Are the travel/aau/academy programs hurting american athletics?warning very long

[pacusmc]

Is everybody catching up or are we just diluting athletic talent?

I haven’t followed the nba in a while so I began watching again in the playoffs.
The amount of foreign basketball players was intriguing. As of Oct 2023 there were 125 international players from about 40 foreign countries. And it’s not just average players. It’s all stars and mvp’s.

That’s crazy to think about for an old head like me. So what could be going on in the states that would have had such a drastic change n the landscape?

Was the talent in other countries always just as good and not discovered?

Is the talent in the US dwindling?

Has there been a dramatic decrease in the amount of youth participation?

Has there been a huge exodus of coaching to foreign nations?

Or is there something terribly wrong with the way the youth game is being played and coached, and or evaluated?

Is AAU pricing out the average player the same way academy soccer has basically made high school soccer irrelevant?

Maybe most in here don’t realize but D1 programs do not even recruit high school soccer anymore. They only recruit academy or travel soccer players.

Now imagine a world where Duke and Kentucky would only recruit AAU players because the high school game was so weakened simply because they priced out free basketball in school? What if all the best youth basketball coaches decided to just coach AAU?

The USA women’s soccer in the 80-90’s was an unstoppable international force.
Losing was an anomaly.
Even today, California alone has more registered soccer players than most European countries.
And yet you can no longer just pencil in a W for the women the way you used to. The difference then vs now…… academies and travel.

Also, news flash…. A nice amount of D1 women and men’s soccer are actually foreign players here on scholarship.
About 70 international women signed D1 LOI’s this year alone and about 60 on the men’s side.

Almost 15% of D1 basketball players are now international.


So despite the US having about 5 million youth soccer players, the coaches can’t find the talent and go outside the country to get players.
That sht is just a mind blowing to me.
And despite this AAU phenomenon and all the hype; d1 is 15 percent foreign? Wtf is going on?

The academy and travel system in soccer has disenfranchised so many talented young players simply cause they can’t pay to get that level of coaching.

US soccer has literally thrown money at the problem. But they throw it at these academies and training centers and not actually at trying to voucher or provide better coaching to players that can’t play. And it’s not working.

Despite having more US born players playing abroad than ever before, the just lost 5-1 to Colombia last week.
A team that they beat in the 94 World Cup.
That’s hundreds of millions of dollars, access to the best trainers and nutrition, money spent on world class coaching.
Yet 30 years later you’re getting a worse result against a Colombia team that is nowhere near as good as the 94 squad who was one of the favorites to win the World Cup that year.

I’ve seen some amazing players in travel when my son played U6 through U10.
Parents believed that those kids were “so special”.
Really? You know he’s the next messi huh
But some broke kid with a single mom doesn’t have the same talent or hasn’t been identified and never will be simply because he can’t afford it?

David Justice was just on a podcast and talked about travel baseball basically making inner city baseball obsolete to poor inner city kids and the number of young African Americans in the league in the 80’s to now is staggering.
In 1991 African Americans made up 18 percent of the league. Today it’s 6 percent.

Mookie Bets’ mom had to form her own team cause the local travel squad wouldn’t take him cause he was too small.
Altuve is a grown man at 5’6. I doubt any travel squad would take him. But maybe if he payed……
Both were mvp’s.

This ain’t a racial or a cultural thing. It’s an American youth issue. A lot of talent is being wasted and undiscovered because of money. And it doesn’t seem to be an issue in other countries the way it is here.

 

[Dgixxer252525]

West Tampa little league and Belmont heights little league are basically in the same neighborhood in Tampa. At one point in the 80s they had Dwight Gooden, Tino Martinez, Luis González, Gary Schefield, Fred McGriff, Carl Everett, and Dave Magadan playing there. They didn’t have fancy uniforms, didn’t win rings every weekend, and all rode their bikes to practice and games. None of these guys grew up wealthy. They probably wouldn’t be playing the game today because of the costs involved.

Travel baseball has killed the game here in the states. Look at how many players are foreign in the MLB. Take pitchers out of the equation and the numbers are really crazy…

 

[pacusmc]

West Tampa little league and Belmont heights little league are basically in the same neighborhood in Tampa. At one point in the 80s they had Dwight Gooden, Tino Martinez, Luis González, Gary Schefield, Fred McGriff, Carl Everett, and Dave Magadan playing there. They didn’t have fancy uniforms, didn’t win rings every weekend, and all rode their bikes to practice and games. None of these guys grew up wealthy. They probably wouldn’t be playing the game today because of the costs involved.

