travel teams during high school season

Not in Virginia

To my knowledge not in most states, but becoming popular in CA. 

Never give up the HS opportunity if given, it still is a very important component of the process.

I was curious , son is getting invites from travel teams that are playing in the spring.

This is even trickling over to IL.  A travel team, Gravel Baseball, is doing the year-round thing and starting to get HS players to join and not play for their school.  Needless to say, HS coaches are NOT happy.  You can read article about it here:

http://heraldnews.suntimes.com...igh-school-ball.html

TPM mentioned this is happening in CA. I've seen that, too ... and I hate to see it spreading. I know here in TX, there are some who'd like to go this route, either because the quality of HS play isn't up to their expectations, or HS coaches insist on boys playing on specific summer teams. I think quality of play is the wrong reason to go in this direction, but I do understand the pushback on HS coaches insisting boys be on their summer teams. I hope THAT trend dies completely.

From what I understand, the biggest barrier is getting fields for travel ball in the spring. Even here in DFW, where there is no shortage, high schools are unlikely to let travel ball teams use their fields in the spring.

I agree jp24. Given my son gets to play for whomever he wants in the summer he would not give up the opportunity to represent his school during the spring. 

Interesting article.  My son played on a showcase team from the northwest up here that played that team in the semis of the 15U PG World Series last summer.  Good team, but MAN they did a lot of traveling.

Good points on both side raised in the article.  I have to think that if the HS coaches had been even just a little flexible about the way they run their summer programs, this wouldn't have happened.  And the coaches' holier-than-thou attitudes about being the only way a kid can develop as a player and a person is hogwash.

All that said, I'm with BackstopDad32 - given that my son's HS coach lets the kids do whatever they want during the summer, I would probably opt out of that kind of opportunity, tempting though it is.

Wow. Let's take some more shots at high school coaches, shall we? How come it always resorts to this nonsense?

Club coaches are out to make money and if you can't see that, then take your blinders off for a minute!

Club sports are ruining sports. I've said it numerous times. It's time parents and athletes figure that out! I wish I could tell the numerous tales of injuries we are dealing with that can be directly correlated to club sports.

It's not a shot at HS coaches.  It is a shot at HS coaches who think they should be able to control their players' choices outside of their season (whether that be preventing them from playing summer baseball for another coach, or insisting on participation in off-season workouts that interfere with a player's ability to play another HS sport).  And while I don't disagree with your point that some travel ball coaches are "out to make money," for most if not all of them, that is not their only purpose and many do a very good job at developing their players and getting them good exposure.  Also, that is clearly not what the coach of the Gravel team in the article I was talking about is doing, since the entire operation is underwritten by a sponsor and all of the players' expenses are covered.

I am not defending what Gravel is doing, or the practice of abandoning high school sports for club sports, but simply observing that if high school coaches had not been so inflexible and insistent about participation in their summer programs, Gravel likely never would have pursued the path they did.  Like it or not, club sports are here to stay, and HS coaches have to come to grips with the reality that they aren't the only game in town anymore - or even the most important part of the process of getting kids to the next level.  Most HS coaches that I know have gotten used to that idea (and I was a HS assistant coach until last year) and have adapted.  Those that haven't or won't are inviting such problems, IMO.

Bulldog -- I for one, love the HS experience for my son -- as I suspect we all do. That said, do you think if it were left SOLELY to HS baseball coaches, PG and similar organizations would even exist? And isn't it a GOOD thing that they exist? One does not REPLACE the other ... it complements it. Most GOOD travel ball organizations respect and appreciate HS baseball. That's my experience -- but I'm in Texas, not Illinois, like you.

It doesn't have to be either/or ... but the trend SEEMS to be that it's a few misguided HS coaches who are drawing a hard line -- not travel ball organizations. And certainly not the majority of HS coaches. What am I missing here??

In St. Louis what a handfull of kids are doing this year is playing in the PG spring league in Iowa.  PG started this league as the IA schools don't begin HS play unitl summer.  Its a good alternative if you don't want to or can't play for your high school team.  In Missouri, during the HS season, you can't do anything with club/travel teams and still play HS so there really are no events or good leagues to play in so the PG League is a good alternative.     

Want to try that again? Baseball is headed down the same path that soccer has taken if we're not careful. Club teams will become an 11-month adventure and will eliminate the ability to play for the high school. Girls soccer has started it now too. Johnj314 could probably tell us who from St. Louis is playing up in Iowa instead of playing for his high school team. I was told a name, but don't remember now.

I have had multiple instances this spring of athletes playing in tournaments when they had no business doing so. They would not have been allowed to by myself or my high school coaches, but the club coaches convinced them it was necessary.. and they did.

Seems easy enough. You bail on your HS team, you're done. Sorry you're not at a school with coaches who have the you-know-whats to enforce it.  

And to be clear, Bulldog: I think almost everyone is ALL FOR sticking with your HS team in-season. It's the off-seasons that are the real cause of the problem here.

While I would agree that most feel this way but to Bulldog's point I was surprised when my son told me earlier this year that the girls soccer team lost a district game because 5 starters had to be in Dallas at a club tourney that started on a Friday. Now that is crazy to me.