Don't let your kids waste their time on Sports

Parents Forum
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I see a lot of people stressing not choosing an activity based on how it looks on a college application, so I fear I may have communicated my intentions on this poorly. I don’t think that anyone should choose an EC because it looks good on a college application. Of course, first and foremost, kids should choose an extracurricular activity because they really enjoy doing it, because they have a genuine interest in it. But I and others have already said, the intense time commitment of sports often limits exploring other activities, developing those other interests, and sports is so pervasive, so much the “default” after school activity for kids, that I think a lot of kids get swept along with the peer group “this is what we do, this is what we like” mindset, and don’t necessarily have a grasp on how much they really enjoy it vs it just being what they’ve always done, with little direct experience with other activities to compare it to. Since early high school at least I’ve had a nagging suspicion that may be the case with my son.

So again, yes, absolutely kids should pick ECs that they really enjoy, but since you only have so much time to devote to extracurriculars, it isn’t a bad idea to spend that time on activities that you enjoy AND that help you develop skills, knowledge, and exposure to topics that can point you toward a major and ultimately a career that will give you a rewarding life. Because it’s very possible for a person to spend nearly half of their waking hours for 40 years in a career they aren’t passionate about because they didn’t really explore or cultivate other interests that might have led them to a career they could be passionate about. The middle aged guy who sells widgets and still talks about his glory days on the high school football team is a cliche for a reason, and I know a lot of guys I went to high school with, or who live in my neighborhood now, whose main activity in high school was football (it’s Texas, after all), went on to get an accounting degree or general BBA, because that was “the thing to do,” that’s what they thought would get them the best paying job out of college, and a lot of them don’t seem that fulfilled by their careers. And that was back when getting into college was a lot easier. I was a nerd, I did academic decathlon and Mu Alpha Theta and Sea Scouts, was VP of the environmental club, followed my passion for science and the environment through college and grad school to a fulfilling career, and I see Debate Son’s strong vision to become a human rights lawyer come from a similar experience of getting to explore passions that could lead to a purposeful career. Sports Son’s intent to major in business, but vagueness about what he’d want to do with that after college, has echoes of all those guys I know who went the business route as a default.

So I just want to reiterate my concern about focus on sports isn’t just or even primarily the ROI for college admissions, but even more it’s about how wisely you spend that fleeting time in your adolescence exploring interests that can set you on your life path. And like it or not, the further along one path you go, the harder it is to go back and start a new path, even to find a new path you might be happier on. And society keeps bringing that point of no return closer. Just look at how many colleges have major-specific admissions now. It’s easy to say “oh, if a kid didn’t explore a lot of new interests in high school, they’ll have a chance to in college,” but that’s less and less true. You can’t go to UT, or one of the UCs, or many other large state schools as an undeclared/undecided student, spend your first two years taking a bunch of different classes, and then decide you really like Finance, or Computer Science, or an Engineering discipline; all those spots are reserved for students who were specifically accepted to those programs as incoming freshmen. And if you did get into one of those programs as an incoming freshman, you’ve got a pretty well set degree plan focused on those fields from the very beginning, not a lot of room in your schedule to take a bunch of electives and happen on something else that makes your heart sing. And college being as expensive as it is now, taking an extra year or two because you changed majors midway through isn’t a viable option.

No, the time to be exploring different interests and activities that could lead to a fulfilling life path is in middle school and high school, and an activity that should be recreational is taking up 20 hours a week, it limits the opportunities for exploration of other activities and needs to be viewed with a jaundiced eye. And I’m not just singling out sports; while there are high school drama programs out there that are very inclusive and open to all students to try out for any play or musical, there are also many drama teachers out there who are as big gatekeepers and demanding of students’ full commitment as sports coaches.

I’ve already said a lot in this thread, and just hope that will be enough to clarify my position on ECs if my previous posts communicated it poorly. So I’ll make this my last post, and once again, thank you everyone for your input, kind words, support, and perspective.

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This feels like a clickbait title, with a more nuanced position in the post details.

Not being accepted to a desired college does not mean that sports were a “waste.” There are many reasons to pursue sports besides advantages in college admissions, and I expect most students who do play sports primarily do so for other reasons than advantages in college admissions, such as enjoying the activity.

Whether sports are likely to help with college admissions beyond just a generic EC varies widely for different sports and different colleges. For example, if you are a mediocre player on your mediocre HS football team, it’s probably not going to do much for your application to Alabama. The coach is not recruiting you, and admissions is not going to associate you with playing on the Alabama football team.

However, if you are are among the best players on your HS team, in a less popular, non-revenue sport, it has a much better chance of helping your application at many selective DIII LACs. At some such colleges, varsity athletes make up >30% of the student body, and it can be a challenge to get enough players to fill the teams. Athletics are often favored over other ECs, even if the player is not at a state/nationally ranked level.

