My son is a rising senior playing on a top travel team this summer. There are probably 12 kids on the team who will end up with scholarships to D1 schools by the time the recruiting process is over.
The reason I bring this up is I cannot believe the amount of pressure that their high school coaches put on some (most) of these kids to come back from their tournament to play in a meaningless summer high school playoff game. There have been recruiters (and a few head coaches) from top schools at our travel games throughout the summer determining a player's future and in addition to the pressure these kids naturally feel from that situation they also have to deal with phone calls from high school coaches telling them how selfish they are because they don't drop everyone and come home to play in front of grandma (assuming she's not busy). It is the most unbelievable thing I have ever witnessed. Kids have been almost in tears after talking with their coaches. I know of one coach who pulled his hs team together to tell them before a game how selfish this one player is because he was not there and instead was playing with his travel team.
Don't believe for a moment that its only the lower level hs coaches who pull this stunt, the top hs teams coaches do the same. I know it first hand. The recruiting window is very small and the opportunities as we all know are few. The top 5% kids must get out there during the summer and play in front of the colleges and the hs ball must take a back seat (if at all). Think for a moment if the shoe was on the other foot; that is, a high teacher's professional development was affected by a short time frame in the summer. Think under this scenario that a hs administration telling the coach that instead of his future and professional development he must instead attend a meaningless optional event. The union bosses would be all over it and it would be handled in their next contract. These hs coaches get away with this nonsense simply because they can. My nephew in Coloradio was not allowed to play summer travel ball last year and his baseball career is over. Would his career be over if he was allowed to play travel ball during this important time in his life? Maybe, maybe not but he'll never know.
What I've wintessed this summer listening to parents and players (thankfullly its not my sons coach, he's been great)is nothing short of a scandal. If I was to give one piece of advice to 8th grade parents about your son's post high school dreams it would be check out your hs school coaches philosophy on travel ball, particularly the summer of his junior year. Its a make or break attitude that could affect his future more than anything else.