I was listening to Marketplace on NPR last night, where Kai was interviewing a guy about how private equity was moving into the kid sports arena to 'professionalize' it. I was struck with how similar it sounded to how education and test prep are handled in East Asia. I can't believe this is what
we have done with kids sports. I think the kids competitive athletics space is socially unhealthy and we should discourage this behavior, not enable it
I don't think this has anything to do with what I'm saying.
But all this stuff underlies the entire fairness discussion. Competitive athletics at the high school level is already dominated by specialization and advanced training. Parents are spending hours a day and many thousands of dollars while kids are below high school level, all in preparation.
You're describing an upper middle class rat race that makes up a vanishingly small fraction of high school athletics. Most high schools have very few athletes who will ever play competitively at eg the college level and beyond.
All of the camps and stuff are highly visible on social media because they depend on this impression! "Your child will be the worst kid on his team unless you pay for my coaching and camps. Everyone else is doing it! Don't delay!" The rest of us just don't do travel team and still have a good time
Yepp. Travel sports are a huge racket but they certainly do not dominate HS athletics the way the ppl peddling them want you to believe.
Yeah a huge racket really only helps you dominate in tennis
Anti pickleball sentiment even on BlueSky, nowhere is safe from ableism
she pickle on my ball until I’m safe from ableism
This response really threw me for a loop, because my understanding of the objection to trans kids participating in sports is rooted in this elite tier. That's certainly where the vast majority of the discourse seems focused.
I can't fathom caring about whether someone comes in 1500th overall rather than 1490th because there are 10 trans girls playing on team sports in a state. If it's something like running and not a team sport, it makes even less sense to me
When you play a basketball game you are competing against *that team* not the entire state.
Anyways, I refer everyone back to my original post - kids are competitive. Yes, even high school girls who are never going to get a college scholarship. bsky.app/profile/rive...
For instance, something like 1% of HS basketball players play in college, and those numbers tend to be lumped in certain regions, conferences, and powerhouse schools. Most kids will meet maybe one of these kids in four years of HS sports.
Yeah, exactly. There are PLENTY of lower level leagues. When I was reffing soccer, only like 5-10% of the games I reffed were for “Premier” level. The rest were a mix of semi-competitive and pure rec league (most of which were coed)