For example, I rowed in college. I walked on to the team, without any previous rowing experience. There were not enough recruit admits to fill the team roster, so the coach/team needed to also recruit from the regular non-athlete students on campus, including students who had no previous rowing experience. It’s a very different situation from revenue sports, like football or basketball.

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It is also a very different situation today than it was when you were young@data10…
A not insignificant number of hs athletes regret the time put into it. Is it a majority? I have no idea. But go in with your eyes open

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So you really do not need to know your career path for most careers by the time you apply to college. Yes, maybe if you want an engineering job immediately after college, you should plan to start in engineering and possibly switch out, rather than the other way around. But so many careers do not work like that, and even at publics they usually have a liberal arts and sciences subdivision which allows a lot of exploration.

That said, I don’t think that is an excuse for not exploring in high school too. I think every kid should be encouraged to explore from an early age, and encouraged to keep exploring as long as it takes to find what really works for them. For me, I was about 31 . . . .

So yes, it is not good if a sport becomes so all-consuming it cuts off the ability to keep exploring at a young age. And if that happened to your Soccer Son, that is not great.

But I also think it is not at all too late for your Soccer Son. And I think you should likely be making sure you are not giving him the impression you think it is. He really can still do a million cool things from here.

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As the OP has wrapped up with a final post, I’m setting this thread to close at 9:00 PM.

Best of luck wherever your kids land.

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Actually…I do not fully agree. Sample of one…my DD. Her only real huge EC was music. Two separate instrument lessons, precollege orchestra and wind ensemble, auditioned children’s choir (and all the practice for these things…easily added up to more than 15 hours a week).

The kid majored in bioengineering and biology in college. Her ECs had absolutely nothing to do with her eventual college major or career…but they showed a strong commitment, ability to work as part of a group, ability to use her time wisely, leadership (she was an officer), initiative (she started the school flag team).

This kid has a career she enjoys a LOT that has zero to do with her high school ECs…but those ECs positioned her well as a person. The skills she obtained were transferable to many many situations.

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How do you know this? “Not insignificant” relative to what number? There are countless HS athletes across the country. Did someone take a poll? I know a whole heck of a lot of ex-athletes and off the top of my head I can’t think of a single one over many, many years (including my own) who’s expressed regret to me over having played sports. Perhaps they suffer privately, but I don’t think so. The OP’s trope about the glory days middle-aged man notwithstanding (and, sure, I know a few of those), it is no different than spending time on anything else. Most people who play sports like playing sports. They like the competition, they like the basic joy of playing a particular game, they like being challenged and setting goals, they like the camaraderie of team sports, they like the recognition, they like keeping very fit, etc. etc. It’s no more a waste of time than playing the violin and trying to be good at it by practicing for several hours a week.

You can probably find a not insignificant number of people who regret all sorts of things. Included would be many of the students who busted their humps in HS (and thereby missed out on serious chunks of their youth and waning carefree days) to get into elite colleges only to watch their classmates who had a lot more fun during those years achieve all levels of financial (and other) success.

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A problem with sports is that, in many areas, they demand too much of the kids. I have issues with a lot of for-profit travel teams and for-profit private coaching.

That said, there’s nothing like sports for building character, developing interpersonal skills and teaching leadership.

Question for parents out there… Have we gotten so caught up in the college admissions process that college acceptances have become the ultimate end goal? The number one priority? The only thing that is important?

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To a certain extent I do think that sports are sometimes touted as the be all and end all. Also, you tend to notice how much universities spend on sports as opposed to other stuff, but that’s a story for another day or for another thread. And I do think some parents are obsessed with their kids being recruited and playing professionaly when the chances of that are pretty small and then there are the parents who are too pushy, are rude to the coach, etc.

At the school I work at, we had a parent who was banned from all sports games and eventually banned from school grounds as he threatened the coach and picked fights with other parents and even went down onto the field after being told to stay in the bleachers. His kids weren’t terrible at sports, but I wouldn’t say they were the best either. But, according to this parent his son was the next David Beckham and his daughter the next Megan Rapinoe. I do think in this case the parent really needed to tone it down.

I don’t necesarily think sports are a waste of time, but I do think parents need to try not to live through their kids and I do think parents need to realize that sports are not the be all and the end all. Also, sports aren’t the only extracurricular out there. Drama, music, art, dance, speech, mock trial, debate are all fun things that kids can take part in and they’re just as worthy as sports and no less a waste of time. All extr-curriculars can teach kids about commitment, team-work, leadership, hardwork, etc.

Extra-curriculars are meant to be fun, they shouldn’t be done just to fill up a resume for college.

That said, I do think some sports can demand way too much of kids. Especially those club and travel teams. I know and have known kids who are not just on their school’s team, but they’re also on a club/travel team, sometimes multiple club/travel teams outside of school. These families are always on the go and the kids seem to always be so tired. Most of their vacations are travelling to tournaments. D had one friend who did cross country, soccer, and track and field at school and also played travel soccer outside of school. She also did other extracurriculars as well. This girl was always tired. I remember one afternoon when D had friends over to hang out and this girl spent the whole time napping. D had another friend who was busy with dance, both in and out of school and was always traveling to competitions. This girl refused to go to one dance class because she was so tired and just wanted to stay home and play. This was when my D and this girl were in 4th grade.

