Stop Coaching Your 9-Year-Old's Travel Team Like It's Their Ticket to College Sports
The Facts
Only 7% of high schoolers play college sports
Less than 2% get an academic scholarship (yes, academic — not athletic)
2% of high school athletes earn athletic scholarships- partial or full
Fewer than 1 in 200 athletes ever go pro
Your kid makes the travel team. As a parent of athletes, I understand there's a fine line between setting a standard and setting expectations for your child's performance. Parents will say things like "I'm instilling hard work and discipline, so I have high expectations when they compete" — cool. The problem is when you're managing your 9-year-old's schedule like they're already on the path to go pro, that's not the same thing. You're driving toward the wrong outcome — and the research backs that up.
Research consistently shows that kids who play multiple sports, who are allowed to lose without a postmortem in the car, and who actually enjoy practice show higher self-esteem and lower anxiety and depression. The kids pushed into early single-sport specialization show the opposite: higher burnout, higher anxiety, higher dropout.
One caveat, because I'm not going to pretend the research is one-size-fits-all: a handful of sports — gymnastics, figure skating, diving — genuinely require early specialization, since athletes have a shorter window to acquire and master elite-level skills. If your kid is in one of those, this isn't aimed at you.
For everyone else — the goal shouldn't be to build a kid's resume at nine. It should be to build a kid who still wants to play at 16.
Athletes thrive on a balance of work ethic, resilience, accountability, and a healthy mindset — without you accidentally damaging their outlook on those very things. No one strikes that balance perfectly, 100% of the time. But you get closer by checking in with your athlete to genuinely understand how they're feeling, and by leaning on other parents who have the same concerns. Oh, and read my blog — I can help too! Let's build a community of parents who deeply care about their kid's well-being and are just trying to figure it out.
Read this next: What to say to your child after a tough competition.
Lorraine Eloms | Top Speed Athletics & Mental Performance and Life Coaching — helping young athletes develop the mental and emotional tools to compete, grow, and thrive.