Travel baseball has killed the game here in the states. Look at how many players are foreign in the MLB. Take pitchers out of the equation and the numbers are really crazy…

The worst part about it is that every school in the United States has either a soccer football or a baseball field and they its free. I’ve been saying for the past 10 years that what sports should do is incentivize elementary, junior high, and high school coaches with money from either the NFL NBA major league or US soccer to supplement their salaries. It would be much cheaper and create such a huge pool of talent.
I spoke about Siaka’s contract. He was born in Cameroon so the question really isn’t if Cameroon is producing better NBA talent than America. The question is why is a country with such a small percentage of basketball players can produce elite level players compared to United States where you can go to any city and see a huge number of games at the youth level.

Why has the DR and Puerto Rico produced way more mlb talent per capita than the US despite all this money being thrown at talent, batting cages, coaching, etc here in the United States.
Kids in the Dominican Republic are literally sharing uniforms and bats and gloves. Playing on nothing but dirt fields, practicing at home with sticks and rocks because they can’t afford a bat.
These kids are out playing American kids whose parents are spending thousands of dollars a year on travel and paying $600 for bats, $250 for cleats, getting private coaching sessions and getting a batting cages in their backyards.

And this type of sht is permeating every aspect of youth sports.

Now the 7 on 7 circuit is becoming this way. The difference is these teams are getting bankrolled. But the problem is only those kids are getting a lot of the attention. What’s gonna happen is that more of these teams are gonna start popping up. And unless you’re on one of them, no one will notice.
I suspect there is gonna be a huge amount of talent entering the portal in the next few years because some kid that nobody knows blows up from some small school.
Can Ward is the perfect example.

 

[cookies]

Reposting my reply to you about why there is international power in the NBA but not in the NFL

I’d pushback heavily on this. First, soccer, futbol as they call it, is the biggest sport in the world. There is no point in history that it has been American dominated, except on the women’s side.

There is a huge structural, affordability problem when Zlatan Ibrahimovic, during his time with the LA Galaxy, is complaining about the costs of children’s futbol leagues.

Next to soccer, the second biggest sport in the world is basketball. They both are casting wider nets off rip.

The NBA is full of international kids, today, because Michael Jordan was one of the most famous people on earth. The Dream Team gave tens of millions hoop dreams of becoming like mike. The game spread like wildfire.

Additionally, the “early adopters,” Sabonis, Luka’s father, Wemby’s parents, etc. who already played basketball all their life started having kids. They were able to train their children with their unique knowledge that their parents did not have. This trend happened with America’s pastime, baseball, as well.

Moreover, basketball, unlike football and futbol, is much more dependent upon height as an indicator of success. So since America does have a monopoly on height, once the game generated serious cash, guys like Yao Ming, Hakeem, Joel Embiid, etc. were offered opportunities to become professional athletes.

7 footers in the 1950s were just regular dudes. Joel Embiid said he learned how to shoot by watching instructional videos of white guys on YouTube.

Next, although Roger Goodell has been super strategic about targeting international areas to grow the sport, football is an inherently violent game that automatically turns off a ton of prospective international kids who will grow up to be men w/ body types and/or skill sets that could succeed in CFB/NFL.

Lastly, basketball, baseball and futbol all have low barriers of entry and less chances of being injured. Sure, we all played street football growing up — often two hand touch for safety. Still, that is a much more watered down version of the game compared to 3on3 pickup basketball/futbol or DR baseball where they use oven mitts as gloves.

 

[cookies]

Aau has a ton of problems but as I have been in and out of these gyms I know that talent trumps all.

Coaches are actively looking for taller kids and talented youth to join their team and get an advantage. If a kid can’t afford it, these coaches are way too competitive to lose out on a special player. They just pay for or heavily subsidize that family.

I’m talking about my 11-12 year old cousin being recruited by multiple different aau programs. Forty years ago there were not even that many aau programs within one region.

Team USAB U17 just dominated everybody and won gold this summer. The Boozer twins are NBA legacies, but the other 10 guys on that team were sons of just regular cats.

Second, the reason more and more nba legacies are entering the league is because of a two part advantage.

Former players have detailed knowledge of the game and habits needed to succeed, which they pass down. There is always going to be some nepotism Ala pistol Pete, Kobe Bryant, the Barry brothers, Luke Walton, etc.

More importantly, HEIGHT HEIGHT HEIGHT!! Unlike other professional sports, HEIGHT AND WINGSPAN are genetic determinants. The average nba height is 6’6/6’7.

Moreover, the league has reduced the number of 6’2 and under point guards, and 7 feet and taller slow footed centers, in exchange for a surplus of wings and combo forwards.

There is absolutely an affordability crisis going on in youth sports, however, American basketball is just fine. The pie of great players has just gotten much larger.

A lot of these international players are more intriguing to executives because they play the right way, aren’t ballhogs, didn’t grow up having adults and their peers and social media praising them all the time, and were raised better to be interested in things outside of basketball/money/shallow culture etc.

Cooper Flagg, Boozer twins, AJ D, Ty Stokes, Ja Morant, Zion Williamson, Tyrese Haliburton, etc. America is still on top and there are more ways to get drafted than just one. Lavar Ball started his own program, his own league, and sent his kids overseas. Reed Sheppard, the third pick, played for a non-shoe sponsored AAU team.

