<p>cash might help, but not by offering it to your son. Talk to both your son and to the team sponsor and see if there’s anything you can do with your money and/or time to strengthen the team. Maybe pay for pizza at the meetings. Or pay for a college student who has contest experience to come work with the team. Or pay for some sort of prizes for the kids who do well. Or pay for matching t-shirts.</p>
<p>If your son is simply not all that interested in math competitions, you may simply have to back off. Lots of very smart kids who could do well at various types of academic competitions simply do not like the competitive/team aspect of it for one reason or another (not cool, teammates are dorks, too stressful, prefer a different aspect of the subject, meets are too early in the am).</p>