Any parents here who DON'T do traveling sports? (daughter, classes, 7 year old)
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Best wishes to your boy. I hope he gets a baseball scholarship.
However, there is a huge difference between baseball scholarships and academic scholarships. The training for baseball is much more involved and expensive vs academic training. The payoff is much higher for academic training.
You are probably aware (others reading this might not be aware) that that there are only 11.7 full baseball scholarships at a D1 school (9 at D2) per year. The scholarships are almost always chopped up to spread the money over the 27 scholarship players (that is the limit) on the roster of about 35. There are very few full baseball scholarships given out.
College baseball teams also have a maximum athletic scholarship cap based on $$. This will effect decision making by state school baseball coaches due to out of state students costing more vs in-state students against the cap.
Sports scholarships are for 1 year. They have to renew every year. They can drop you pretty much at will. Also, if you sign to play at a 4 year college, you are not eligible to turn professional until you have used up 3 years or turn 21. This is a strange rule. Basically, if you begin to show MLB level talent before 3 years/age 21, you cannot leave to earn a living signing with a MLB system. Insane.
While there might be limits on academic scholarships due to the schools' finances, there are no official limits. Depending on the school, there could be thousands of academic scholarships. Some schools have a chart that shows how much academic scholarship you can earn based on your high school GPA and SAT/ACT score. The school can do whatever it wants if it wants a student. If you maintain a certain GPA you will not lose your scholarship.
There are 1650 college/JUCO baseball programs with about 35k baseball players in the country. There are roughly 5400 scholarships available in the US. There are probably more than 5400 academic scholarships (or more) per class just at Alabama. The odds of earning a baseball scholarship are minuscule when compared to earning an academic scholarship.
This is very good and accurate information. I will just add one additional bit of information. While schools have a scholarship limit as pointed out here, this does not mean that every school fully funds this number of scholarships. Some states doe not allow state schools to use state funding for athletic scholarships. This means the coach must raise the money to fund the scholarships.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NDak15
Things have changed a lot. There are leagues like you described and others that travel insanely long distances that eat up the entire weekend. This is what I'm talking about.
Then there is still a choice for the parents, to decide whether they re willing to sacrifice all that time to travel, or just keep them in the local "club" leagues. Even then there were those parents that were trying to work toward college scholarships at age 8-10.
Then there is still a choice for the parents, to decide whether they re willing to sacrifice all that time to travel, or just keep them in the local "club" leagues. Even then there were those parents that were trying to work toward college scholarships at age 8-10.
Yes. What's your point? Who said there wasn't a choice?
If you think chasing a baseball scholarship by spending thousands of dollars on travel costs for the possibility of a scholarship is the same as doing an SAT prep course, tutoring, or taking them to community service you really don't understand math or what things cost.
I'm well aware that travel baseball costs more than SAT prep course or tutoring. I was talking about the time commitment. Playing travel baseball is not chasing a scholarship either. My son shows a high level aptitude for baseball so why wouldn't I let him play travel baseball and continue to grow that talent? I don't think I would be a very good parent if I just told him nope, sorry I know you love baseball, I know you're really good, but I'm not about to give up my time for it.
When speaking of the costs of it they are largely subsidized by companies or donors depending on the team where the out of pocket cost is minimal. Again this is highly dependent on talent level and team level. The funny thing is that you are bemoaning the cost of travel and academics doesn't cost anything, but how do you explain the parents that fork over $5,000 - $10,000 for some college prep consultant to help your kid get into college?
It seems to me that the coaches want the kids to stick to one sport so they can look good with a winning team, and that they really don't care about the kids just having fun. I certainly don't see that changing.
I'm well aware that travel baseball costs more than SAT prep course or tutoring. I was talking about the time commitment. Playing travel baseball is not chasing a scholarship either. My son shows a high level aptitude for baseball so why wouldn't I let him play travel baseball and continue to grow that talent? I don't think I would be a very good parent if I just told him nope, sorry I know you love baseball, I know you're really good, but I'm not about to give up my time for it.
When speaking of the costs of it they are largely subsidized by companies or donors depending on the team where the out of pocket cost is minimal. Again this is highly dependent on talent level and team level. The funny thing is that you are bemoaning the cost of travel and academics doesn't cost anything, but how do you explain the parents that fork over $5,000 - $10,000 for some college prep consultant to help your kid get into college?
Spending that much for a consultant is asinine. It's also different if you have your expenses subsidized in the way you described.
Not yet. Kida are still too young for the travel teams in the area but have been partaking in community level sports. They are taking a liking to Basketball mostly however and seem to all be inheriting my height. Whatever they want to do however is good with me. No pressure, but I'd like them to at least try.
I've played basketball since 3rd grade and did travel leagues as well as D1 private high school teams. It was a mix of fun, and a hell of a lot of work. Now with 3 boys, i'm not sure i'll have the energy for that sort of thing.
I have friends with a daughter who does travel gymnastics. Apparently, she is quite good and wins consistently and loves it so the choice was easy to make.
Then there is still a choice for the parents, to decide whether they re willing to sacrifice all that time to travel, or just keep them in the local "club" leagues. Even then there were those parents that were trying to work toward college scholarships at age 8-10.
I don't agree. The travel leagues are still the elite level.
Maybe if you are in a small town you need to travel, but there are a lot of local leagues in most sports in the major metros.
If your child is aiming for a college scholarship, well then maybe its important. But that is the elite level.
Our kids are college age now and played rec league soccer, swimming and basketball, as well as flag football. Now neither were anywhere near elite. There were people in their rec basketball and swimming leagues that were very good. The elite swimmers were in different clubs in the off-season. The best basketball players played for their school, but also enjoyed the rec league.
One of my sons did travel baseball for a couple of years on a couple of different club teams. The total outlay per season was in the $100s not $1000s. He was a decent athlete and player, but not close to a superstar. We live in a baseball hotbed from a participation standpoint, so I think the extra repetition allowed him to make his high school team. Although he was a catcher and the coach liked another catcher on the roster better, so my son's playing time was more limited.
Was it worth it? Maybe - as baseball was a passion of his and he got to continue playing it with friends through high school. Especially since he didn't make his middle school club baseball team. He is out of college now and his only high school friends are ones he played baseball with.
Would I do it again? Maybe, but differently. Even on the travel teams there was a lot of daddy ball, so I would have gravitated to a team that I controlled so I would have more input into playing time and positions. [That would have been a challenge with 3 kids though and the fact that I really don't like baseball.]
Why did we do it? Part of it was because it was necessary to play on school teams in our area due to the level of competition. Also, when I was a teenager, I was a very good tennis player. My parents did not really support me going to play travel tennis (even within the state - hour drive max). I wanted to make sure when I had children, if they were interested in playing sports competitively, that they would have the opportunity to do so (provided they were well behaved, did well in school, etc.)
General Comments: I think that travel sports/dance/cheer is largely out of hand as it has become a huge growth industry for the middle of nowhere areas that host the events, the hotels in these towns that would otherwise be empty and has brought on a whole industry of paid travel coaches/trainers/facilities/etc. More power to them to convince people to continue to fund these activities. But parents/children need to understand they are doing this for their own enjoyment, not for an investment.
Also, especially with boys sports, puberty is a great equalizer, so we saw a number of situations where the player was great at age 10-11-12, then topped out at 5'8 and wasn't competitive in high school as counterparts grew to 6'+. [Saw this more in youth football where the top weight class was 135 lbs in 8th grade, then the player had to go play high school next year where there were 200-300+ lb people they were playing against - a rude awakening for the middle school superstar.]
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