been preparing with private trainers. My neice can’t compete with that. She’s also just five feet tall, so she and Jonah will be commisserating together next week.
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Exercise and training is good, but there’s a point where you are actually deforming the hip bones when you’ve got somebody that young. The average high school soccer player isn’t going to have a noticeably increased risk of hip OA, but there are guidelines about how far they should run.
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Frontline repeated an episode from 2011 on high school football last night. It was devastating–concussions and heat exhaustion.
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I reiterate – it’s just a game.and it’s about teamwork and fitness.
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tell him to do cross country. He can then so a soccer camp next year and try out again. And worse comes to worse, he can play im in college with the international students and have a great time!
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I was just writing/talking about this with a friend of mine but in the context of the younger set.
My 7 1/2 daughter is in soccer and has been for two years. She’s of average ability but loves it. She’s an active kid and it’s a great way to meet new friends.
Parents of kids on her team are ALREADY counting on scholarships (these are girls going into grade 3). Soccer is super popular here in Vancouver but I think ONE got a scholarship last year.
There are also extra clinics ALREADY where they can improve their skills. And at 11 they try out for gold/silver/bronze team with 3-4 practices a week PLUS a written commitment not to do any other sports.
It’s a bit much.
Luckily her coaches last year didn’t allow the top players on her team to dominate the games – they had to focus on passing instead to give the weaker players a chance to shine.
The message loud and clear is that either you’re the best or you don’t play. And if you don’t get in the stream of dance/gymnastics/soccer early enough, then you don’t have an opportunity to participate.
And for the parents who are overinvested in their kids’ participation? Perhaps an adult league for them to play in instead.
It’s just a game and it’s about teamwork and fitness.
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The skinny short kids on the cross country team are much healthier in the long term than the bulked up varsity athletes. Also, the laws of physics still apply. A 160 pound player can do serious damage to a 106 pound freshman, if they collide.
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We have a summer swim club where we live. It’s just for kids who don’t want to do the more intense, longer winter swim club (Sept through June). Our kids swim pretty intensely for three months — but the schedule is set up such that kids can also do other sports too (you can pick how many time per week you train). The kids — and the parents — love it! We have some fabulous swimmers, but more importantly everyone is welcome and celebrated.
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We’ve joined our local community pool for the first time and have found the swim club precisely as gem describes it for our kids. They add more heats so that everyone can swim, even if they’re just starting out or don’t swim all that well. But, it’s not the same kind of team sport as soccer. I can see why J would want to play soccer (rather than run track) and I hope there’s a way for him to stay in the game even if the HS team doesn’t work out.
Maybe there are other games to check out, too? like Ultimate Frisbee (which prides itself on being participatory). That doesn’t get the fun of the soccer footwork, though. I’ve been noticing that soccer seems to be particularly rigid as the kids grow older — maybe because it’s dominated by not-for-profits.
Also, I think those of us with younger kids have to be careful in imagining the future. Even in the “everyone plays” swim team, we see a huge drop off as the kids get older. They become far less willing to participate if they never win (for both internal and eternal reasons) and want to concentrate on other activities. And, even casual sports require a significant commitment — you’re not really staying in swimming shape (even just your own best) if you don’t swim a fair amount and make time for it in your schedule.
I have one kid who needs organized sports to stay in shape and another who loves everything about sports and teams, and am dreading the future when they have to face the wall. There doesn’t seem a way to win — either you’re good enough, which means your life revolves around your sport or you’re not, and you have to find something else to do.
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That’s another point that you allude to – your child’s life revolving around a particular sport. I soooo will support the girl in her interests BUT, and that’s a big but, I won’t have our family life on the weekends taken up 80% or more with ferrying her about here, there and everywhere.
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The very best club soccer players aren’t playing for their high school teams anymore. Jonah might have a shot.
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I went to mass and the football and soccer teams for the Catholic boy’s high school were there. The soccer team looked really small, like the average boy was less than 120 pounds. The football team looked much, much bigger.
(Not that the priest mentioned it, but the readings today and Sunday both have passages that were used in the last Harry Potter.)
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“Those” soccer coaches should study real soccer… and learn from Barcelona FC. Messi, Xavi and Iniesta -and others, like Neymar, Thiago or Real Madrid´s Ozil- are short, kind of skinny (Messi isn´t thin but very short). They all are very smart, very skilled (footwork), fast, competitive and cooperative -Barca´s players, in general, are also ethical. Great players! True masters of the game. Weight and/or height are NOT prerequisites, nor “goals”, in any good, clean, respectable and succesful soccer club. Bad players come in many shapes and colors. “Colors” and “shapes” are not enough; they are not even necessary.
You could tell your son: work hard, hone your skills, watch and think, have fun -and when the fun is over, don´t do it anymore.
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The fun part (see my previous comment as “Anonymous”) has something to do with specific teams. If a team is not like Barcelona (the approach), is probably not a good team, overall, and one can and should feel OK if rejected.
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