I have always said that sports have many good lessons to teach and all kids should be able to experience the positive things that sports can teach. But this isn't always easy in practice.
First you need good coaches. Having good coaches to direct and show young kids, particularly entry level kids is far from a given. Good coaches help kids enjoy the experience and teach team play and competition regardless of a win loss outcome.
Then you need an appropriate league and team the kid can play on. There are so many levels of skill, particularly in sports where there is a lot of participation, that this can be challenging. It takes effort to organize youth sports in the best of circumstances and enough numbers of kids to justify having a league for teams to play. If you are one of the only kids around with your skill level, it can be tough to find a team to play on, especially in a less popular sport. If you or your friends are not aware of any teams or leagues through school or local clubs, you can ask on facebook, at school or search on google maps.
So what happens if you have played a sport for a long time but have always played in lower level leagues? What can happen is when you get to high school, if you don't have the skills of other players who have played at higher levels, you may be on the outside looking in. I have seen this firsthand several times. It is the unfortunate tradeoff that parents have to weigh. If your kids don't play competitive travel sports, they may not make teams later on. Usually varsity sports are not "everyone plays" and development entities. I feel badly for kids in this situation but as a parent you have to really look ahead and consider it. there are some sacrifices with playing travel sports and this isn't easy. No coach likes to cut kids but this is part of it.
In our baseball experience, we had 19 kids on our freshman team. Fair enough in a way, as you don't always know who will develop. But I think some of this was not wanting to deal with angry parents whose kids are cut, particularly early on. the problem is that when you have that many kids, the ones that deserve to be there will lose playing time sometimes to kids that shouldn't even be on the team. Then you make people mad regardless.
a good coach will explain the plan to the parents beforehand so that there is minimal issues during the season. A great coach will be specific about how much time a kid might get. Even with this, parents sometimes don't like it. You have to be strong as a coach as it is better to deal with it on the front end. Your program cannot succeed if you aren't direct and clear about expectations and playing time. Parents that are told their kid probably won't play much may not like it, but they had the choice at the beginning of the season.
I spoke to my brother Joel about this on a recent vacation. he lives in my hometown of Lynden, where they have a great sports community (see my other posts). He mentioned that he feels pressure for his kids to be involved in more and more things and he isn't sure if it's healthy, specifically when it starts to take away from other things like family time.
I told him I agree and every family and situation is different. We know if you want to be great in sports, there is a certain degree of sacrifice that is required, however there is a line that should not be crossed. If sports is hurting your family life or some other part then it is probably too much.
You always have to step back and keep things in perspective, as hard as that can be. Travel sports does have a way of pulling you in. In many sports, you can play them all year around if you want to. Organizations love this as the players get better and the money stream is consistent. But nothing is more important than God and family.
My son Lincoln isn't ready to do lacrosse all year at his age. I don't want to force this on him or he will react negatively and not want to play at all. When he gets older, I believe he will grow into it at his own pace, but now isn't the time yet. For some kids though his age, they want to do this.
i have wrestled with this often as we have missed church regularly due to sports commitments over the years. I don't always know if we made the right choice either.
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