the craziness of youth sports these days

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Maritime Q-Scout

Private debate clubs?

I honestly never heard of those. I didn't know they were a thing.

I'm not going to humble brag about my accomplishments/experience, but that is 100% news to me. Are they a new thing? Have they started up over the last 10-15 years? Not to derail I'm genuinely curious (DM me rather than keep this derailment going).

Nope, not new. They've existed since at least 1997 which was when I started competing against them.

But alas, the age-old adage holds true...even money can't cure stupid...but it can come close.

Its not a secret, but in the past you'd come up against many a Private Club debater who is reading a prepared script written by a professional and its compelling stuff. So you have to learn and adapt and hit them with things they're not prepared for and then the facade falls apart.

I wholeheartedly endorse debate teams in school, they teach a lot of very, very valuable skills.

But if you just read canned speeches written by someone else and dont actually understand the concepts and nuances of what you're talking about you can be caught out and exposed.

See: Trudeau, Justin.

Ask him a question and he stutters and sputters and changes tack for dear life.

Give him a prepared speech and he's as eloquent as anyone can ask for.

Its very transparent.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by Jason14h

Maybe debate needs to be taught in schools so people can learn how to civilly look at both sides of an issues, properly research, and maybe actually learn from opposing view points.

Is it not? I remember it was a thing when I was a student. I also remember disliking it, because when someone said something stupid you couldn't cut them off immediately to stop them from building an entire argument on a false premise, and sometimes some pretty bogus arguments would "win".

[Maritime Q-Scout]

On the East Coast I've never heard of them.

I likely competed against folks from private debate clubs but had no clue. If you don't know they exist, you don't know to ask, haha.

Perhaps the private schools and the handful of public school coaches (like mine) were enough to keep us Nova Scotians competitive.

Like anything it *is* a skill. I think I was better at public speaking in high school than I am now. (Do I ever notice my vocal fillers these days).

Also, those "awards" and "championships" mean sweet bugger all on a resume, no one cares. I'm not saying that as a jaded guy who never won anything, I'm saying that as a jaded guy who did win and it got me nodded haha

[GordonBlue]

Originally Posted by ah123

Not sports perse, but gymnastics is probably the most engaging and fun thing for a two year old. When my daughter was 3-4 we put her into a program at a place called “Little Gym” in Airdrie. They specifically catered to programs for kids under 12.

good for young kids but god forbid they get into it seriously.
I know serveral people who were in competative gymnastics when young and it ruined their bodies.

[CliffFletcher]

Yeah, gymnastics is fine when the kids are little (under 9). But it ramps up dramatically in seriousness and cost. The whole cheer thing is an offshoot of gymnastics, where the stronger girls in the gymnastics program are taken aside and offered a chance to join an ‘elite’ program, which is enticing to parents - and gratifying to the treasurer of the gym.

[Barnes]

Originally Posted by TimSJ

I posted this in the gear grinder but thought it might warrant its own thread for some discussion.

The amount of people and companies that will try and bleed as much money as possible out of you in youth sports these days.

The amount of showcases, scouting combines, spring hockey, winter baseball etc. It is getting ridiculous.

Had a baseball one this morning "xxxx would really like Will to attend the xxx Showcase later this month that i sent you after seeing him throw last night, they placed 9 of 18 seniors with scholarships last year from Atlantic Canada"

He's 13 in grade 8

no scout is looking at or cares about him.

The showcase is $275 for a couple of hours in the fieldhouse. Crazy.

its just constant and it doesn't matter what the sport is It is very easy to get sucked in to chase the dream

The Showcase stuff is pretty nuts but the opportunities for young players is pretty cool if you don't go crazy. My 11 year old retired from hockey right before the season and we were worried that there wouldn't be much for him re. baseball over the winter.

The winter has been packed with academy stuff though, walk-in practice with ABA Teams, camps. The opportunity to get instruction from former MLB and collegiate, players and current coaches and scouts is really cool even in Calgary and has cost us less than what we would have paid for hockey.

At his academy, we had the option to pay for the Top 100 evaluation but as an 11 year old, nah. He's just excited to see his personal pop time, exit velo, and pitch speed changes. I would have eaten that up as a kid. We don't need to know how his grip strength compares to Acuna Jr's little brother or Adrian Beltre son's Arm speed. Pretty sure I know.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Maritime Q-Scout

Private debate clubs?

I honestly never heard of those. I didn't know they were a thing.

I'm not going to humble brag about my accomplishments/experience, but that is 100% news to me. Are they a new thing? Have they started up over the last 10-15 years? Not to derail I'm genuinely curious (DM me rather than keep this derailment going).

