The Olympics come around every four years (or two if you count winter Olympics), the Women's World Cup just wrapped up and many parents are pondering how to allocate their resources as they decide which programs, camps or activities will ultimately serve their children best. Many families, especially in the Littleton area, focus on sports. Sports provide youth with exceptional life lessons including developing a habit of fitness, good sportsmanship, handling both loss and success with humility among many others, particularly if the child is fortunate to have a great coach. However, many students dedicate themselves to sports at the exclusion of supplemental educational programs which can be a mistake.
Sports are expensive
The cost of participating in a club or league sport is growing exponentially. Parents can spend upward of $700-1,000 per child per month per sport depending on the sport and whether the child is on a travel team or not. In one article in a San Francisco paper, parents reported spending up to $3,500 per year for their son to play summer and fall travel baseball; additional showcase tournaments cost $500 for a weekend slate of three games plus travel expenses (that was in 2013). Ice hockey is known to be the most expensive youth sport, averaging around $600 for basic equipment costs. High end skates can cost more than $1,000 dollars, and hockey sticks costing $280 dollars. According to a Utah State survey, a family can expect to spend an average of around $7,000 a year on youth ice hockey, with an upper limit that hits close to $20,000, especially if it involves you in traveling for ice hockey!
Dues at an elite volleyball club can run $3,500 per year with another $3,000 spent for travel. Club soccer dues can exceed $4,000 per year and uniforms, equipment and travel to distant tournaments are usually not included. Club gymnastics run upward of $1000 per month for competitive levels plus travel expenses for out of state meets and tournaments and the costs of beautiful leotards, warm ups and more.
Even school-based sports can get pricey. In high school, my daughter switched to high school volleyball.Even though the season occurs in the fall, by early July that summer we had already spent nearly $600 in gear, clinic fees, camp fees and recreational league fees to help her prepare over the summer. Plus, there is a team trip and tryouts planned for August at about $400 per girl. This was just to play at level 3, not even varsity - many of which players also pay for private coaching and year-round club teams to maintain and hone their skills!
Why pay so much for sports?
Why do parents pay so much for their kids to play sports? One reason I paid for my daughter to play volleybal, tennis (and when she was younger, gymnastics) was the experiences, friendships and life lessons she gained from being involved in a sport. I recall my own high school years and my efforts at volleyball, track and basketball until I finally found my love of soccer. I understand, however, that many parents are also banking on their child getting athletic scholarships to help offset the cost of their college education.
One dedicated man, who runs the blog Stats Dad, kept track of the rising sports costs, and found that his average annual spending per child playing youth sports jumped from $9,076 in 2010 to $11,704 in 2011.
In another article in the NY Times, professional athletes John Amaechi, Mike Trombley, and Travis Dorsch were interviewed. These three men represent the dreams of many children — and more often their parents. They excelled in the three sports many children play, basketball, baseball and football, used that ability to play in college (and often pay for their college education) and then had lucrative professional careers. However, these three athletes, now in their 30s and 40s and from very different backgrounds, agree on one thing: The way youth sports are played today bears no resemblance to their childhoods, and the money, time and energy parents spend is probably misplaced.
Mark Hyman, an assistant professor at George Washington University who has written books on youth sports, said that parents whose goal is to give their children the best chance in life or to get them a scholarship to college were not looking at the statistics.
“Parents think these investments [in sports] are justified; they think it will lead to a full ride to college,” he said. “That’s highly misinformed. The percentage of high school kids who go on to play in college is extremely small. In most sports it’s under 5 percent. And the number for kids getting school aid is even smaller — it’s 3 percent.”
His advice? “What I tell parents is if you want to get a scholarship for your kids, you’re better off investing in a biology tutor than a quarterback coach,” he said. “There’s much more school dollars for academics.”
What should you do?
Continue to support your child in athletics, but approach the experience with a bit of realism. Don't count on athletic scholarships paying for their post high school education. Augment both their sports experience and their education with a good, supplemental program to hone their knowledge and skills, especially in the area of math. Math will continue to be a vital component for students wishing to continue their education after high school and to be important for the top paying careers of the future. According to an article in Kiplinger, the top college majors for a lucrative career include: computer science, actuarial mathematics, food science, nursing, finance, statistics, engineering, economics, Information Technology, software engineering and management information systems. Most of these require some math in addition to the four years of high school math needed just to get into college.
So? What should you do, especially if your child is one of the majority of students who don't love math? Bolster their skills and confidence with a supplemental math program like Mathnasium.
Find out more at MathnasiumofLittleton.com or call us or text us at 303-979-9077. A description of our Memberships and Membership Guide can be found here.
For more reading about these topics check out these articles:
//www.sfgate.com/sports/article/Paying-to-play-is-new-normal-for-youth-athletes-4902034.php
//www.nytimes.com/2015/01/17/your-money/rising-costs-of-youth-sports.html
//www.forbes.com/sites/johnclarke/2012/08/29/that-sucking-sound-is-just-your-kid-playing-soccer/
//www.mathnasium.com/www-mathnasium-com-littleton-news-is-your-child-math-ready-for-college-
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