Youth Sports Are Expensive?
In truth, I often pick up a lot of wonderful articles and columns from the New York Times when it comes to the topic of sports parenting and youth sports. But I must confess that I’m still scratching my head from an article that ran the other day in which the Times’ reporter did an expose of sorts that explained that youth sports cost money.
Forgive me – and perhaps it’s been too many years since I forked out all sorts of cash for my kids to play youth sports — but I think it’s safe to say that any parent who has a child playing any kind of organized sport knows that there’s going to be a steep financial price to be paid.
It starts with registering your kid to play, then money for the team uniform, then for your child’s equipment, and then, if it’s a travel team, you have to shell out cash for motels, gas, food, etc. The costs can easily run into the thousands of dollars for each season.
As such, I thought it was odd that the Times was pointing out that baseball bats cost hundreds of dollars, that private coaches are expensive, and so on. Again, maybe it’s just me, but one of the ironies I’ve always found about youth sports is that parents gladly spend thousands of dollars in the hope that their kid will somehow qualify for a small partial athletic scholarship in college (remember, with the exception of football, basketball, and maybe ice hockey, very few colleges ever offer full rides for a sport).
Bottom line? I just found it humorous that the NY Times thought it was big news that youth sports were expensive. It must have been a slow news day.
Doug Abrams
Rick Wolff
Steve Kallas
Ask Coach Wolff 
Buy used stuff, do your training on the playground and invest the savings in a college fund. You’ll end up with more money for college than any hoped-for athletic scholarship.