Great habits win out over time. People still believe that kids can’t improve their jumping ability despite Ja Morant and his dad giving everyone the blueprint — along with Tim Grover: the trainer of Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant and Dwyane Wade. I love Ja’s dad because he played with Ray Allen in HS and learned from him. Wasn’t good enough to go college/pro on his own, was a working class barber. He had his son on aau teams with Zion Williamson and was still overlooked. They kept getting better and voila. Zion, despite being a private school player, did not grow up rich either.

I mean look at it from another perspective, you know we are basketball wealthy when the NBA FMVP is complaining that his teammate (Derrick White) was chosen to replace Kawhi Leonard over him.

 

[cookies]

Joel Embiid is foreign born but he is American trained/learned. Steve Nash and Hakeem won MVPs too.

Yao Ming was a top 3 center in the league for a few years. Peja Stojakovic and Dirk were killers. Tim Duncan was foreign born, as well as Tony Parker and Manu Ginobiilli.

Kobe Bryant said Dražen Petrović was one of the best dudes he ever faced but his life ended early. Kobe grew up in a completely different era and even he remarked about how American basketball culture at large did not teach the fundamentals like they did when he was growing up in Italy.

Jamal Murray’s dad is a Jamaican-Canadian immigrant who used Bruce Lee techniques to train his son in hoops. Jimmy Butler went JUCO. Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum are mid majors dudes. Ant Edwards is from the hood.

Brandon Ingram did not grow up with a silver spoon but Jerry Stackhouse recognized his talent & mentored him. KAT is foreign born but American trained. Jalen Williams blew up out of nowhere. He was so good he gave his brother a recruiting ranking boost. Bam did not grow up with a silver spoon in his mouth.

The cliches of hard work are still winning out fam. Remember, basketball was created on American soil but it is was by a Canadian immigrant. The game has always been international at its core.

 

[cookies]

The worst part about it is that every school in the United States has either a soccer football or a baseball field and they its free. I’ve been saying for the past 10 years that what sports should do is incentivize elementary, junior high, and high school coaches with money from either the NFL NBA major league or US soccer to supplement their salaries. It would be much cheaper and create such a huge pool of talent.
I spoke about Siaka’s contract. He was born in Cameroon so the question really isn’t if Cameroon is producing better NBA talent than America. The question is why is a country with such a small percentage of basketball players can produce elite level players compared to United States where you can go to any city and see a huge number of games at the youth level.

Why has the DR and Puerto Rico produced way more mlb talent per capita than the US despite all this money being thrown at talent, batting cages, coaching, etc here in the United States.
Kids in the Dominican Republic are literally sharing uniforms and bats and gloves. Playing on nothing but dirt fields, practicing at home with sticks and rocks because they can’t afford a bat.
These kids are out playing American kids whose parents are spending thousands of dollars a year on travel and paying $600 for bats, $250 for cleats, getting private coaching sessions and getting a batting cages in their backyards.

And this type of sht is permeating every aspect of youth sports.

Now the 7 on 7 circuit is becoming this way. The difference is these teams are getting bankrolled. But the problem is only those kids are getting a lot of the attention. What’s gonna happen is that more of these teams are gonna start popping up. And unless you’re on one of them, no one will notice.
I suspect there is gonna be a huge amount of talent entering the portal in the next few years because some kid that nobody knows blows up from some small school.
Can Ward is the perfect example.

Great post

 

[cookies]

American hockey and baseball development are in A LOT more trouble than basketball/football.

Because our country is so large, and immigration is not just a 1-way street i.e. Americans move to Europe too, there are more and more talented futbol players with dual nationalities (one being American) who are good enough to supplant the lack of talent in America. For example, Cameron Robert Carter-Vickers’ father played in the NBA.

However, the greatest problem is that kids just don’t walk out their front door on Saturday and Sunday and weekday afternoons to organize 3on3 to 7on7 futbol games in their neighborhood. This would greatly increase America’s chances at becoming an elite soccer country.

Our youth is lonely and staying inside and inactive/sedentary. For all the development infrastructure in America, we still cannot catch up. It’s because money does not solve everything.

America already has 5x to 25x the population of super successful soccer countries. Which, in theory, should be more than enough to make up for soccer not being as popular as football/basketball/hockey/baseball in the states.

Sure, there are many DBs and WRs who could have been excellent futbol players rather than undrafted, D1 football players. However, there has to be a love for the game and an exploration from the player himself to reach maximum potential.

So American soccer is in a weird state, like you mention, where there are more and more talented American futbol players but a stagnation in team success.

David Epstein is the best sports scientist in the country IMO. He was on the Domonique Foxworth show recently. Made countless of smart observations about the state of American sports.

