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Post by kevin on Jan 25, 2015 10:24:39 GMT -6
I think most great athletes are good at pretty much any sport--if you can get a college scholarship as a football or basketball player, you probably were (or could have been) a good player on pretty much any team at your high school. But I don't necessarily think that they're great because they play lots of sports--they're much more likely to play lots of sports because they're great.
One of the issues with soccer is that the technical skills involved are so different from other sports. Unless you're a kicker on the football team, none of the other major sports involve the central feature of soccer--kicking a ball (well, maybe there are a few high school soccer players in Louisiana who also play rugby).
I read the book The Sports Gene a while back and it talked about how good athletes don't specialize too early. I think it's important for elementary and middle school students to be exposed to and play lots of different sports. If a kid is soccer-only year-round at the age of 10, I think that's a problem. But by the time they get to high school, if they want to specialize, so be it. And if they don't want to specialize, I would hope that their high schools are willing to work things out so that they can play several different sports.
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Post by coachray40 on Jan 25, 2015 11:24:49 GMT -6
Man--yall make your kids buy a lot! I only have them buy socks, which we try to keep the same style in for a couple years (solid white, solid navy and solid orange Nike socks will always be there). So for my kids its about 17-25$ unless they can take care of their stuff, then its none. Spirit wear is up to them, so maybe a $20 sweatshirt.
Ironically, our school has been adamant about purchasing the uniforms for our team, yet is now complaining about the cost. Mostly because we really dont draw enough of a crowd to do more than cover our officials fees. I originally wanted my players to buy their whole kit--two jerseys, two shorts, 2 socks and a warm up (which I could have gotten from one of my sources for about $100 a kid less than what we paid for just shorts and jerseys) but the school wouldnt hear of it.
I thought I was hitting them too hard for that stuff--then I saw our schools softball team required equipment list--$390 for stuff just for this year! EEK!
After reading this, Im telling my team parents to warm up their checkbooks next season!
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Post by methuselah on Jan 25, 2015 16:41:42 GMT -6
The key to keeping costs down for individual players/families is an active, energetic and skillful booster club. And I find that the community is much more willing to participate and help out for high school based teams than for club based teams.
Different schools' boosters have different fund raisers. As has said above, some are adept at putting on tournaments. For us it was always a huge dinner sale - each family sells a certain number of tickets and the master chefs among the parents get together for an all day cook of something like Jambalya or Pastalaya, coleslaw and each family provides a certain number of sweets for the desert portion. All parents help in a preparing/packing, hand out, collect ticket assembly line for when the people come pick them up. Usually, you can get sponsors for the major ingredients, plate/containers, etc.
Also, concessions can bring in some funds, mostly on games against rival or nearby teams, especially if it's on a Saturday with nice weather. (If I'm not mistaken the gate goes to the school but yeah, if that covers the officials it's considered a good day). Also, if the football team rotates allowing the other sports teams to work in the concession for different football games that helps).
I've seen schools do things like sell advertisements to put along the fence/at the bottom of the bleachers. And there are other sources out there.
Things like these can help enormously with not pricing kids out of the sport. If you can get some dedicated parents it's do-able.
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