Can I ❤️ about 10X? Too familiar a story underneath all of this:
A kid starts playing because the game is fun. Adults notice ability. Recreation becomes travel, travel becomes year-round, weekends disappear, money pours in, and somewhere along the way the child’s game becomes an adult project. Typically associated with the unlived life of the parent(s).
Then we wonder why so many kids walk away. The tragedy is that while competition can teach extraordinary things, we professionalized childhood before children had the chance to discover whether they actually loved the game.
We took something that could teach failure, friendship, courage and joy, and turned it into another résumé line…
Ruben—thank you for this. Your second paragraph just about it sums it up. I think it's important for everyone who has the time, energy, and resources and sees the conundrum plainly for what it is to hold the line. But as I wrote in the piece, its not easy.
In baseball By the time a kid turns 12/13, you get priced out of the sport. Only the wealthy kids can afford to play travel, and year round. Then schools only pick up those kids for starting rosters and then those kids graduate and play in college and then the pros.
So…in essence, the only ones that succeed are the rich kids, not necessarily the most talented ones.
Which, I guess is the way it is for almost everything. Rich kids go to good schools, which give them an advantage in the job market…and on and on it goes
Thanks for reading and commenting, Jordan. I hear (and feel) that frustration, but I'm not positive it's 100 percent accurate. I suspect (and maybe there is some data for this?) that at a certain level, perhaps D1 college, you can't escape talent gaps, and it doesn't so much matter what you did at 12/13—if you've got the goods you've got the goods, even if your only experience is on the sandlot. I mean, look at all the top players from the DR, Venezuela, etc. Do they have the same travel circuit as us? (They may, I'm genuinely not sure.) However, I think where you are probably spot on is for making a varsity HS team, where it's of course about talent, but also about skill and opportunity. There, I have little doubt certain kids have a huge leg up on others based on what they did in grade and middle school. The worst irony of all is that for some, travel sports gets them to the HS team but is also the cause of their burnout when they reach it. Whereas other kids may be a bit less skilled (because they weren't on the extreme travel circuit) but could have shined in HS. It's a mess.
Nicely done Brad. Change starts with thoughtful reflection like this. 🙏🏼
Thanks, Luke, for the kind words and for reading.
Can I ❤️ about 10X? Too familiar a story underneath all of this:
A kid starts playing because the game is fun. Adults notice ability. Recreation becomes travel, travel becomes year-round, weekends disappear, money pours in, and somewhere along the way the child’s game becomes an adult project. Typically associated with the unlived life of the parent(s).
Then we wonder why so many kids walk away. The tragedy is that while competition can teach extraordinary things, we professionalized childhood before children had the chance to discover whether they actually loved the game.
We took something that could teach failure, friendship, courage and joy, and turned it into another résumé line…
Ruben—thank you for this. Your second paragraph just about it sums it up. I think it's important for everyone who has the time, energy, and resources and sees the conundrum plainly for what it is to hold the line. But as I wrote in the piece, its not easy.
In baseball By the time a kid turns 12/13, you get priced out of the sport. Only the wealthy kids can afford to play travel, and year round. Then schools only pick up those kids for starting rosters and then those kids graduate and play in college and then the pros.
So…in essence, the only ones that succeed are the rich kids, not necessarily the most talented ones.
Which, I guess is the way it is for almost everything. Rich kids go to good schools, which give them an advantage in the job market…and on and on it goes
Thanks for reading and commenting, Jordan. I hear (and feel) that frustration, but I'm not positive it's 100 percent accurate. I suspect (and maybe there is some data for this?) that at a certain level, perhaps D1 college, you can't escape talent gaps, and it doesn't so much matter what you did at 12/13—if you've got the goods you've got the goods, even if your only experience is on the sandlot. I mean, look at all the top players from the DR, Venezuela, etc. Do they have the same travel circuit as us? (They may, I'm genuinely not sure.) However, I think where you are probably spot on is for making a varsity HS team, where it's of course about talent, but also about skill and opportunity. There, I have little doubt certain kids have a huge leg up on others based on what they did in grade and middle school. The worst irony of all is that for some, travel sports gets them to the HS team but is also the cause of their burnout when they reach it. Whereas other kids may be a bit less skilled (because they weren't on the extreme travel circuit) but could have shined in HS. It's a mess.
They said the gi bill was paying mine
But it has yet to take place
considering paying trillions in taxes
my bill for all 9 years was only like 50 grand anyways
appears when national security is involved things get weird to the you never seen anything like this point