Six weeks busting it at Xplosive Edge

[JohnRossEwing]

My oldest daughter had scholarships totaling $260,000 Had she not played on the select level, she would never have been seen by those coaches and offered a scholarship from that school. Period.

My youngest daughter, "only" received $210,000 in scholarships, again she is not going to that school if not for the club circuit.

I can promise you I didn't come close to paying $470,000 in fees, dues and travel expenses.

The thing I did get out of the club aspect is countless hours of 1 on 1 time with my kids, talking about life as we drove to tournaments on the weekends My kids got to travel all over the country and see places we would have never seen otherwise. They met people from every corner of the country that they have maintained relationships with. My oldest participated in the Team USA selection process, mostly due to the coaching and development she received from the club level. I got to travel and watch my kids play in the NCAA tournament at the highest level.

To each his own, but I wouldn't change a thing about their experiences, and in talking with them, neither would they. The vast majority of the people I had dealings with, have had good to great experiences. There will always be those who don't, same with every aspect of life.

Sorry for the rant, but you typically only hear from the people that want to poo poo the process because their experience didn't end up like they thought it would, or from people that never experienced it and want to tell you how you should have spent your money or how you should have raised your kids.

This is a good post!

 

[JohnRossEwing]

Agree BF is a total ass. OSA as an organization is about the best example of what is wrong with select sports. They have like five teams per age and run it all like an assembly line. There is very limited real coaching, just coveyor belt like drills. You have your 90 minutes of practice and you're out. Nothing extra, EVER. Nothing to specifically help a kid. And there are a very limited number of good coaches there. Most really, really suck. Bob wants the money but doesn't provide a good basis for any but the best players. Look at their second, third, fifth teams and look at their coaching. Poor at best. Total money grab and a total ripoff. There are much better development clubs out there if you're going to spend the money.

Pretty much spot on with OSA...

I loved when I was doing my money grabs...parents could not wait to give me their money and I could not wait to get "junior" signed up and give him his free T-shirt...

But OSA takes it to an amazing new level!

 

[PeliniTheCrutch]

Select/Club definitely needs to be scaled down. The paying for lessons stuff is many times an escape from reality...the kid isn't mentally tough and competitive enough, so they look for a technical/mechanical "reason" why they don't play well(i do not consider physical training places like Ex Edge as lessons). And specializing in one sport isn't good for most.

However, I can tell you from a baseball perspective that if a kid doesn't see better competition than he'll see at the rec level before they get to high school, he will not even make the freshman team at a good metro school. It doesn't have to be an either/or thing with playing select in only one sport or playing rec ball in several sports. There can be a happy medium.

 

[GretnaShawn]

Agree BF is a total ass. OSA as an organization is about the best example of what is wrong with select sports. They have like five teams per age and run it all like an assembly line. There is very limited real coaching, just coveyor belt like drills. You have your 90 minutes of practice and you're out. Nothing extra, EVER. Nothing to specifically help a kid. And there are a very limited number of good coaches there. Most really, really suck. Bob wants the money but doesn't provide a good basis for any but the best players. Look at their second, third, fifth teams and look at their coaching. Poor at best. Total money grab and a total ripoff. There are much better development clubs out there if you're going to spend the money.

As I mentioned before, I worked with Bob at the JCC and at OSA (one season at both places - several year gap in between). I spent less time around OSA as I did with the JCC because I only had about a half season with OSA (I came in late and took over for a coach). So I’m speaking more from my JCC experience than my OSA one.

Bob has (or at least had, I haven’t been around for awhile) a good philosophy and system on teaching young kids. They don’t run zone. They run motion offenses. Every kid touches the ball. They teach fundamentals. No isolation ball. I wholeheartedly agree with this philosophy for youth basketball. I coached against a ton of teams that would pack the lane with a zone and play 'get the ball to Timmy' on offense. Those teams won a lot. But the kids didn't learn anything or improve as basketball players.

 

[JohnRossEwing]

Select/Club definitely needs to be scaled down. The paying for lessons stuff is many times an escape from reality...the kid isn't mentally tough and competitive enough, so they look for a technical/mechanical "reason" why they don't play well. And specializing in one sport isn't good for most.

However, I can tell you from a baseball perspective that if a kid doesn't see better competition than he'll see at the rec level before they get to high school, he will not even make the freshman team at a good metro school. It doesn't have to be an either/or thing with playing select in only one sport or playing rec ball in several sports. There can be a happy medium.

It is sort of a chicken and egg thing...Before select baseball all those kids play park district/rec/ymca and high school teams were still filled out and so were college teams and guys still made MLB teams...

