Get Rid of High School Sports

[gatorman-uf]

Maybe, just maybe, school districts and the state should get out of the high school sports business completely.
Let's go to 100% community based club sports.
If the community of Lakeland wants to create a football program by pulling all the kids from the local area onto 1 or 2, so be it, let them.
If Miami has the ability to support 10 of those teams, let them. Let them face off in whatever manner they please, but remove schools. 

Travel Ball and AAU pretty much dominate basketball, volleyball. soccer, and baseball/softball already, so dropping it from the high school would be easy. Many of the high school coaches are also the travel ball coach already, we just eliminate the need for the school to sponsor it. Football can be the same, schools can repurpose the money spent on coaching stipends, salaries, equipment, security, ticket takers, to educational needs.  

We don't have to care about recruiting any more, because every kid is a free agent. This works in Europe with their soccer and basketball leagues, the professional teams have a responsibility to invest in the youth set-up, so all of a sudden our colleges start investing in their local communities. 

I am not really serious, but I am tired of the recruiting stuff.

[DarterBlue2]

That would be a draconian move. And small rural areas would largely be left out. 

[PinellasFB]

As a parent of kids who just went through youth club sports (one still is), I'm so glad these sports they do are only at the HS level (football/wrestling).  The club sport stuff usually involves a lot of travel and loss of study time in the evenings due to practices times that suck.  It's an absolute grind for both the parents and kids.  Glad you aren't serious. 

[SportsFan]

On 1/25/2024 at 10:20 PM, gatorman-uf said:

Maybe, just maybe, school districts and the state should get out of the high school sports business completely.
Let's go to 100% community based club sports.
If the community of Lakeland wants to create a football program by pulling all the kids from the local area onto 1 or 2, so be it, let them.
If Miami has the ability to support 10 of those teams, let them. Let them face off in whatever manner they please, but remove schools. 

Travel Ball and AAU pretty much dominate basketball, volleyball. soccer, and baseball/softball already, so dropping it from the high school would be easy. Many of the high school coaches are also the travel ball coach already, we just eliminate the need for the school to sponsor it. Football can be the same, schools can repurpose the money spent on coaching stipends, salaries, equipment, security, ticket takers, to educational needs.  

We don't have to care about recruiting any more, because every kid is a free agent. This works in Europe with their soccer and basketball leagues, the professional teams have a responsibility to invest in the youth set-up, so all of a sudden our colleges start investing in their local communities. 

I am not really serious, but I am tired of the recruiting stuff.

You say this in a joking manner but I actually could see this being a long term possibility the way things are heading and the FHSAA recent "state enforced board changes" are not settling any doubts for me 

[SportsFan]

On 1/26/2024 at 5:46 AM, DarterBlue2 said:

That would be a draconian move. And small rural areas would largely be left out. 

Maybe in theory it would seem that way but there are some very good travel sports programs on the outskirts of major cities

It really comes down to how well someone builds the foundation of the organization and how much investment they get from that community 

[SportsFan]

On 1/26/2024 at 7:21 AM, PinellasFB said:

As a parent of kids who just went through youth club sports (one still is), I'm so glad these sports they do are only at the HS level (football/wrestling).  The club sport stuff usually involves a lot of travel and loss of study time in the evenings due to practices times that suck.  It's an absolute grind for both the parents and kids.  Glad you aren't serious. 

Depending on where you are and the organizations involved I would argue some travel programs actually have more integrity and better development then many school teams as often times certain schools and rec leagues have coaches and adults who let their ego get in the way of the development of the athletes because they fear someone being better at the job than they are or they have the "good ole boys" running the show and operate more to protect the interests of a few egomaniacs then the benefit of the kids