Recommend it to anyone interested in this subject.

 

[cookies]

It agitates me so much how all of our politicians never campaign on education issues anymore because it is seen as a third rail, losing topic.

People spend so much time in the classroom, at schools and it is so vital to how they interact in society.

We have left so much for the parents to do that should be done at school. And of course, the best school options are price gouged out the wazoo.

 

[pacusmc]

American hockey and baseball development are in A LOT more trouble than basketball/football.

Because our country is so large, and immigration is not just a 1-way street i.e. Americans move to Europe too, there are more and more talented futbol players with dual nationalities (one being American) who are good enough to supplant the lack of talent in America. For example, Cameron Robert Carter-Vickers’ father played in the NBA.

However, the greatest problem is that kids just don’t walk out their front door on Saturday and Sunday and weekday afternoons to organize 3on3 to 7on7 futbol games in their neighborhood. This would greatly increase America’s chances at becoming an elite soccer country.

Our youth is lonely and staying inside and inactive/sedentary. For all the development infrastructure in America, we still cannot catch up. It’s because money does not solve everything.

America already has 5x to 25x the population of super successful soccer countries. Which, in theory, should be more than enough to make up for soccer not being as popular as football/basketball/hockey/baseball in the states.

Sure, there are many DBs and WRs who could have been excellent futbol players rather than undrafted, D1 football players. However, there has to be a love for the game and an exploration from the player himself to reach maximum potential.

David Epstein is the best sports scientist in the country IMO. He was on the Domonique Foxworth show recently. Made countless of smart observations about the state of American sports.

Recommend it to anyone interested in this subject.

we have the population but are not providing them the venue.
What good is having all this population if only the middle class kids can get the training?

what good is having all these kids play basketball if only the ones that have the money can get access to the best coaching.

These travel squad coaches also gravitate to the players that have talent at whatever age group .

They anre anlso chasing success annd clout. And that’s a huge problem.
Evaluations are wrong even at the highest level. Despite high school and college film there are still nfl busts.

So these travel coaches select a few elite dudes to carry their teams and the rest are filler kids who can play.
Yes, the same thing was happening in high school. The difference is now you opened up the amount of kids that are playing which increases your talent pool exponentially.

That’s why high school football os full of athletes and high school soccer is **** poor.

You’re gonna start having travel basketball overtake the high school ranks. Trust me.

My kid was one of those filler kids in soccer. We switched to recreational when he was 9 and I’m telling you that there are tons of kids in rec that would have no problem making a travel squad. But they just can’t afford it.

 

[Zombie-Cane]

West Tampa little league and Belmont heights little league are basically in the same neighborhood in Tampa. At one point in the 80s they had Dwight Gooden, Tino Martinez, Luis González, Gary Schefield, Fred McGriff, Carl Everett, and Dave Magadan playing there. They didn’t have fancy uniforms, didn’t win rings every weekend, and all rode their bikes to practice and games. None of these guys grew up wealthy. They probably wouldn’t be playing the game today because of the costs involved.

Travel baseball has killed the game here in the states. Look at how many players are foreign in the MLB. Take pitchers out of the equation and the numbers are really crazy…

I grew up in the Baltimore area and was recruited to play on a premier travel ball team that was taking the stars from my area as well as south central PA and was going to be a powerhouse of guys. I turned them down and was made fun of because I was going to be missing out on everything.
I then recruited guys I played against from all over MD and put together a team for the summer and did our own traveling and tournaments. We scheduled a scrimmage with that travel team before the summer really kicked off, we were beating them by 20 after 2 innings and they walked off the field. My team went on to win pretty much everything we entered, with the help of a couple local sponsors

 

[NC_Canes_11]

The worst part about it is that every school in the United States has either a soccer football or a baseball field and they its free. I’ve been saying for the past 10 years that what sports should do is incentivize elementary, junior high, and high school coaches with money from either the NFL NBA major league or US soccer to supplement their salaries. It would be much cheaper and create such a huge pool of talent.
I spoke about Siaka’s contract. He was born in Cameroon so the question really isn’t if Cameroon is producing better NBA talent than America. The question is why is a country with such a small percentage of basketball players can produce elite level players compared to United States where you can go to any city and see a huge number of games at the youth level.

Why has the DR and Puerto Rico produced way more mlb talent per capita than the US despite all this money being thrown at talent, batting cages, coaching, etc here in the United States.
Kids in the Dominican Republic are literally sharing uniforms and bats and gloves. Playing on nothing but dirt fields, practicing at home with sticks and rocks because they can’t afford a bat.
These kids are out playing American kids whose parents are spending thousands of dollars a year on travel and paying $600 for bats, $250 for cleats, getting private coaching sessions and getting a batting cages in their backyards.

And this type of sht is permeating every aspect of youth sports.

