Quote:
Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall
I think is somewhat true. My daughter's foot skills, goalie technique, and understanding of the game are so beyond what she would have learned playing in an unstructured way that this is not really true. But coaching the creativity out of these kids is definitely a problem.
Every coach who is not personally involved in these travel programs says that they want kids who have played multiple sports--better footwork, more creativity, different muscles and skills developed, etc.
For basketball, I try to get my daughter out on city courts in the summer. She needs to play pick-up with kids who will foul her to keep her from winning, call bullshit fouls, and embarrass her with moves she's never seen.
We recently visited my old undergrad and the school was hosting an all-star game for MN high school kids. One of the players on my school's team (who was running the clock) told us that the girls we were watching were almost all going to Division I schools. Insanity. All of them were form shooters. ZERO creativity. 400 three point attempts. Those girls are in for a rude awakening, because we also went to an AAU tournament for HS girls* and the talent levels on some of those courts were absolutely fantastic. You can tell the best kids are the ones who learned on city courts who were scooped up into excellent AAU programs.
TM
*It's just absolutely amazing that girls have these opportunities now. It was breathtaking to see so many young women playing at such highly competitive levels and coaches scouting them.
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AAU is an equalizer, and a reality check. "I can bury the three!" Yep, as can the other 100 kids in this gym.
But the thing that made my guys toughest was playing Gus Macker 3 on 3- I'm sure there is some equivalent there. We'd see a city team of kids who had next to nothing. They might not have been as talented as my guys, but fuck if they were going to lose. There was a ref, but it tended to be a kid, and the city teams had coaches yelling at the refs, so few calls. EVERY game with a D team it seemed we got down 4 or 5, then remembered you had to be willing to fight through the shit. Mostly came back and won, but these were the best lessons of all the lessons.
