My Sports Kid

My oldest son Sean was a very good athlete in high school. He was a 3 sport standout, but baseball was the sport he excelled at the most. He went to an all boys private Catholic high school. This enabled him to play against the top notch competition in our area. Then in the summer he played on the best travel team in the area. All this exposure to the best competition made him a wanted player by all the local college. Sean, however, wanted to play away from home, so I started a letter writing campaign to the best baseball college in the country. Sean got quite a few responses and a number of scholarship offers. We found out very quickly that baseball was not like football and basketball where full ride scholarship are the norm. Division I baseball is only alotted 11 scholarships, so the money has to be divided up between the players. On most college baseball teams the majority of players are getting very little scholarship money if any at all. Once we learned how the recruiting and scholarship game worked we had to rethink our options. We started looking for a Division I college that needed an outfielder and was willing to give Sean some substantial scholarship money. After it was all said and done the University of Toledo presented the best opportunity for Sean. Please share your recruiting experiences with the rest of us.

Over the years as a parent as well as a coach, I have seen my fair share of obsessed parents. These are parents that are using their kids, so called talent, to position themselves in the hierarchy of team, and on a smaller scale society. We've all been around these parents. The ones that are constantly harping on their son or daughter. Commenting on everything they do, good or bad. Then they question every move the coach makes, and if their son or daughter is not getting what they feel is enough playing time all heck is going to break loose. We all to a certain extent live vicariously through are kids. That is only normal, but unfortunately to many parents take it to the extreme.

A lot of kids today are being pressured by their coaches to specialize in one sport. As parents we should discourage this kind of thing. Unless your son or daughter says this is the only sport I want to play, you should encourage them to participate in other sporting activities. Focusing on only one sport can actually inhibit a kid from developing the needed motor skills to become a top notch athlete. College recruiters and pro scouts want to she a kid playing other sports for this very reason. Therefore, try to pursuade your son or daughter, especially at the younger ages, to get involved with as many activities as they can.

Parents are faced with so many questions when it comes to which direction to go with their kids and the sports they play. As a parent of 3 grown children who were very active in many sports, I decided there needed to be a place for parents to go and be able to share ideas. When my kids were playing sports there was nothing like this available. So many times my wife and I had questions on what would be the best path to take, and found it very difficult to get good answers. Hopefully, this Blog will help other parents get those answers.