What happened isn't that rec/park/ymca got bad...it is that select/club started and offered a "better product" (at a price)...25 years ago those kids that were good at baseball were playing rec/park/ymca...

But you are pretty much correct...making a high school team especially for baseball is hard if you don't go select...most of those high school teams are filled out long before the tryouts because those coaches already know who they are keeping for the most part.

 

[redlurker]

Pretty much spot on with OSA...

I loved when I was doing my money grabs...parents could not wait to give me their money and I could not wait to get "junior" signed up and give him his free T-shirt...

But OSA takes it to an amazing new level!

Simple supply and demand allows OSA to charge that sort of coin. There are not enough youth coaches. There is not enough open gym space. There is not enough parents that want or have the time to give to their kids unfortunately. It takes time and effort to organize a team and coach your kid. So most parents outsource it. OSA fills that need. Simply another sign of the times.

 

[JohnRossEwing]

Simple supply and demand allows OSA to charge that sort of coin. There are not enough youth coaches. There is not enough open gym space. There is not enough parents that want or have the time to give to their kids unfortunately. It takes time and effort to organize a team and coach your kid. So most parents outsource it. OSA fills that need. Simply another sign of the times.

Amen! It is why I still wish I would have started one before it got big...I would have loved to fill that need!

 

[cecilB]

I have a friend who played college softball, she speculated had her parents just put all the money away for her college instead of spending it all on select teams and tournaments she needed to get the scholarship they probably would have come out ahead money wise. But she got to play college ball which very few of us get the chance to do.

Yes, but some can afford it and still fund college savings plans

Literally almost anyone can play NAIA or D3 and they will find you money and make you feel special.

Depends upon the definition of play. NAIAs will load up rosters(most are 'specials'), few quota builders get meaningful time. Pull out your sprinsteen album, and put 'Glory Days'.

My nephew plays NAIA baseball in Iowa. He gets a 50% scholarship and only has to pay about $17,000 a year of his own money to play baseball for them. His parents dropped tons of money on select baseball growing up. I shake my head. It would be cheaper to go to UNO or UNL without a scholarship and only have to focus on getting an education. These small colleges are all about sports. Most all of the students at his college are athletes. No one else goes there.

This is spot on particularly at NAIA schools. Athletics aside, every college in Nebraska from UNL to Chadron, to Doane has a growth strategy, and they are competing for a flat to shrinking pool of Nebraska HS graduates. Thus the NAIAs in NE have resorted to sports as a way to feed admissions. Graduation rates are not rising with this strategy, enrollment is flat to shrinking with less money from tuition coming in...plus constant turn in student body. The sports for admission strategy is not sustainable and many Nebraska colleges are in a tough spot financially. Expect to seem more Danas.

What people don't get, including many in this thread, even with this admissions scheme is kids that truly get recruited (primes) even to these NAIA in Nebraska, get real cash, and those that are quota targets ('specials') don't athletic money. In FB, these are the kids Frost is targeting for walkons. (FCS, D2s have teh same carving up of scholarship flexibility).

Take BAsketball - NAIA II schools like the GMAC in Nebraska are allowed to give out 6 full tuition scholarships per year, but have routine quotas for 30 player rosters. Figure out what the school tuition is, multiply by 6, and that is the amount they can carve up.

They will combine with academic awards. The 'prime' recruits typically gets academic award(discount) + athletic and pay very little if anything....ie full rides. For basketball a school like Concordia will have 10-12 of 30 players on a roster with a combination of funds equate to very robust packages and some full rides. The other 18-20 on the roster get the institution discounts, academic $ if they can, plus any morsels out of the pool the coach can hand out. These 18-20 have long roads to the court in a sport like BB. That is why they have JV teams.

D3s, which there is 1 in the entire state of Nebraska, is similar, but with some differences. It is all academic based aid, and they generally have better academic reputations(generally!). Some will use sports to pad admissions, but not to the extent NAIA schools do. A player from my kids summer team turned down a D2 full ride, a D2 partial, and several NAIA because they were smart (robust academic scholarships) and didn't want to attend college in a backwater town, at sparsely endowed schools. They selected a $50k a year D3 college that is always really good in BB, academically strong, and doesn't quota players to the degree the NAIAs around here do. In this case the student body is only 20% athletes...and very healthy financially. The BB program is resourced better with staff and facilities than any GMAC school.

If you have kids, hopefully this is helpful. If you are in the camp of anyone can play small college ball, you're wrong, and cue up your Bruce Springsteen CD and put 'Glory Days" on repeat.

