Heelan frosh tries Florida sports school

kmajhawk said:
All well and good for Pop and Mom OK4P because their spawn were model children. But what if your brother was sort of a hellion, got to college, had a few scrapes but nothing serious, impregnated an athlete in another college sport, thought in the spring he was going to play but by the time fall rolled around circumstances dictated that he would not play, transferred to another school hundreds of miles away, then dropped out before the start of school with all sorts of academic, financial and family obligations, and in general caused all sorts of tension, disruption and embarrassment within your family, to the point that your father more or less disowned your brother? Think Mom and Pop might want a different environment for their youngest son?
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Again, I think you're missing the point. This is freaking high school. I totally get if they don't want the kid to go to Iowa. Makes total sense. But what this family is doing is akin to the day my brother came home from Iowa State with his black boyfriend and announced to the world he was gay my parents then deciding to pull me out of Urbandale and sending me to Dowling so I could pray the gay away or something ridiculous. I mean, my mom was 16 when she had my bro, so she wasn't exactly gonna judge had he knocked up some gal, even if it brought shame on the family, but the gay card with the black boyfriend was a tougher pill to swallow. However, my mom, despite having but a 9th grade education, was smart enough to know that me and my bro are vastly different people, as I suspect these youngsters are vastly different people. They prolly just want to protect junior from the spotlight and constant comparisons to his brother that will be very difficult to match or exceed. Ultimately, providing all kinds of structure when the kid is 14-18 is unlikely to have any bearing on his self-control when/if he hits a BCS campus as a big time recruit. It's just a total shelter from the real world.
 
There is a big reason why this Florida thing is a scam compared to Club academies in Europe: In Europe, you have to try out to enter an academy, and in the Wegher scam, you have to pay.

$66,000!

That's per year. Oh, and it is run by sports agents, for profit.

OK4P hit the nail on the head, it is used to exploit ambitious parents with too much money into thinking that this will separate their precious crotch-fruit from the pack and get them rich. If the agents running that camp seriously thought it worked, they would let kids in for free in exchange for a cut of their future earnings.

As it stands, they are charging you Ivy League prices to have Chris Weinke as your high school football coach.
 
GhostofBTT said:
Why hasn't anyone pointed out that this "academy" is obviously a freaking scam?
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How is it a "scam"? It's expensive, but if people are paying, that's capitalism brah. AJ Derby trained at the same place, by the way.

No parent is being "exploited" here. The kids, perhaps, depends on how serious the academic side is.

However, I award you 37 points for the crotch-fruit reference.
 
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GhostofBTT said:
There is a big reason why this Florida thing is a scam compared to Club academies in Europe: In Europe, you have to try out to enter an academy, and in the Wegher scam, you have to pay.

$66,000!

That's per year. Oh, and it is run by sports agents, for profit.

OK4P hit the nail on the head, it is used to exploit ambitious parents with too much money into thinking that this will separate their precious crotch-fruit from the pack and get them rich. If the agents running that camp seriously thought it worked, they would let kids in for free in exchange for a cut of their future earnings.

As it stands, they are charging you Ivy League prices to have Chris Weinke as your high school football coach.
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Yep. The Chinese also confiscate gifted children to field their olympic teams, but they aren't making them shell out $66k per year for access to Mary Lou Retton's Chinese counterpart.

Sports are placed on such a high pedestal and results can be quick and somewhat tangible (junior just moved up the rankings, junior's team won a game or tournament, etc.) that middle class and upper middle class parents view it as a ticket to the good life for junior. Growing junior's brain power is a much longer process and the tangible gold stars are much harder to obtain, but the need for instant gratification arising out of these sports scams demonstrate why in 2 generations the middle class and upper middle class in this country will be predominantly Asian and Indian. Unless their kids truly excel at some pursuit, they aren't going to forego the books.
 
Billso said:
How is it a "scam"? It's expensive, but if people are paying, that's capitalism brah. AJ Derby trained at the same place, by the way.

No parent is being "exploited" here. The kids, perhaps, depends on how serious the academic side is.

However, I award you 37 points for the crotch-fruit reference.
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AJ Derby trained there? Holy crap, so his parents spent tens of thousands of dollars to get him a full ride scholarship to Iowa which then led to a lucrative community college transfer. That was money well spent. Oh well, the epic fail that he suffered at a young age will help him in his future endeavors whether they are used car sales, variable annuity sales or door to door vacuum cleaner/encyclopedia sales. I rescind everything negative I said about this sort of academy above.
 
