Speaking from experience, junior high and high school is when sports go from maybe twice a week to almost every day. Some people want sports to dominate their lives, but a lot really don’t. It’s actually quite pathetic to be taking sports that seriously at that young age. Almost no one is going to play college level athletics, much less professional anything, and yet we’re making kids spend 30 hours a week on this shit just to play games with their friends.
What we need are casual rec leagues for kids who aren’t delusional about their athletics futures. As someone who played loads of sports when I was young and essentially quit when I hit high school, I can tell you that there are a lot of kids looking for a more balanced model.
I never thought about it like that, but those are good points. Ironically we have relaxed sports in college and adulthood in the form of intramural leagues. I assume some coaches would be against high school intramurals because it might suck talent from their team, but that would be shortsighted imo.
On the flip side, the rigor of high school sports often seems to prepare them more for life than most anything else in high school. Discipline is good for people in general.
Speaking from experience, junior high and high school is when sports go from maybe twice a week to almost every day. Some people want sports to dominate their lives, but a lot really don’t. It’s actually quite pathetic to be taking sports that seriously at that young age. Almost no one is going to play college level athletics, much less professional anything, and yet we’re making kids spend 30 hours a week on this shit just to play games with their friends.
What we need are casual rec leagues for kids who aren’t delusional about their athletics futures. As someone who played loads of sports when I was young and essentially quit when I hit high school, I can tell you that there are a lot of kids looking for a more balanced model.
Yeah, same, between music and sports everyone started getting way too regimented and serious about it.
All I thought was "nah, I didn't sign up for an actual tour of duty and this is not as important as you think it is, I'm out".
I never thought about it like that, but those are good points. Ironically we have relaxed sports in college and adulthood in the form of intramural leagues. I assume some coaches would be against high school intramurals because it might suck talent from their team, but that would be shortsighted imo.
On the flip side, the rigor of high school sports often seems to prepare them more for life than most anything else in high school. Discipline is good for people in general.