Track 5: Youth Sports

Track 5: Youth Sports

Hello Readers! 

Today's topic is Youth Sports....do you love them or hate them? 

This is such a hot topic on community pages because it seems like the amount of youth sports your child is involved in, somehow is a badge of honor for the parents.  I don't get it!  

Our family is heavily involved in sports with two of our kids still playing youth sports.  We are involved in multiple sports over here, including football and boys basketball (neither of these are at the youth level, our son is in high school and only plays for his high school team).  We also play volleyball (at the local recreational level), basketball (at the local/community travel level), and softball (at the slightly bigger travel level).  I love that my kids play sports, it teaches them life lessons well beyond the court, field, and diamond, however the amount of money and time that youth sports are costing families is ridiculous.  

My 13 year old daughter just made her first travel softball team.  We had the audacity to wait until age 13 to take the jump and leave our local community team.  It still annoys me that we could not stay with our community team until high school, but here we are.  My daughter wanted more with softball and so our choices were to stay stagnant or take the leap to travel.  

We decided to try travel, but at what cost?  Not only is the cost to play more than my mortgage (literally), it will also require her to play a single sport all year long while playing her Fall and Winter sports.  

I think we all know that the actual percentage of high school athletes who continue in their sport beyond high school is less than 3%, but yet, travel teams for any sport still push the narrative that they can prepare your child for the next level.  But, if I'm paying thousands of dollars a year for my kid to play any sports (besides football or basketball, both of which can actually offer a full scholarship), aren't I just pre-paying for college?  If your child is not playing football or basketball, they are not receiving a full scholarship to play sports in college.  If your child is lucky, they will receive a 2/3 scholarship, but most scholarships (even at the highest level of sports) offers a 1/3 scholarship or less!  

I just wish we could go back to the 80's and 90's with youth sports.  Our kids wear a t-shirt jersey with local businesses on the back, go to DQ after a big game, and be done with the sport after the season.  Our young kids do not need to look like the professionals because I can't afford for mine to look any better than a sponsored t-shirt!  

Now, with this all said, I do have a catcher in the house, we have affordably gotten her some catching gear and a catcher's glove off Amazon and it has held up very nicely for 2 seasons.  These sports cost enough money, we don't need to go out and buy the best of the best when our kids will out grow their gear before they even get to high school.  

If you're looking for some softball catching gear and a glove, please take a look at my associated link for a great option. 

Catching Mitt: https://amzn.to/45P1R1R

Catching Gear: https://amzn.to/4xw0Mbb 

Rawling Glove: (this is the glove my other daughter uses as a pitcher) https://amzn.to/4xmniTG

Pictures for attention....









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