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

[GojiraCane]

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.

I went to the Bigfoot tournament in 2015 as my older son's team was traveling to Las Vegas to play there. I saw Coach K there scouting Udoka Azubuike of the Georgia Stars.

 

[pacusmc]

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.

But there in lies the problem. The AAU kids are getting extra coaching that other kids aren’t getting simply because they can pay.
As a parent who can afford it I would say too bad it’s my son and my money.
But extra coaching doesn’t guarantee a **** thing.
And a kid who can’t afford it may just be the next goat.

So the question has to be asked.
Why is America with all these athletes and money and training and extra coaching and private coaching not getting players that other countries are producing with much less population and resources?
What is it that they’re doing that we aren’t?

Why is the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico dominating baseball? What could they possibly be coaching there that we aren’t?

DR and PR have a combined population of 13 million. California alone is 39 million with a ridiculous amount of youth baseball being played.

I guarantee you that those kids play a lot………… on their own. Every day.
No coaches. No parents. Just old school sand lot.
The same thing in the Brazilian favelas with soccer.
The same thing with the old school basketball courts with no nets. The old rusty chains that would give you tetanus in the playground.

These kids in America fall in love with the attention. The clout. The stars. They aren’t falling in love with the game.

They complain about shoes and the ball. The field being to bumby.

African kids are playing with used cleats from UNICEF on clay dirt.
They don’t have an out. They don’t have coaching or training. They just play everyday on whatever surface on whatever wether with whatever shoes or even barefooted. And when they do get a coach the soak it all in.
If he says tuck your elbow in. They fckng tuck that elbow in.
If the say “head fake like this”. They do that sht.
They just love to play. And thank god that someone with any knowledge is helping them.
American kids? “You didn’t even play college ball, why are you even here coaching”.

 

[GojiraCane]

But there in lies the problem. The AAU kids are getting extra coaching that other kids aren’t getting simply because they can pay.
As a parent who can afford it I would say too bad it’s my son and my money.
But extra coaching doesn’t guarantee a **** thing.
And a kid who can’t afford it may just be the next goat.

So the question has to be asked.
Why is America with all these athletes and money and training and extra coaching and private coaching not getting players that other countries are producing with much less population and resources?
What is it that they’re doing that we aren’t?

Why is the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico dominating baseball? What could they possibly be coaching there that we aren’t?

DR and PR have a combined population of 13 million. California alone is 39 million with a ridiculous amount of youth baseball being played.

I guarantee you that those kids play a lot………… on their own. Every day.
No coaches. No parents. Just old school sand lot.
The same thing in the Brazilian favelas with soccer.
The same thing with the old school basketball courts with no nets. The old rusty chains that would give you tetanus in the playground.

These kids in America fall in love with the attention. The clout. The stars. They aren’t falling in love with the game.

They complain about shoes and the ball. The field being to bumby.

African kids are playing with used cleats from UNICEF on clay dirt.
They don’t have an out. They don’t have coaching or training. They just play everyday on whatever surface on whatever wether with whatever shoes or even barefooted. And when they do get a coach the soak it all in.
If he says tuck your elbow in. They fckng tuck that elbow in.
If the say “head fake like this”. They do that sht.
They just love to play. And thank god that someone with any knowledge is helping them.
American kids? “You didn’t even play college ball, why are you even here coaching”.

I'll tell you what I observed.

There is a ton of churn in most AAU programs. Kids are chasing clout in some cases, but more importantly entering the proverbial "transfer portal" to get to the best team. There are also coaches out there who are more invested in chasing clout than actually coaching.

Combine the two and you have a number of teams that are not practicing enough and when they play, have players who engage in wanton hero ball. That's actually the biggest difference I've seen with all of the AAU games my son participated in versus middle and high school basketball.

 

[cookies]

I went to the Bigfoot tournament in 2015 as my older son's team was traveling to Las Vegas to play there. I saw Coach K there scouting Udoka Azubuike of the Georgia Stars.

Las Vegas is a huge hotspot for college scouting. Two or three weekends there every summer change many kids’ lives.

 

[cookies]

I'll tell you what I observed.

There is a ton of churn in most AAU programs. Kids are chasing clout in some cases, but more importantly entering the proverbial "transfer portal" to get to the best team. There are also coaches out there who are more invested in chasing clout than actually coaching.

Combine the two and you have a number of teams that are not practicing enough and when they play, have players who engage in wanton hero ball. That's actually the biggest difference I've seen with all of the AAU games my son participated in versus middle and high school basketball.

High school basketball is so much more structured than AAU. It’s not even close. AAU teams can’t install offenses/defenses etc.

My middle school high school team had a 2 hour practice every weekday, sometimes on Saturdays, unless we had a game.

However, the college coaches prefer to scout AAU games because it is their offseason and the shoe sponsorship leagues conjugate players so the overall talent level is higher albeit the game is much more unorganized.

 

[JD08]

This is more Off Topic than Town Hall, so I'm moving it.