Crossing the lines

[turbo]

maybe the coach was "recruiting" your son, imagine that occuring on a recruting visit!!!

 

if a kid can play, they will be found, summer ball/aau is just for the parents. "my son is going to get a scholarship!!"

Yes, if your kid can play he will be found. That is exactly how I feel and exactly the way it is. AAU basketball is out of hand and I believe TSSAA is waging a silent war against it. I also agree with an earlier post that stated that if only school sports were allowed we'd have no problem. Travel Teams, AAU, etc. are money making, free vacation times for most of the coaches who do it. It eats up family time, vacation time, and only speeds burnout and promotes single sport athletes. AHHHHHH that felt good!

[wardawg2038]

RC, I have a differing opinion on who is manipulating time. Where I am at I see the basketball coach manipulate players into thinking that they must be in the gym or playing 24-7 to compete. He will not come out and tell a kid not to play another sport,this would get him in trouble, but uses more mind games than anything. It is like I said before I feel that football catches all the flack for year round training while the other sports go unchecked. Weighttraining and conditioning will only help athletes in all sports, that is why all sports do this at the college level, My football players lift twice a week during season to maitain. It does not hurt a player to still lift during other sports, on practice days. I do not require my players to lift on their game days but to get at least 2 days in a week just like they would during football.

[rcpatriot]

Yes, if your kid can play he will be found. That is exactly how I feel and exactly the way it is. AAU basketball is out of hand and I believe TSSAA is waging a silent war against it. I also agree with an earlier post that stated that if only school sports were allowed we'd have no problem. Travel Teams, AAU, etc. are money making, free vacation times for most of the coaches who do it. It eats up family time, vacation time, and only speeds burnout and promotes single sport athletes. AHHHHHH that felt good!

 

I too believe that TSSAA is waging a silent war against AAU and the likes. As far as "if only school sports were allowed we'd have no problem", your right. Then you would have kids "specializing" in one sport only, because coaches wouldn't be allowing them the proper time in the off season to work on sports that are in other seasons. What TSSAA has to be careful of is venturing in to what is their decision and what is mom, dads, and the athletes decision. Do we really want TSSAA telling us, as parents, what our children can do away from the MS/HS arena?

Whats going to happen next is a war between MS/HS football coaches and basketball, wrestling, baseball, etc. Each coach will want to monopolize there studs time.

[JC4life]

Call me crazy but I thought the ONLY time football players got ANY time off was the two weeks at Christmas and the dead period. At least that has been the only time off totally my son has had during the last 4 years! The rest of the time he was either lifting, agilities, or hitting or a combination of the mentioned.

 

Made it hard to have any kind of vacation for the rest of the family.

This is true for a lot of players, 4 weeks is all some football players get off. Sometimes its not even 4 weeks, because you can get around the dead period by holding workouts at places other than school. I remember the summer before my senior year it got worked out with the community center than players could go and workout there for half the price. We were specifically told that the S&C program would advance during the dead period and we were expected to come back in better shape than when we left. Once the dead period was over you could tell who had worked out and ran and who hadn`t over the dead period. Football is a 12 month sport now, and that is leading to a lot of players getting burned out. Don`t get me wrong a S&C program is useful, but on the whole you won`t turn an average player into a superstar with it. Even though some may think it, high school football is not life. I don`t agree with all that TSSAA is trying to do, but the idea of letting kids actually have a summer break is a good one.

[coachfoozeball]

RC, I have a differing opinion on who is manipulating time. Where I am at I see the basketball coach manipulate players into thinking that they must be in the gym or playing 24-7 to compete. He will not come out and tell a kid not to play another sport,this would get him in trouble, but uses more mind games than anything. It is like I said before I feel that football catches all the flack for year round training while the other sports go unchecked. Weighttraining and conditioning will only help athletes in all sports, that is why all sports do this at the college level, My football players lift twice a week during season to maitain. It does not hurt a player to still lift during other sports, on practice days. I do not require my players to lift on their game days but to get at least 2 days in a week just like they would during football.

 

This is so true. Basketball coaches think that they must be in the gym 24-7. It is amazing to me how many BB coaches in this state don't believe in lifting weights and conditioning without a ball in the hands of the player. THe studs are still going to make it. The ones that get hurt are the above avg. to avg. guys who could make themselves better by lifting/conditioning.

[ksgovols]

The Boys of Summer is about basketball or football? Why is baseball even in this conversation? Baseball is in season in the summer, particularly the further north you go.

 

I'd rather see a year round school schedule with football August through November, basketball December through March 14th and baseball March 15th through June. Give July to the family. Off season conditioning of some kind can be coordinated for the athletes that are participating in another sport. In season takes priority over off season.