Debate club? Just get them a CP account.

[Maritime Q-Scout]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Debate club? Just get them a CP account.

Ahhh yes, the epic CP debates. How much ranch should one be given at a restaurant before tipping?

[REDVAN]

We are suffering the same, albeit for girls softball.

My daughter is 7, and they changed the age limits this year. So she's no longer allowed in u8 "learn to play" which is fun running around in the field twice a week. Now the age range is u7 for that, and u9, great: they bumped everyone up a year... ok. Except we now have to travel once/twice a week to nearby towns/cities to play a game against other 7/8 year olds plus probably one practice a week... why? Why can't it just be for fun, why does it have to be competitive at this age?

I want her to have some summer fun, not be dragged to Chestermere for a 5pm softball game... wtf

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Maritime Q-Scout

On the East Coast I've never heard of them.

I likely competed against folks from private debate clubs but had no clue. If you don't know they exist, you don't know to ask, haha.

Perhaps the private schools and the handful of public school coaches (like mine) were enough to keep us Nova Scotians competitive.

Like anything it *is* a skill. I think I was better at public speaking in high school than I am now. (Do I ever notice my vocal fillers these days).

Also, those "awards" and "championships" mean sweet bugger all on a resume, no one cares. I'm not saying that as a jaded guy who never won anything, I'm saying that as a jaded guy who did win and it got me nodded haha

In addition to getting "help" with the school debates, the private clubs will also have their own tournaments that only other private clubs can go to. Then they give out fancy awards, and you get to put things like "Canadian representative at World of debating championships" on your resume.

You're correct, most employers don't care, but many academics do. And you can use the resume padding to get into more legit competitions and groups throughout undergrad.

There's also an industry built around it, and many parents are willing to pay 10k+/year to give their kids the edge.

Exact same thing that's going on with the OP's baseball example.

If you eliminate marks as a standard for excellence, then this is what you are left with.

[tvp2003]

The notion of buying your way to your kids success is a fascinating topic to me, and I'm glad the discussion is not just limited to sports (although that's probably the best example since the payday can mean millions of dollars if you're a professional athlete).

And while as a kid it's fun to have dreams and there's nothing wrong with that, parents should also realize that there is probably a point where you hit diminishing returns (i.e. cost of private coaches, tutors etc) -- little Timmy is probably not going to make the NHL no matter how much you spend.

[Barnes]

Originally Posted by REDVAN

We are suffering the same, albeit for girls softball.

My daughter is 7, and they changed the age limits this year. So she's no longer allowed in u8 "learn to play" which is fun running around in the field twice a week. Now the age range is u7 for that, and u9, great: they bumped everyone up a year... ok. Except we now have to travel once/twice a week to nearby towns/cities to play a game against other 7/8 year olds plus probably one practice a week... why? Why can't it just be for fun, why does it have to be competitive at this age?

I want her to have some summer fun, not be dragged to Chestermere for a 5pm softball game... wtf

That sucks. Not sure where you are in the city...

Little League Baseball has house league and specific overage rules for girls to allow for this if she want to switch to baseball but they are mixed teams.

Foothills LL has put together an all girls baseball program this year if you live in their boundary.

There is a Little League Softball:
https://www.girlssoftball.ca/index.html

On the baseball side, Little League tends to be the one in Calgary to offer House League + Travel + All Stars but you still have to play house league where as Alberta Baseball is just Travel/Tournament teams for mostly just u13.

Sounds like softball is the same with less house league opportunities.

[Maritime Q-Scout]

Originally Posted by blankall

In addition to getting "help" with the school debates, the private clubs will also have their own tournaments that only other private clubs can go to. Then they give out fancy awards, and you get to put things like "Canadian representative at World of debating championships" on your resume.

You're correct, most employers don't care, but many academics do. And you can use the resume padding to get into more legit competitions and groups throughout undergrad.

There's also an industry built around it, and many parents are willing to pay 10k+/year to give their kids the edge.

Exact same thing that's going on with the OP's baseball example.

If you eliminate marks as a standard for excellence, then this is what you are left with.

Really? I'm not disagreeing with you. Perhaps it put me over the edge in university acceptances? I always got the sense that the university never have a flying flipping frack.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Maritime Q-Scout

Really? I'm not disagreeing with you. Perhaps it put me over the edge in university acceptances? I always got the sense that the university never have a flying flipping frack.

Professional and post-graduate schools really care about all this stuff, as well as undergraduate schools in the USA. Once again, the issue is that marks don't have the same meaning as they used to. Almost nobody fails anymore and way more students get As.

