Why We Keep Showing Up: The True Value of Youth Travel Sports
My take on the hidden benefits of youth travel sports.
My first year playing AAA hockey was when I was in 8th grade. Had I known that we would end up going 0-38-2 that year, I probably wouldn’t have even tried out. And that would have been a huge mistake.
Not a typo. We were 0-38-2. We probably had no business being on the ice against some of those teams. At 14, I was immature and naive, just trying to play the next game, not really giving a whole lot of thought to the monumental outlay of time, effort and money that season cost. Half of our games were in Michigan, a minimum five hour drive. Between the gas, food, hotels, etc., I have no idea what my parents spent to watch us eke out two ties.
You’d think they would have said after that season: “Ok, fun experiment but we are all done here.” Instead, they encouraged me to tryout again, and I did, and I made it. I played AAA hockey all the way through high school (and our second season went much better than the first one—-we even made the playoffs).
Looking back now, as my 14 year old daughter is entering high school, I realize how impactful those hockey weekends were and how grateful I am to my parents for encouraging me to continue even after that first season.
I don’t really remember the losses. What I do remember are the long car rides talking about everything from school to music to hockey to work to family and everything in between. I remember finding a church on Sundays in whatever town we were in. I remember waking up early and seeing my Dad working by the dim desk lamp in the hotel room trying to catch up on work his missed on the Friday so he could drive me to games. I remember going out to dinner with my friends and some great hockey families. I remember always getting back to the hotel room in time to watch Saturday night live, and to this day some of the skits put me right back in those hotel rooms laughing with my Dad so hard we were both crying. I remember the time I forgot my skates when we were in Detroit (yes…my skates) and after we bought new ones I had to wear them around the hotel to break them in.
The memories are priceless. But more than that, travel sports provided me with a set of tools that I still use every day to try to be a great father, husband, attorney, friend, and coach. And now that I’m the parent spending tons of time and money on my kids’ travel sports, I’m watching them develop the same set of tools.
Is it “worth it?”
That depends.
There are countless ways to provide life skills and life lessons to our kids. Travel sports aren’t the only way, and they’re not for every family. But they do offer something unique: a combination of competition, commitment, travel, and teamwork that’s hard to replicate elsewhere.
Ultimately, the “is it worth it?” question comes down to two things:
- Does your child truly love the sport?
- Are the motivations pure?
Are they having fun?
Figuring out whether your child is having fun with a sport is usually pretty easy. If they don’t complain when it’s time to go, if they are smiling and laughing when they are playing and if they are happy when they are done, they’re likely having fun! And if they are having fun playing rec soccer, or baseball or hockey, odds are they will continue to have fun playing the travel versions of those sports.
But fun is only half the answer to the first question. The commitment (from both parents and the kid) for travel sports is a lot, in terms of time, effort, money, and disruption to your schedule. If the child does not love the sport, then what was once a fun thing to do on a Saturday morning becomes not so fun anymore, and then you have frustrated kids and frustrated parents with less time and less money on their hands. Not great.
But if your kid loves the sport, then your kid is going to give (in a way) the same level of commitment as you, the parent, to the whole travel sports thing. I knew my girls loved competitive cheer when they asked to stop playing soccer and stop going to gymnastics and add more tumbling and cheer practices. When it came time to make a decision about whether to sign them up for full year Elite All-Star cheer, we told them if they made that commitment it would be their only sport. Enthusiastic yeses, and they’ve never looked back. Same with our son and hockey. Offered and played other sports, would gladly drop them to play more hockey (and has).
But it’s not necessarily about choosing one sport, it’s also a drive to improve. Loving a sport doesn’t just mean having fun playing (although it does mean that too). It means loving the process of getting better, of struggling and failing and then succeeding to throw a tuck or finally getting that pesky outside edge to bite during a crossover. Loving a sport means you love all of it, even the frustration and the pain and losing and the practices. All of it. So if you have a kid that loves a sport like that, you’re halfway there.
