@JucoDad posted:It’s easy to become obsessive about sports and specifically youth sports if you’re a parent of a successful athlete, ergo this site…
My perspective is baseball and swimming, and swimming doesn’t grab hold of the athletes and parents anything like baseball. Maybe swimming is more definable, your times define your college options. Or maybe it’s because there’s no pro job possibility at the end of the amateur run. There’s always politics, but in swimming I never saw a group of dads standing away from the other parents critiquing the coach or lamenting why that kid is swimming that event (LOL). Swimming is also a long wait to watch your kid compete for a few minutes…
Whatever the reason, baseball is different; athletes, parents and coaches seem to get sucked into baseball vortex – heaven forbid you’re the former athlete, parent, and coach trifecta! Even former pro players are not vortex immune: In Tomball Texas you could go to Charlie Hayes’ Big-League Academy and watch Charlie, Jessie Barfield, and Mike Jackson work lessons in adjoining tunnels (better have thick skin, because they didn’t mince words). Something like 45+ years of MLB experience between them, pretty sure they’d be doing something else if it weren’t profitable. However, all three are members of the former athlete, parent, and coach trifecta, so maybe the pull to stay in the game is too strong… Whatever the case, Charlie’s son Ke’Bryan is with the Pirates and inked a $70M contract at 25 years old, so I’m sure there are no regrets.
Hayes’ facility aside, I know 4 dads, all former college players, of talented baseball players that put teams together for their sons (501c non-profits). All 4 morphed into organizations, with 2 still in existence 8 years after their sons finished HS (THZ (The Hitting Zone) and CSR (Cotton Sports Ranch). Are they profitable? No clue...
However, in Texas with the sheer number of organizations; Banditos, D-BAT, Stix, Mizuno, Hunter Pence, Rawlings, DeMarini, Kyle Chapman, Houston Heat are just a few I can remember, somebody must be turning a profit.
I would agree, as I have a swimmer too. I think it's concrete reality for parents to easily know what level of swimmer they have based on time results. It's the same with runners. It's also easier to know in something like tennis because it's one vs one. In baseball though it's a lot more difficult for a parent to grasp their child's ability. A unathletic kid can play on a baseball team and not look completely terrible because they may never see the ball while in the field and players strike out all the time. Also we all know those showcase warriors out there who can produce spectacular numbers, but it doesn't necessarily mean they're a great ball player. So I think the difficulty of evaluating a player's ability and also their projectability sort of fuels the drama that seems to occur with baseball as compared to other youth sports. That's just my opinion though.