Now the 7 on 7 circuit is becoming this way. The difference is these teams are getting bankrolled. But the problem is only those kids are getting a lot of the attention. What’s gonna happen is that more of these teams are gonna start popping up. And unless you’re on one of them, no one will notice.
I suspect there is gonna be a huge amount of talent entering the portal in the next few years because some kid that nobody knows blows up from some small school.
Can Ward is the perfect example.

They work harder and want it more. They don’t have comfortable houses with AC where they can play video games all day. They know if they want off the island, they have to throw hard or hit it far. It’s really not more complicated than that. Those kids eat, sleep, and breathe baseball.

 

[cookies]

The worst part about it is that every school in the United States has either a soccer football or a baseball field and they its free. I’ve been saying for the past 10 years that what sports should do is incentivize elementary, junior high, and high school coaches with money from either the NFL NBA major league or US soccer to supplement their salaries. It would be much cheaper and create such a huge pool of talent.
I spoke about Siaka’s contract. He was born in Cameroon so the question really isn’t if Cameroon is producing better NBA talent than America. The question is why is a country with such a small percentage of basketball players can produce elite level players compared to United States where you can go to any city and see a huge number of games at the youth level.

Why has the DR and Puerto Rico produced way more mlb talent per capita than the US despite all this money being thrown at talent, batting cages, coaching, etc here in the United States.
Kids in the Dominican Republic are literally sharing uniforms and bats and gloves. Playing on nothing but dirt fields, practicing at home with sticks and rocks because they can’t afford a bat.
These kids are out playing American kids whose parents are spending thousands of dollars a year on travel and paying $600 for bats, $250 for cleats, getting private coaching sessions and getting a batting cages in their backyards.

And this type of sht is permeating every aspect of youth sports.

Now the 7 on 7 circuit is becoming this way. The difference is these teams are getting bankrolled. But the problem is only those kids are getting a lot of the attention. What’s gonna happen is that more of these teams are gonna start popping up. And unless you’re on one of them, no one will notice.
I suspect there is gonna be a huge amount of talent entering the portal in the next few years because some kid that nobody knows blows up from some small school.
Can Ward is the perfect example.

Re: Siakam

Doc Rivers coached in Africa as part of the league’s NBA in Africa summer camps before the NBA started their own league over there. This is all because of Masai Ujiri who said there are so many kids in African with arms that touch the floor, they are going to create a hoops culture and thrive in the nba.

He said something that always stood out to me. Those kids are HUNGRY.

Siakam was studying to be a priest, he did not even like basketball, his brothers loved basketball. When he was 15 he was discovered by Luc Mbah a Moute — same former pro who discovered Embiid.

Now this is the key part to answer your questions and to tie it with what Doc and Masai said.

If Siakam stayed over in Africa he would not have gotten to the NBA. He had to come to the states and be ingrained in American culture, go through ups and downs, feel like an outsider, get home sick, find certain perks of American lifestyle he enjoys, etc. thankfully, both him and embiid had Luc as a mentor — which is VERY important.

Siakam played at New Mexico State for two seasons, he was not a big name recruit at all. Masai Ujiri knew about him for years but the league didnt really check for him despite him averaging 20 PPG+. He was considered a reach when Masai took him at the end of the first round.

You should check this out: Basketball Without Borders and program director Masai Ujiri are profiled in Hubert Davis's 2016 documentary film Giants of Africa.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basketball_Without_Borders#cite_note-arthur-10">[10]</a>

Another thing to check out: Baxter Holmes’ series on ESPN where he talks about the high rate of youth hoops injuries. I am a casualty of an unaddressed crisis. Had both of my labrums tore in high school which ruined my chances of playing college hoops & led me into depression for a long while.

Lastly, and most importantly IMO, this one and done experiment has been a complete disaster. The league should, although i doubt they would, move to a minimum 2 and done system.

Because of all the flashy money at the shoe sponsored top level events, so many of the top 75 players try to go one and done or just completely play the wrong way in order to boost their stock.

When the top 25 recruits get to campus they are already thinking about leaving, which stunts their development as men and their character in regards to ethics on and off the court.

So many of players who stayed multiple years in college send the drafted one and done’s to Europe or Asia leagues i.e. Austin Reaves, Duncan Robinson, max Struss, Gabe Vincent, etc.

Shxt is so crazy now with how executives favor age that Kira Lewis and Josh Primo get picked in the lottery because they leave school early (Kira was much more deserving than Josh) but when Herb Jones is named SEC player of the year he isn’t picked until #35. And of course he is the best out of all 3 of them.

Keeping with this trend, the bucks drafted Tyler smith at pick 34. At pick 23, the bucks drafted AJ Johnson. At pick number 2, the wizards took Alex Sarr.

Alex Sarr is a French player, who played in overtime elite’s league before playing in the france pro league this past season. Tyler smith played in the overtime elite league as well, before playing in the g league. Tyler Smith averaged better stats across the board than Alex Sarr when they both played in overtime elite, but was selected 32 picks later.

