(10-17-2017 01:55 PM)Wedge Wrote: Also, the emphasis on transitioning kids onto travel teams as early as possible makes even the younger kids' recreational programs more intense, with the side effect that the kids who only want to play recreationally either drop out earlier or never play in an organized recreational program at all, and that further reduces youth participation levels.
Yeah, I work with a guy who has his son involved with a ton of traveling teams for soccer and basketball since a very young age. It almost seems redundant to other leagues out there, like a select one. It's just a constant thing...I don't know how he does it.
I think recruiting at the college level got extremely lazy over the years, and relies too heavily on a few systems and programs as the top of the feeders. This boggles my mind; athletic operations and staffing has grown so much over the years, and this "pecking order" system is streamlined enough to cause me to wonder what the heck these people even do to warrant a staffing line. This isn't the old days with videos and calls and visits...top programs have a cluster of guys they call, and the vetting goes from there.
It's ravaged football in PA. You used to find talent all over the public and private school systems in the state, but, you had some (like Paterno at PSU) who wouldn't touch you if you didn't come from certain schools (like, why go to the public program when this private school is closer by?). That method started to become a thing. And, in PA, PIAA let in Philly's Catholic league, pretty much destroying football in the suburbs (Bucks, Montgomery, and Delaware at least), much like it did to Philly School District years earlier. Where public school is still not such a bad thing, you're going out past the Main Line (like Downingtown) or up to Allentown. This traveling coach works with that school's coaches, and he talks to these programs all of the time. It's not wonder that some of the guys who get coaching jobs in PA's public systems aren't just anyone...they're ex-D1 or pro players who might be able to jump past "the system" the private schools already had in place.
I hate what's becoming of sports in this country. I'll encourage participation, but probably more so in an obscure program that isn't so darn corrupted and tiered. It's not about the love of any game anymore.