Is your kid spending his childhood on the soccer field? Is your family’s summer a series of non-stop swim meets? There’s no doubt that youth sports have taken over family life. If your kid is playing year-round everything because he or she loves it, that’s one thing, but if it’s because you think there’s an athletic scholarship or professional sports glory waiting in his future, you need to read this morning’s New York Times story, “Athletic Scholarships: Expectations Lose to Reality.”

Parents sacrifice weekends and vacations to tournaments and specialty camps, spending thousands each year in this quest for the holy grail. But the expectations of parents and athletes can differ sharply from the financial and cultural realities of college athletics…

“People run themselves ragged to play on three teams at once so they could always reach the next level,” said Margaret Barry of Laurel, Md., whose daughter is a scholarship swimmer at the University of Delaware. “They’re going to be disappointed when they learn that if they’re very lucky, they will get a scholarship worth 15 percent of the $40,000 college bill. What’s that? $6,000?”

And what’s never discussed is the downside to playing college ball, track, swimming, etc. – the painfully early morning weight training, long practices and travel time. There’s a reason colleges routinely hire tutors for their star athletes.
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Foster City: The city fathers and mothers are running amok. Something’s wrong when adults can’t play pick-up games because the turf has to be protected for youth sports. Read the rest of this entry »

I haven’t actually searched to find out whether we’ve written about protective cups before, but I have a hunch this is a first. I couldn’t resist when I saw the video promoting the Nutty Buddy.

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