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Do you have kids who play youth sports? If so, which ones?

choose multiples if applicable

  • Total voters
    34
  • Poll closed .
Downhill snow skiing (age 16) and freestyle kayaking (age 14), but obviously (fortunately?) not team sports. Our skier is very good recreationally but started late and not in a pipeline as a serious competitor. (Docs said she might never walk so we are obviously thrilled with her amazing accomplishments.) Our kayaker is objectively good and competitive nationally - that sport involves practice a couple times per week, intensive training most of the Summer, a small number of events throughout the year and several long weekends to other states. But most of our weekends are still ours.
 
My daughter just went to her first basketball "practice" yesterday. Her skill level is... not where it needs to be, but she was the tallest kid there, so that probably counts for quite a bit at this age.
 
AMCDeac said:
Downhill snow skiing (age 16) and freestyle kayaking (age 14), but obviously (fortunately?) not team sports. Our skier is very good recreationally but started late and not in a pipeline as a serious competitor. (Docs said she might never walk so we are obviously thrilled with her amazing accomplishments.) Our kayaker is objectively good and competitive nationally - that sport involves practice a couple times per week, intensive training most of the Summer, a small number of events throughout the year and several long weekends to other states. But most of our weekends are still ours.
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See, this guy gets it. He found niche sports for his kids to just dominate the hell out of without the insane effort that soccer mom's have to commit to. That's the dream right there.
 
Yeah, but team sports are better than individual sports, IMO.

I did both as a kid and I enjoyed the comradarie (sp?) of having teammates to bond and banter with. Still close friends with many guys I played HS/club soccer with.

If AMC's kids have training partners, then I could see how that could be a similar dynamic to a team sport and sounds pretty cool too.
 
Daughter. Rising hs fr.

Summer: Swim
Fall: Cross country
Winter: Swim
Spring: Track

She was a pretty good softball player, but 2 years on an awful middle school team with not much improvement on the horizon in the hs program helped her make the decision to run/swim year round. And she's got about 0.00004% body fat.

She tried pee wee soccer for a few seasons around kindergarden but hated it. Thank god.
 
My youngest just finished his HS sports career. Wow, did it all go by fast.

Looking back...none of it REALLY mattered. All of the angst and grinding about shit when he was younger was pointless. The kids that were "good" at 7-9? Maybe half played in HS? All of the "training" at that age is pointless. Puberty determines everything.

Best guy on my son's HS basketball team didn't even start playing until 6th grade. Didn't start on the AAU team until 8th. Grew to 6'6" and dominated by sophomore year. Best kid when my son was 3rd/4th grade barely made the freshman team and didn't play after that. He had great coordination and dribbling at 8 years old...was 5'4" in the 9th grade. Done.
 
2&2 Slider To Leyritz said:
There is a big jump from that to the 7/8 year old machine pitch allstar teams. They go from not catching popups to gunning batters out from deep at shortstop. Rec ball still has a lot of Bad News Bears, but the decent challenge teams generally make all of the routine plays and some pretty impressive ones.
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So 2&2 was a Sig Ep, no?
 
7th grader plays tennis, soccer and volleyball. Her favorite is volleyball. I think we are done with soccer.
 
Coach O said:
My youngest just finished his HS sports career. Wow, did it all go by fast.

Looking back...none of it REALLY mattered. All of the angst and grinding about shit when he was younger was pointless. The kids that were "good" at 7-9? Maybe half played in HS? All of the "training" at that age is pointless. Puberty determines everything.

Best guy on my son's HS basketball team didn't even start playing until 6th grade. Didn't start on the AAU team until 8th. Grew to 6'6" and dominated by sophomore year. Best kid when my son was 3rd/4th grade barely made the freshman team and didn't play after that. He had great coordination and dribbling at 8 years old...was 5'4" in the 9th grade. Done.
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Exactly

But were any of these kids straight gunning out runners at 7 years old?!?!
 
deacvision7 said:
If AMC's kids have training partners, then I could see how that could be a similar dynamic to a team sport and sounds pretty cool too.
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Ski team still offers a team environment, with coaches, teammates and weekly practice (but individual races). She has made several good friends on the team and takes off for downhill ski camp on Mt. Hood later this summer. One of her coaches and a couple team members will be there, too.

Freestyle kayaking is a tight knit community as well. Kayaks with a handful of competitive kids (and adults) every week. Best kayakers in the world tend to be very down to earth and enormously encouraging to the kids. She is spending 6 weeks this summer at the Keener's program in Ottawa, Canada - stated objective of the program is to "dominate world youth kayaking" and their students actually do win just about everything. All the coaches are world champions, as well. So we love that program.

The Keeners group met last year at Gauley Fest to run the Upper Gauley in playboats - was pretty cool to see a 14 year old girl and her teenage friends run the same river in small trick boat that was throwing adult men in rafts and other adults in full size kayaks.

My kids are not interested, but the U.S. National Youth Fly Fishing Team is another amazing program. They compete all over the US and then in the World Championship, wherever in the wold that is for any given year.
 
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Coach O said:
My youngest just finished his HS sports career. Wow, did it all go by fast.

Looking back...none of it REALLY mattered. All of the angst and grinding about shit when he was younger was pointless. The kids that were "good" at 7-9? Maybe half played in HS? All of the "training" at that age is pointless. Puberty determines everything.

Best guy on my son's HS basketball team didn't even start playing until 6th grade. Didn't start on the AAU team until 8th. Grew to 6'6" and dominated by sophomore year. Best kid when my son was 3rd/4th grade barely made the freshman team and didn't play after that. He had great coordination and dribbling at 8 years old...was 5'4" in the 9th grade. Done.
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This.
 
PM's kids do soccer and gymnastics now, and will be swimming this summer. Not putting a lot of pressure on anything or getting wrapped up in involvement beyond the community teams at this point, because they're 6 and 9. There is no reason to let the activities and INCREDIBLE TALENTS (eye roll) of a 6 and 9 yr old dominate your entire life and free time.

Both parents are incredibly accomplished athletes and no doubt the genes are there (and both show definite aptitude in speed/strength/coordination), but there are enough studies and evidence to support the fact that very little good tends to come from pushing specialization at such a young age. I'm glad PM and ex are of that mentality, and it's good to see very well-rounded kids come of that environment, too.
 
I have 3 boys:

13 - flag football, cross country, basketball
11 - flag football, swimming, basketball, lacrosse
9 - baseball, basketball, flag football
 
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