Some of these kids are busier than I am. I do think that kids need some time to just chill and not always be go go go. I do get that some parents put their kids in activities to keep them out of trouble, but that doesn’t mean they need to be doing activities all the time. My kids had plenty of extracurirculars, but they also had time to chill out, get a decent amount of sleep, and spend time with family. They didn’t get into trouble…granted it’s not like we let them just mill around with no supervision or standards whatsover.

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I note I have experienced a similar sort of effect in most forums devoted to optimizing something–retirement savings, modified car horsepower, hypothetical NBA draft strategies, cocktails, or whatever. Some people get really, really into squeezing the last few tenths of a percent of advantage, no matter what the cost. And then other people try to explain sometimes enough is a enough.

I actually think as these things go, the voices of reason around here are far more common, such that it is a generally pretty healthy conversation. But even so, we are basically a bunch of college admissions hobbyists, and so it can be a bit of a struggle not to slip into optimization conversations that would likely strike normal people as well past the line of reasonable consideration.

I think for most of us, though, that is more just for fun and sharing of information, and not intended to try to suggest every kid and every family has to be quite so relentless in the pursuit of every possible angle, no matter how small.

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All great points. I have been a hobbyist for a year, and I need a new hobby. Maybe that horsepower thingy you mentioned??

But it’s actually not just this forum (or the op who mentioned ROI in terms of his kids)… it’s mainly the parents around me in real life that I was thinking about. We’re not bad people. We’re trying to protect our kids by giving them a great college education. I just wonder if our priorities are getting out of whack due to the chase of it all.

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Absolutely anything can be done to excess, and kids should lead balanced lives-I think that is difficult to do so given the state of youth sports in America, but YMMV. The commercialization of youth sports seems to have really kicked into high gear in the last 15 years or 20 years, when it has taken on a level of intensity it did not have before.

Given all the accolades posters state about how these sports build character, grit and physical fitness ( and my kids did get some of that), the benefits sure wear off quickly for most. We should have a generation of physically fit, emotionally strong and resilient 20-35 year olds from the millions of kids we cycled thru these sports in the last 20 years. Doesn’t appear to be happening for many in that generation.

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Yes, that too. I see that as a peer competition thing that affects both kids and parents. Fortunately among my closer friends and colleagues with kids in this cycle, it has all been very supportive. Specifically among the sports parents I am closer with, some kids are recruited, most not, but everyone I know is just happy for the recruited kids.

But I have caught conversations farther outside that close circle where the tone is very different. To a disappointing degree. I know the messaging out of our college counseling office is designed in part to avoid that, and yet some parents seem determined to ignore all that and promote a really unhealthy way of thinking of admissions. Not cool, but nothing I can do about it.

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Again, how do you know this? Is “most” based on your neighborhood and social circle again?
Sounds like you had a bad experience with your kids. If so, I’m sorry. But nobody said it was a panacea for all that ills society. Rhetorical reasoning extrapolated:

  1. Sports has taken on greater prominence in the last 20 years. True.
  2. Sports is supposed to lead to greater fitness, mental toughness and resilience. True.
  3. The US has an obesity and mental health problem amongst its young adults. True.
  4. Therefore, sports has failed to deliver fitness, mental toughness and resilience. ???

I have an idea. Let’s de-emphasize sports and do nothing about the American diet and time spent in front of screens and on social media and see where we are 20 years from now!

JC

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Of course, the OP’s students applied to colleges that are the furthest thing from highly selective DIII LACs where sports is more likely to be a privileged EC.

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My kids did just fine in varsity sports. I am able to differentiate between a personal anecdote and a greater social trend.

If the sports were so wonderful for the current 20-35 year olds who churned thru them, one might have reasonably expected them to be in better shape as adults, mentally and physically. Young adults, as a generation, don’t seem more likely to keep up their sports participation, relative to young adults elsewhere. Maybe a less intense program would have been more enjoyable and maintained.

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But this is true about most things. In fact, in my experience, the higher level the player, the more resigned and accepting people are about it. When my D was the only freshman to make the varsity team, there was some jealousy by parents who didn’t know her that well, although she was a known quantity by then to many and it wasn’t that shocking to them. When she beat a back-line player at another Kingo 4A powerhouse who was headed to a D1 program the next year for a pretty nice goal in the first 5 minutes of the first game, people understood and accepted she was where she belonged. She played plenty of sports with plenty of kids for whom HS was the end of the road, and for many middle school was the end of the road because our HS is too competitive. They’re all equally good memories and they still talk about them when they get together. There are ****** people everywhere in all activities, but we wouldn’t trade any of those sports years for anything. Lots and lots of great memories.

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If you say so.

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Yes

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Did you ever think to ask the kids not on the varsity team how they felt about it?

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