These executives dont trust American kids, rightly or wrongly as I have no idea about Smith’s background/family/character/etc. i can only go off the hoops.

When they do trust the American kids with money, they heavily favor the guys who were ranked highly in high school. And since it’s one and done, it’s a negative confirmation bias happening.

For example, AJ Johnson, the twenty third pick, was a big time recruit. He chose to go to Australia for a year then enter the league. He averaged three points in the Australian league and barely got playing time.

I get being a teenager in a professional league is hard, but RJ Hampton did much better than that (was taken around the same pick 3 years earlier), and is already on the verge of being out the league. He is a currently a gleague player.

So why would you have faith in AJ Johnson? Because of a private workout and HS hype?

They say the one year college season sample size is too small to matter, but they dont push the commissioner to increase the age of the draft because they’d rather get the dudes in earlier.

So there are scenarios where 5* GG Jackson has an inconsistent season, gets taken in second round, and then looks like a steal for the Memphis grizzlies. Additionally, 5* Amari bailey has a strong freshman season, but because the family has been talking to NBA agents since he was old enough to drive, he decides to leave school after 1 year. He gets cut by the Hornets and is a 2way contract with the clippers right now. If dude stayed at UCLA one more year he could have been a top 20 pick this past season.

Careers are being ruined by impatience and greed. A lot of these can still hoop but they dont want to grow as players in college, have no desire to make the final four, and the parents could give af about their kid learning about the world around them in college. So they leave early every time, fearing injury risks and diminished standing in the eyes of executives.

 

[cookies]

Sorry 4 all the long winded posts lol. I just have a lot to say on this topic.

 

[cookies]

I grew up in the Baltimore area and was recruited to play on a premier travel ball team that was taking the stars from my area as well as south central PA and was going to be a powerhouse of guys. I turned them down and was made fun of because I was going to be missing out on everything.
I then recruited guys I played against from all over MD and put together a team for the summer and did our own traveling and tournaments. We scheduled a scrimmage with that travel team before the summer really kicked off, we were beating them by 20 after 2 innings and they walked off the field. My team went on to win pretty much everything we entered, with the help of a couple local sponsors

**** yeah that’s what’s up. I would have friends who would drive 1 to 3 hours to practice on one of the best aau teams in the country.

Nowadays a lot of elite aau teams don’t even practice together anymore. They just show up at the tournaments, and are liable to switch to a new program every offseason.

 

[cookies]

USAB tried to implement this dumbass rule when I was working/coaching at the YMCA. Not sure if it’s still in effect. They wanted the youngest age group, i believe it was 6-7 or 7-8 years old, to literally not keep score of the game. They just play 4 quarters but no score is kept and there is no winner or loser at the end of the game.

My friend was the ymca basketball director who hired me to coach and teach over there, and he was arguing with the guy who ran the YMCA about what’s going to happen next cycle when they actually have to keep score? What good is actually going to come out of this change? And he was fired for not agreeing with the mandate.

Other parents agreed with him and it didn’t matter. They said they wanna preach fundamentals and enjoyment in the game because it being too competitive was leading to kids dropping out of sports. Parents who had an issue with it were told that this isn’t aau/travel basketball, so they should not be overly focused on winning at the expense of playing the game the right way.

 

[cookies]

we have the population but are not providing them the venue.
What good is having all this population if only the middle class kids can get the training?

what good is having all these kids play basketball if only the ones that have the money can get access to the best coaching.

These travel squad coaches also gravitate to the players that have talent at whatever age group .

They anre anlso chasing success annd clout. And that’s a huge problem.
Evaluations are wrong even at the highest level. Despite high school and college film there are still nfl busts.

So these travel coaches select a few elite dudes to carry their teams and the rest are filler kids who can play.
Yes, the same thing was happening in high school. The difference is now you opened up the amount of kids that are playing which increases your talent pool exponentially.

That’s why high school football os full of athletes and high school soccer is **** poor.

You’re gonna start having travel basketball overtake the high school ranks. Trust me.

My kid was one of those filler kids in soccer. We switched to recreational when he was 9 and I’m telling you that there are tons of kids in rec that would have no problem making a travel squad. But they just can’t afford it.

Well I still feel that non-middle class kids can get good opportunities with help from families in better positions around them. I greatly miscalculated how large the selection bias at a youth level harms children who aren’t advanced yet.

In my experience hooping, I had a good amount of my friends who were poor & who had other families support them; leading to them getting college scholarships.

Brandon Ingram, Bam, Ant Edwards — all grew up in the lower class in bad situations. Jimmy Butler was saved by the kindness of other families because his mom kicked him out of the house.