okeefe4prez said:
Again, I think you're missing the point. This is freaking high school. I totally get if they don't want the kid to go to Iowa. Makes total sense. But what this family is doing is akin to the day my brother came home from Iowa State with his black boyfriend and announced to the world he was gay my parents then deciding to pull me out of Urbandale and sending me to Dowling so I could pray the gay away or something ridiculous. I mean, my mom was 16 when she had my bro, so she wasn't exactly gonna judge had he knocked up some gal, even if it brought shame on the family, but the gay card with the black boyfriend was a tougher pill to swallow. However, my mom, despite having but a 9th grade education, was smart enough to know that me and my bro are vastly different people, as I suspect these youngsters are vastly different people. They prolly just want to protect junior from the spotlight and constant comparisons to his brother that will be very difficult to match or exceed. Ultimately, providing all kinds of structure when the kid is 14-18 is unlikely to have any bearing on his self-control when/if he hits a BCS campus as a big time recruit. It's just a total shelter from the real world.
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Oh, come on. Don't you think this Florida academy offers better training and structure than Fort Dodge Senior High? Or were you a St. Ed's guy?
 
Agree with OK4P. According to the article linked in my response only 2% of scholarships are athletic. That means if the goal is to get your kid into college under scholarship and not try to try to redeem your own lack of athleticism via your child, then money spent on tutors or additional scholarly activities are a much, much better investment. Sadly, parents don't get it. We cheer more for a touchdown or a home run than we do a medical breakthrough that saves thousands of lives in this country. Priorities are upside down.
8 things you should know about sports scholarships - CBS News
 
Billso said:
How is it a "scam"? It's expensive, but if people are paying, that's capitalism brah. AJ Derby trained at the same place, by the way.

No parent is being "exploited" here. The kids, perhaps, depends on how serious the academic side is.

However, I award you 37 points for the crotch-fruit reference.
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Well its obvious the place is legit as AJ couldnt beat out the worst quarterback or his back up in Iowa history
 
The top soccer club down here is constantly preaching to parents how they can make their kids better and get them college schollies. There are only 9.9 soccer scholarships for men and 14 for women at the DI level, so that means your son or daughter will still have to pay for part of their tuition. If parents would take those thousands of dollars a year they are spending on club soccer and invest it they would have a better chance of paying for school than relying on an athletic scholarship.

Too many kids these days are also getting burnt out on playing sports constantly and never having a chance to have a "life" outside of sports. I've spoken to a couple of college soccer coaches in passing that are not happy with the current club system because of the burnout of players who end up not wanting to play in college. My daughter plays club basketball and we have been known to skip an occasional practice or choose not to participate in a tournament so that she can just hang out with friends or rest.
 
atxhawk said:
The top soccer club down here is constantly preaching to parents how they can make their kids better and get them college schollies. There are only 9.9 soccer scholarships for men and 14 for women at the DI level, so that means your son or daughter will still have to pay for part of their tuition. If parents would take those thousands of dollars a year they are spending on club soccer and invest it they would have a better chance of paying for school than relying on an athletic scholarship.

Too many kids these days are also getting burnt out on playing sports constantly and never having a chance to have a "life" outside of sports. I've spoken to a couple of college soccer coaches in passing that are not happy with the current club system because of the burnout of players who end up not wanting to play in college. My daughter plays club basketball and we have been known to skip an occasional practice or choose not to participate in a tournament so that she can just hang out with friends or rest.
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This same topic of burn out was discussed on The Predicament's Youth Wrestling board. With both of our boys wrestling, we are doing things to keep it fun for them and not burn them out at this early age!
 
PackHawk said:
I thought Derby joined the academy after Iowa?
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Correct. He trained at the IMG center, he didn't attend high school there - that's the new $66k program kicking off this year.

If IMG has any marketing sense, they'll give ample full-ride schollies to hard-core athletes who couldn't otherwise afford it, to guarantee a track record of college rides. Sons of wealthy white dudes ain't gonna be enough.
 
The necessity of sport specialization depends on the sport.

If you want to be an elite gymnast or hockey player, you better start playing pretty intensely by age 5 or 6, preferably 4. For baseball, you have to start young, but don't need to specialize until much later.

If you want to be an elite wrestler or basketball player, you are fine with starting the sport in the 4th grade, perhaps a bit later. If you want to be an elite football player, for the majority of positions there isn't much advantage to specializing at all before high school.

And of course your ceiling in sports, especially baseball, football and basketball, are hugely dependent upon genetics, there is no reason to specialize at all unless the kid flashes remarkable talent from an early age.
 
Billso said:
If IMG has any marketing sense, they'll give ample full-ride schollies to hard-core athletes who couldn't otherwise afford it, to guarantee a track record of college rides. Sons of wealthy white dudes ain't gonna be enough.
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I am sure they will do that. If in a few years, their promotional literature doesn't have prominent college athletes to brag up, it will be harder to scam construction yokels in South Dakota to shell out Ivy League tuition for football camp.

Chances are that some scholarships will be offered to some top prospects not only to get pub, but if this team doesn't dominate their HS league, no one will want to pay for it either.
 
The biggest impact on how kids turn out is their peer group. I'd rather have my kids peers be elite rich athletes than the proles in Sioux City
 
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