[cephus23]

In high school every athlete that plays multiple sports at the school starts practice when they finish the before sport. Example baseball practice will begin for basketball players when the basketball season is over. When the last baseball or track or any other spring sport is finished the next sport is now football. It should be first priority. Football coaches should make weights, camps, ect. know to each player beforehand so that arrangements can be made to play the AAUs and go on vacations during the summer, but the top priority in the summer, sporting wise, should be football.

[ksgovols]

I don't see it. College football practice starts in August. Sure they are hitting the weight room in the summer and the QB and recievers might throw a little, but there's no reason to have football practice beyond conditioning in the summer for high school athletes. I'd rather have them chomping at the bit for 2 a days than dreading practicing in the heat.

 

If we're going to flip-flop high school seasons, it would make more sense to play the baseball season in Tennessee during August, September and October when the weather is nice and play the football games during those 30 degree evenings in March and April.

[ptown_man]

Personally I think working out year round does help every player to be better in all sports. Weightlifting helps to protect against injury, as well as all types of running. All the coaches of every sport at that school need to get together and deceide when the best times are during the day to practice for that sport. In my experience most of the coaches of other sports, except basketball, are normally football coaches. With that said I don't see where the argument is. I at least practiced year round for football and couldn't wait to get in pads and get to camp. So if coaches have a problem with kids not wanting to get in pads as soon as they can then I think the coaches need to reevaluate the situation.

[Sword]

I'm not saying that summer AAU baseball/basketball is the "ticket" to getting a college scholarship, nor am I saying that a college scout is going to take the word of an AAU baseball/basketball coach over that of the HS coach, regarding a kids ability to play at the college level. For those kids that are not on the "high" profile HS teams, they have to go that "extra mile" to get the attention from scouts. The only time that they have to go that "extra mile" is during the summer months.

 

I too believe in weight training/conditioning, but not at the expense of requiring a basketball, baseball, wrestler, or track athlete, to do so on the day of a game/meet. Do football players lift before games? Nor do I believe in requiring the football player that is out of season, that is wrestling/basketball (in season), to make football weight training the priority over wrestling/basketball practice.

 

We all know that football is king at most high schools, and as such, football coaches are starting to "manipulate" a muli-sport athletes time. I personally have seen it during the wrestling/basketball season, and during the baseball season. Maybe it is isolated to my area of TN. But, based on some of the post on this subject, some feel as though all other sports should take a back seat to football all year long. I completely disagree with those posters.

 

BTW, while on a recruiting visit to a very well known college in E. TN the baseball coach was explaining to my son about some of the differences between HS baseball and college baseball. One of his comments was that in HS baseball the talent is spread out between teams so much that the competition isn't the same. At the college level, those top pitchers you faced once every 3rd game in HS, you'll be facing them every game at the college level. Later in the converstation, the coach asked my son what team he played summer ball for, and when my son answered him, the coach made the statement that because of the competition level that my son has already played at, he would understand the competition at the college level better because of the summer tournaments he's played in.

 

Maybe my personal experience is a "unique" one. I've been wrong before.

 

 

You are right about football being king. Where I live we have a great football program. We are known state wide and have won several state championships, but our football coaches allow and even encourage the football players to participate in other sports. The problem is not football. It is baseball and basketball. Football is pretty much seasonal with some winter and summer weightlifting and conditioning thrown in. Baseball, and especially basketball are 24/7 365 days a year. I have two sons in HS and both have tried to play football and basketball. The two sports are in direct conflict because basketball season is during the same time as winter football weight lifting and summer basketball practice is taking place during the time when the boys could be doing summer weight lifting. Lots of kids are getting burned out and quiting the basketball team because it interferes with their ability to perform on the football field (no chance for effective weight training) and because of the 24/7- 365 commitment it takes to play the other sports. - I don't blame the basketball coach. He is a great guy and is just doing what it takes to compete - and keep his job, but football is not the problem. it is the year round schedule the other sports play.

[volfromchat]

Having been a multi-sport athlete in recent years, I can tell you, it set me back in each and everyone of those sports. All of the rest of the players were polishing their skills in a particular sport with the team while I was trying to catch up with the other team at the begining of that season. It is hard on these young athletes and almost impossible for a kid who wants to be well-rounded. The TSSAA should step in here and make a change quick. It is unfair and needs to be stopped.

[crusader]

Our basketball coach tells the players that if they are not at the summer practices/camps/etc, they will not know what to do and will not get to play. There is only one basketball player that plays football. He played from the beginning of the school three years ago. Our AD and Principal talk a big talk about wanting kids to play multiple sports, but they aRE NOT SERIOUS. They encourage in-fighting amongst the coaches buy not controlling the times that a multiple sport athlete is required to work on "other" sports. Our basketball coach won a state championship in the third year of the school's existence, so it seems that he has carte blanche to do whatever he wants.