Death of Three Sport Athlete

[superjohn]

I promise that i never take any offense - no apologies are ever necessary.

The kid is perfectly healthy....she’s just not very tall. (Only reason they bothered to try to figure out how tall she would be...my wife realized when the kid was seven or eight that we never had to buy her bigger shoes. I mean for years she wore the same size sneakers. Turns out, she was just destined to be small.)



She’s a good gymnast, but loves the pool. It’s not ideal, but she compensates for it. Very strong, very fast hands and her flip turns are textbook - she’s an all-conference swimmer as a freshman and a state-cut candidate in the free and backstroke events.

Her stature really starts to become an issue in the longer races and also in the breastroke. She just doesn’t push enough water in the breastroke events.

Good to hear, she sounds like an athlete.

 

[superjohn]

What I always take out of these threads... my kids are shockingly average athletically and academically and it makes my life easier!

I'm not a parent but it does seem like you are one of the lucky ones. Growing up seems kind of nightmarish these days, everything shouldn't be so difficult and competitive.

 

[Paesano]

I'm not a parent but it does seem like you are one of the lucky ones. Growing up seems kind of nightmarish these days, everything shouldn't be so difficult and competitive.

It really is a nightmare and it is getting worse by the year. Kids can't be kids and still compete at a high level. It doesn't matter if it is sports, academics, the arts or whatever. There are crazy parents in the stands, crazy parents at concerts and recitals and crazy parents at parent teacher conferences. We have learned a lot from our experiences with our kids and I have not even begun to share some of the crazy crap we have uncovered.

 

[Paesano]

The better colleges don’t want kids with nothing to show than good grades. My oldest son applied to MIT. He had a 4.333 GPA, multiple AP classes, and had been captain of his archery and robotics teams. MIT liked the outside activities but was disappointed he didn’t have much to show for community service. The admissions officer said kids burn out if all they have is academics - they wanted kids who played sports/had activities and were involved in their community. The exact quote was, “We know you’re smart, but how will you add to our community?”.

If the kids want to do sports, let them. Or marching band or drama or whatever, even if they stink at it. They get so much more by being with other people as part of a group working to achieve a common goal than they ever would by getting straight As in school

The admissions officers were not totally honest with you. Trust me, a lack of community service did not kill your son's chances. He probably was an unhooked applicant. That means he needed some exceptional accomplishment in his application to have a chance. They don't care about what these kids add to their community. They care about what the kids add to their incoming class profile. If your kid won the national championship in archery, he probably would have gotten in.

By the way, there is a lot of misleading information coming out of admissions offices. If they didn't do that, every tiger parent out there, and there are tens of thousands of them, would be forcing their kids to contrive the perfect application. They are already getting 20X as many applications as they can accept. Their job is already incredibly difficult. If they got 20,000 identical perfect applications, what the hell would they do?

 

[the Q]

What I always take out of these threads... my kids are shockingly average athletically and academically and it makes my life easier!

It really is a nightmare and it is getting worse by the year. Kids can't be kids and still compete at a high level. It doesn't matter if it is sports, academics, the arts or whatever. There are crazy parents in the stands, crazy parents at concerts and recitals and crazy parents at parent teacher conferences. We have learned a lot from our experiences with our kids and I have not even begun to share some of the crazy crap we have uncovered.

Honestly your kids (and more importantly the parents) knowing an athletic scholarship isn’t an option so early is a huge advantage.

And they can actually enjoy being a kid and spending time on the things they like.

Not saying they still shouldn’t play sports (again, plenty of life benefit, plus it keeps them active and healthy), but they don’t have to do all the crazy Bs other parents do.

And, it really sucks to go all In on sports and miss.

 

[methodology]

When Buck Showalter was managing he said he preferred players who played multiple sports rather than baseball year round. Felt those players were more well rounded and less likely to be injured (especially pitchers) because of less wear and tear.

 

[HurricaneDave]

There have been some great athletes who excelled in many sports. Gene Conley for one who played MLB and NBA. I wasn't a big Dave Winfield fan when the Yankees had him but he was quite an athlete. Just wished someone that intelligent would have learned to hit to all fields. He kept trying to pull those low and outside pitches. Here is a little article on him as a college athlete.

Drafted by four teams in three sports

WALT DROPO

 

[huskymedic]

When Buck Showalter was managing he said he preferred players who played multiple sports rather than baseball year round. Felt those players were more well rounded and less likely to be injured (especially pitchers) because of less wear and tear.

 

[Paesano]

Honestly your kids (and more importantly the parents) knowing an athletic scholarship isn’t an option so early is a huge advantage.

And they can actually enjoy being a kid and spending time on the things they like.

Not saying they still shouldn’t play sports (again, plenty of life benefit, plus it keeps them active and healthy), but they don’t have to do all the crazy Bs other parents do.

And, it really sucks to go all In on sports and miss.

There is another way to go all in and miss. Even if a kid is not a D1 scholarship level athlete, they can still use sports to get recruited to an Ivy or an academically strong D3 school (Chicago, Williams, Amherst, etc.). Actually, the decision for these kids is more complicated. If you have a kid that will likely go to a solid state or private school then, even if they aren't a scholarship level athlete, it is probably still good for them to play sports. As you say, the pressure is off and it is nice to just do something for fun (*gasp*). But if you have a kid that is an exceptional student, even if they aren't a scholarship level athlete, they might still be good enough to get recruited to a top academic D3 school and use that as their "hook" to get in. But, if they miss, as you say, then they are probably screwed because they probably dedicated too much time to sports and couldn't spend enough time accomplishing something deemed worthy by the admin folks in some non-sports venue. There are no obvious answers in this parenting gig.

 

[polycom]

There is another way to go all in and miss. Even if a kid is not a D1 scholarship level athlete, they can still use sports to get recruited to an Ivy or an academically strong D3 school (Chicago, Williams, Amherst, etc.). Actually, the decision for these kids is more complicated. If you have a kid that will likely go to a solid state or private school then, even if they aren't a scholarship level athlete, it is probably still good for them to play sports. As you say, the pressure is off and it is nice to just do something for fun (*gasp*). But if you have a kid that is an exceptional student, even if they aren't a scholarship level athlete, they might still be good enough to get recruited to a top academic D3 school and use that as their "hook" to get in. But, if they miss, as you say, then they are probably screwed because they probably dedicated too much time to sports and couldn't spend enough time accomplishing something deemed worthy by the admin folks in some non-sports venue. There are no obvious answers in this parenting gig.

This is very true, my cousin played football at one of HYP with an 1800/2400 on the SAT.

 

[Danzz]

I coached 3 sports in the 80's and I believe it is the soccer peoople who put the pressure on kids to specialize. A lot of the soccer coaches were from European countries and soccer was the only sport they played. The advent of travel teams forced the kids to make a decision.