 

[dand84]

Sorry for the rant, but you typically only hear from the people that want to poo poo the process because their experience didn't end up like they thought it would, or from people that never experienced it and want to tell you how you should have spent your money or how you should have raised your kids.

You make some great points about the benefits of select. Select is going to make you a better player in most cases. Better coaches, better competition, more practice, etc. etc. etc. There is nothing wrong with that or that desire.

The question is whether it is worth the cost and at what age you make that investment. You can start paying select level fees and training for soccer at age 3-4 now. A lot of other types of soccer programs start around age 8. Other sports are probably similar or going a similar route. Of course, massive amounts of those playing drop out around middle school and certainly by HS, but in the meantime, it is funding the very, very select few that make it past HS.

According to NCAA numbers, out of 8M kids competing in HS, 480k move on to NCAA level. So 6%. Many will probably be happy there as it helps pay for college, assuming a scholarship. Depending on the sport, about 1-2% of those will move on to the pros (baseball is higher at 9-10%). So while of course some hit the lottery due to skill, coaching, desire, or some combination thereof, the vast majority of kids are not going on to scholarship level play at any level. Meanwhile, however, they do fund the massive money machine that is putting that 6% in place.

 

[tro80]

What I will add is this - its not always about the money. My daughter played select soccer (OFC 2) and played summer league basketball with a couple of different select programs, including OSA before senior year. She had good coaches, improved as a player and enjoyed those experiences tremendously. She ended up at an upper half GPAC soccer program before knee problems ended her career (yeah, probably due to overworking without enough muscle strength to withstand the pounding). Scholarship money may have been about even with money spent over the years for team costs/travel, etc. But it did allow her to attend a smaller, Christian oriented school for no more than the cost of UNL and to continue playing competitively a sport she loves a little longer. My son played select soccer all the way through senior year and was probably just below the dozen or so upper echelon level of local players in terms of talent. But he had decided shortly into HS that he didn't want to play in college. So, no trade off for money there. But, it wasn't all about scholarship money. For each, playing select was important to getting good enough to play at the varsity level on HS teams for several years. They also got the chance to compete at a level above rec-leagues. I have no doubt neither would have enjoyed playing their sports near as much if not competing on and against teams that played at a higher level. Most importantly, however, each made life long friends on those teams, and now that it is over we parents miss the travel and social time with many (not all for sure) of the other parents.

If what you want is to save money, and if your kids are at a spot where they are just getting into or just starting high school - or even still a sophomore or junior --- and if your HS provides it, push them into all the dual credit or AP classes they can handle. Both of my kids will graduate college early, saving a semester to an entire year of tuition, room and board. Heck, even getting enough credit to assure getting through school in 4 years rather than needing the extra semester or two, as many do now, would help.

 

[JohnRossEwing]

Better coaching? Maybe, maybe not.
More practice? I think that depends on the sport

What I will add is this - its not always about the money. My daughter played select soccer (OFC 2) and played summer league basketball with a couple of different select programs, including OSA before senior year. She had good coaches, improved as a player and enjoyed those experiences tremendously. She ended up at an upper half GPAC soccer program before knee problems ended her career (yeah, probably due to overworking without enough muscle strength to withstand the pounding). Scholarship money may have been about even with money spent over the years for team costs/travel, etc. But it did allow her to attend a smaller, Christian oriented school for no more than the cost of UNL and to continue playing competitively a sport she loves a little longer. My son played select soccer all the way through senior year and was probably just below the dozen or so upper echelon level of local players in terms of talent. But he had decided shortly into HS that he didn't want to play in college. So, no trade off for money there. But, it wasn't all about scholarship money. For each, playing select was important to getting good enough to play at the varsity level on HS teams for several years. They also got the chance to compete at a level above rec-leagues. I have no doubt neither would have enjoyed playing their sports near as much if not competing on and against teams that played at a higher level. Most importantly, however, each made life long friends on those teams, and now that it is over we parents miss the travel and social time with many (not all for sure) of the other parents.

If what you want is to save money, and if your kids are at a spot where they are just getting into or just starting high school - or even still a sophomore or junior --- and if your HS provides it, push them into all the dual credit or AP classes they can handle. Both of my kids will graduate college early, saving a semester to an entire year of tuition, room and board. Heck, even getting enough credit to assure getting through school in 4 years rather than needing the extra semester or two, as many do now, would help.

Good post!

But I couldn't imagine wanting to graduate college early! It is too much fun!