Kevin Durant, Carmelo Anthony, Lebron James, Draymond Green — none of these dudes grew up in the middle class. Chris Boucher, Demar Derozan, Dwayne Wade, Derrick Rose, Dejounte Murray, and others — including a Bunch of the international dudes. Ja Morant didn’t pay for a trainer his dad trained him. Of course, his dad had a unique edge by getting to play with Ray Allen in HS.

However, you did convince me and I changed my position a lot after rereading your post as well as much research that backs up your claims.

I was vastly underestimating the economic consequences in favor of numerous cultural issues that i see. Certain families like Bam’s single mother will sacrifice to put her kid through basketball because he loves it. But a ton more each year are not even getting in the game like you said. & this isn’t a new thing — this started when I was still a jit (i am in my late 20s).

Additionally, i completely underestimated the youth scouting misses in pulling kids in to aau while talking about the professional misses. If the pros are missing a bunch, then the youth are likely missing even more. Didn’t even register in my mind to think of that.

Appreciate your post forreal. Hope my posts didn’t come off too tone deaf as it’s wack to just have middle class and up kids participating. I was just wrongly overly focusing on the cultural problems (less team practices, youth injuries because of overload, highlight driven era changing playing styles, sedentary lifestyle with video game industry growing, etc.) because of the exceptions I know/see without counting/being fully aware of the scope of the economic ones.

When did you start to see the shift? How long would you say this has been going on for? From what I now feel like I understand, it seems like it’s been a growing problem for twenty years, maybe longer.

I went to high school from 2010 to 2014. It was already more about AAU than HS back then. Especially from a college scholarship perspective. Now with the transfer portal there are even less D1 scholarships to go around because coaches are looking for quick fixes and are often having their own recruited players transfer. I think your Cam Ward statement is on the money. More like him will keep popping up across all sports.

College coaches and NBA scouts still go to HS games (NBA banned scouts/executives from attending most youth events until like 5-7 years ago), but they offer kids based on AAU performances. There are also certain player camps and ranking camps in the summer that matter a ton for scholarships / hype. A lot of them are shoe sponsored.

It has kind of been that way for a while for most D1 schools. D2/D3/Juco is about connections plus your HS coach getting your name out to who he knows. Post senior season there are a lot of camps where dudes get an opportunity to go to small d1 schools, NAIA, D2, JUCO, postgrad, etc. Ja Morant finished his senior szn without D1 offer iirc.

A friend of mine went to George Mason but that was because his dad grew up playing basketball with Coach L. Now, not to get it twisted, my friend was super nice. Just saying he had a connection to get scouted by a strong program.

 

[pacusmc]

Well I still feel that non-middle class kids can get good opportunities and help from families in better positions around them.

In my experience hooping, I had a good amount of my friends who were poor & who had other families support them; leading to them getting college scholarships.

Brandon Ingram, Bam, Ant Edwards — all grew up in the lower class in bad situations. Jimmy Butler was saved by the kindness of other families because his mom kicked him out of the house.

Kevin Durant, Carmelo Anthony, Lebron James, Draymond Green — none of these dudes grew up in the middle class. Chris Boucher, Demar Derozan, Dwayne Wade, Derrick Rose, Dejounte Murray, and others — including a Bunch of the international dudes.

However, you did convince me and I changed my position a lot after rereading your post as well as much research that backs up your claims.

I was vastly underestimating the economic consequences in favor of numerous cultural issues that i see. Certain families like Bam’s single mother will sacrifice to put her kid through basketball because he loves it. But a ton more each year are not even getting in the game like you said. & this isn’t a new thing — this started when I was still a jit (i am in my late 20s).

Additionally, i completely underestimated the youth scouting misses in pulling kids in to aau while talking about the professional misses. If the pros are missing a bunch, then the youth are likely missing even more. Didn’t even register in my mind to think of that.

Appreciate your post forreal. Hope my posts didn’t come off too tone deaf as it’s wack to just have middle class and up kids participating. I was just wrongly overly focusing on the cultural problems (less team practices, youth injuries because of overload, highlight driven era changing playing styles, sedentary lifestyle with video game industry growing, etc.) because of the exceptions I know/see without counting/being fully aware of the scope of the economic ones.

When did you start to see the shift? How long would you say this has been going on for? From what I now understand, it seems like it’s been a growing problem for twenty years, maybe longer.

In 1994 the entire USA men’s team was composed of homegrown players. If I’m not mistaken, almost all of them were d1 players. I don’t think any of them were raised overseas.

There is a documentary from ESPN called “Soccer Town USA”
During the late 80’s and early 90’s it was noted that a good chunk of players on the national team were coming from one city.

Kearny NJ.

It was blue collar town founded by Europeans. The kids played small local club football and they basically wore the same color t shirts as the uniform.
John Harks as from there and was one of the first American players to actually play pro ball in Europe. He wa so poor that he shared cleats with his older brother and poor newspaper in it to make them fit.
A kid who would never play on a travel team today.