Without marks the admissions people then turn to the extra-curriculars. Many people on admission boards are academics, who themselves don't have much life experience, and aren't in a great position to judge the character of students. Many have their own biases they want to confirm, so will use the extra-curriculars as an excuse to let in certain students and exclude others.

The idea of judging a 17 year old on their character is pretty absurd to begin with. They likely have little experience in the real world, and, realistically, what have 99.9% of people under the age of 25 actually accomplished? Yet, they need to display how good of a person or how hard working they are.

So having a bunch of resume padding awards is the go to. The parents, in order to ensure, their children have the padded resume, need to fork out all sorts of cash and time to give their kids the edge.

[GirlySports]

It's the whole system of 'breaking ties'. The more competition there is for anything, sports, schooling, jobs, etc... the more 'tiebreakers' there needs to be to separate people. That can be experience, certificates, extra-curriculars or money. Again I use my CPA example. A B.Comm used to be something. Now that's entry level and the next tiebreaker is CPA. Soon there will be too many CPA and the next tiebreaker will be CPA + CFA, or another degree. I have a colleague, early 30s, who is considering an engineering degree to supplement her CPA. I'm lucky that I'm in my 40s and not 30s and got in the door first. But I'll probably get beat out in my next promotion because I'm not advancing enough.

[Maritime Q-Scout]

Originally Posted by blankall

Professional and post-graduate schools really care about all this stuff, as well as undergraduate schools in the USA. Once again, the issue is that marks don't have the same meaning as they used to. Almost nobody fails anymore and way more students get As.

Without marks the admissions people then turn to the extra-curriculars. Many people on admission boards are academics, who themselves don't have much life experience, and aren't in a great position to judge the character of students. Many have their own biases they want to confirm, so will use the extra-curriculars as an excuse to let in certain students and exclude others.

The idea of judging a 17 year old on their character is pretty absurd to begin with. They likely have little experience in the real world, and, realistically, what have 99.9% of people under the age of 25 actually accomplished? Yet, they need to display how good of a person or how hard working they are.

So having a bunch of resume padding awards is the go to. The parents, in order to ensure, their children have the padded resume, need to fork out all sorts of cash and time to give their kids the edge.

Oh I'm not disagreeing. Like I said maybe it did make a difference for me? I just thought of it as a way to have fun, travel and drink

[looooob]

Sorry quote function is wonky for me today-responding to/quoting/agreeing with Cliff

Yeah, gymnastics is fine when the kids are little (under 9). But it ramps up dramatically in seriousness and cost. The whole cheer thing is an offshoot of gymnastics, where the stronger girls in the gymnastics program are taken aside and offered a chance to join an ‘elite’ program, which is enticing to parents - and gratifying to the treasurer of the gym.


As someone with significant parental experience in both, competitive (elite stream) gymnastics makes competitive hockey look like kindergarten (I'm not comparing the athleticism or demands of the sport although that's also an interesting topic. I'm referencing cost, insanity, parents etc)

[troutman]

My niece was in synchro swimming. I never saw a sport that required as much $ and fundraising. Constant pressure.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

It's the whole system of 'breaking ties'. The more competition there is for anything, sports, schooling, jobs, etc... the more 'tiebreakers' there needs to be to separate people. That can be experience, certificates, extra-curriculars or money. Again I use my CPA example. A B.Comm used to be something. Now that's entry level and the next tiebreaker is CPA. Soon there will be too many CPA and the next tiebreaker will be CPA + CFA, or another degree. I have a colleague, early 30s, who is considering an engineering degree to supplement her CPA. I'm lucky that I'm in my 40s and not 30s and got in the door first. But I'll probably get beat out in my next promotion because I'm not advancing enough.

I wonder if this is just backlog from babyboomers not retiring? And maybe things will just start to open up again in the next 5-10 years, when they eventually do retire.

Whatever, the cause the lack of positions and the downplaying of marks has created an absolute mess for kids these days. There's no room for a normal middle class child who gets straight As.

My daughter is six months old. I guess I had better start building her resume? What insanity.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by blankall

I wonder if this is just backlog from babyboomers not retiring? And maybe things will just start to open up again in the next 5-10 years, when they eventually do retire.

Whatever, the cause the lack of positions and the downplaying of marks has created an absolute mess for kids these days. There's no room for a normal middle class child who gets straight As.

My daughter is six months old. I guess I had better start building her resume? What insanity.

I don't know, but anecdotally, I was told when I came out of university that this was going to be the perfect time because all of these amazing jobs were about to open up with the boomers retiring. Guess what? They're still saying it's going to happen, and telling that story to the Xennials!