The documentary goes in depth. They asked the players what their dream was. They all said it was to play for their local high school.

That sht is unheard of now in USA soccer. And so is a kid who played travel that can’t afford cleats.

High school soccer is literally laughed at by academy teams.
But if they were no academies they would have no choice but to play for their jr highs and high school.

 

[cookies]

In 1994 the entire USA men’s team was composed of homegrown players. If I’m not mistaken, almost all of them were d1 players. I don’t think any of them were raised overseas.

There is a documentary from ESPN called “Soccer Town USA”
During the late 80’s and early 90’s it was noted that a good chunk of players on the national team were coming from one city.

Kearny NJ.

It was blue collar town founded by Europeans. The kids played small local club football and they basically wore the same color t shirts as the uniform.
John Harks as from there and was one of the first American players to actually play pro ball in Europe. He wa so poor that he shared cleats with his older brother and poor newspaper in it to make them fit.
A kid who would never play on a travel team today.

The documentary goes in depth. They asked the players what their dream was. They all said it was to play for their local high school.

That sht is unheard of now in USA soccer. And so is a kid who played travel that can’t afford cleats.

High school soccer is literally laughed at by academy teams.
But if they were no academies they would have no choice but to play for their jr highs and high school.

Wow, that’s super interesting. Definitely going to check for that documentary.

 

[GojiraCane]

Is everybody catching up or are we just diluting athletic talent?

I haven’t followed the nba in a while so I began watching again in the playoffs.
The amount of foreign basketball players was intriguing. As of Oct 2023 there were 125 international players from about 40 foreign countries. And it’s not just average players. It’s all stars and mvp’s.

That’s crazy to think about for an old head like me. So what could be going on in the states that would have had such a drastic change n the landscape?

Was the talent in other countries always just as good and not discovered?

Is the talent in the US dwindling?

Has there been a dramatic decrease in the amount of youth participation?

Has there been a huge exodus of coaching to foreign nations?

Or is there something terribly wrong with the way the youth game is being played and coached, and or evaluated?

Is AAU pricing out the average player the same way academy soccer has basically made high school soccer irrelevant?

Maybe most in here don’t realize but D1 programs do not even recruit high school soccer anymore. They only recruit academy or travel soccer players.

Now imagine a world where Duke and Kentucky would only recruit AAU players because the high school game was so weakened simply because they priced out free basketball in school? What if all the best youth basketball coaches decided to just coach AAU?

The USA women’s soccer in the 80-90’s was an unstoppable international force.
Losing was an anomaly.
Even today, California alone has more registered soccer players than most European countries.
And yet you can no longer just pencil in a W for the women the way you used to. The difference then vs now…… academies and travel.

Also, news flash…. A nice amount of D1 women and men’s soccer are actually foreign players here on scholarship.
About 70 international women signed D1 LOI’s this year alone and about 60 on the men’s side.

Almost 15% of D1 basketball players are now international.


So despite the US having about 5 million youth soccer players, the coaches can’t find the talent and go outside the country to get players.
That sht is just a mind blowing to me.
And despite this AAU phenomenon and all the hype; d1 is 15 percent foreign? Wtf is going on?

The academy and travel system in soccer has disenfranchised so many talented young players simply cause they can’t pay to get that level of coaching.

US soccer has literally thrown money at the problem. But they throw it at these academies and training centers and not actually at trying to voucher or provide better coaching to players that can’t play. And it’s not working.

Despite having more US born players playing abroad than ever before, the just lost 5-1 to Colombia last week.
A team that they beat in the 94 World Cup.
That’s hundreds of millions of dollars, access to the best trainers and nutrition, money spent on world class coaching.
Yet 30 years later you’re getting a worse result against a Colombia team that is nowhere near as good as the 94 squad who was one of the favorites to win the World Cup that year.

I’ve seen some amazing players in travel when my son played U6 through U10.
Parents believed that those kids were “so special”.
Really? You know he’s the next messi huh
But some broke kid with a single mom doesn’t have the same talent or hasn’t been identified and never will be simply because he can’t afford it?

David Justice was just on a podcast and talked about travel baseball basically making inner city baseball obsolete to poor inner city kids and the number of young African Americans in the league in the 80’s to now is staggering.
In 1991 African Americans made up 18 percent of the league. Today it’s 6 percent.

Mookie Bets’ mom had to form her own team cause the local travel squad wouldn’t take him cause he was too small.
Altuve is a grown man at 5’6. I doubt any travel squad would take him. But maybe if he payed……
Both were mvp’s.

This ain’t a racial or a cultural thing. It’s an American youth issue. A lot of talent is being wasted and undiscovered because of money. And it doesn’t seem to be an issue in other countries the way it is here.

Both my sons played AAU; my younger more extensively. So many kids playing. But to be fair, almost everyone my son played with also played high school basketball. It was always fun to run into parents of one of his teammates who was playing for a rival high school.