Motivation Matters
Why are you signing your child up for travel sports? If the answer is anything other than to give my child a fulfilling, challenging, rewarding, demanding, exciting, unfamiliar, and memorable experience, then don’t. If the motivation for travel sports is what your chid might achieve (college scholarship, turning pro), that’s not doing it for them, that’s doing it for you. If the motivation is because you want to give them the chance you never had, that’s not doing it for them, that’s doing it for you. If the motivation is because it seems like everyone else is and that’s just what you’re “supposed to do”, that’s not doing it for them, that’s doing it because you’re too scared of the crowd and of being left out. If you’re being honest and you’re doing it because you like to tell people your son plays AAA hockey, c’mon you’re not doing it for your kid you’re doing it for you.
The interesting test is to ask yourself this question. If you knew with 100% certainty that they were NOT going to get a scholarship or go pro, that everyone else who signs up with you now won’t continue, and that you are not allowed to talk or brag to your friends about it, BUT the experience of playing travel sports would give your chid a set of life skills that would serve them tremendously in whatever field they ultimately choose, would you still sign them up? If the honest answer is yes, then it’ll be worth every mile and every dollar.
The “Hidden” Benefits of Sports Travel
Travel in and of itself is great, and it is a fantastic tool for bringing people together. It shifts your mindset, gets you out of routines, creates shared experiences, and forges lasting memories. Youth sports travel does even more than that. It’s travel, so it has all the elements of mindset shifting, breaking routines and making memories, but it’s not the same kind of travel as a vacation. When you have to travel for your child’s sports team or activity they are involved in, it’s often inconvenient, short, not an exotic location, and disruptive to everyone’s schedules. Traveling to Buffalo in the middle of January for a hockey tournament is not most people’s idea of a vacation.
💡I’m calling it “Sports” Travel, but really the same effect occurs for any regular youth activity travel, whether it is sports, academic competitions, theater, or other activities.
But that’s exactly why it’s so impactful. What seem like the negatives of sports travel are actually, in the long run, the positives. The hard parts about sport travel are actually what provide some of the best life tools for our kids:
Work Ethic and Discipline
Kids learn work ethic and discipline, not just from their coaches or in practice, but from having to balance their school work, friends, and sports travel. Sometimes my kids have to turn down invitations from friends because we are away or they have practice. But they understand the commitment and the level of discipline they’ve promised to their teammates. As they get older and the commitments shift from travel sports to college and/or their career and/or their own family, that same discipline will help them understand the importance of priorities and how to follow through on their commitments.
The work ethic that develops from travel sports is difficult to recreate in other contexts. Kids learn pretty quickly that if they don’t work hard, things get harder. If they don’t work hard in practice, that upcoming competition in Indianapolis is not going to end well. If they don’t work hard to get their homework done ahead of time, that car ride back is really not going to be fun. I’ve watched my girls learn how to manage all this leading up to cheer weekends in a way that makes me confident they can handle all the juggling that life will require of them.
The flip side of the work ethic and discipline is the appreciation for downtime. Kids who play travel sports typically don’t have as much downtime because they are out of school, right to practice, home for dinner and homework, etc. So when that downtime comes, they appreciate it so much more and they want to do something meaningful with it. I’ve found that when we have a Friday night with nothing to do and nowhere to travel, my kids want to go to the high school football game with their friends, or out to dinner with their grandparents or they want to stay home and have a game night. They usually are not just using downtime to lay on the couch or be on their phones. When they get a break, they want to really enjoy it.
Lastly (and kids won’t say this), but they watch how their parents handle situations and how they act and how they balance all the responsibilities of work, home, and travel sports. I am now the parent working early in the morning or late at night by the table lamp in the hotel room and I know my kids notice just like I did when I was their age.
Focus
It’s one thing for a child to learn how to focus before a game, test, match or competition. It’s quite another to practice that same focus and get prepared to play their best in unfamiliar surroundings, in an unfamiliar city, staying in an unfamiliar hotel, etc. But having your child in those circumstances or even being a little uncomfortable isn’t bad parenting; it’s teaching them a valuable life skill.
That feeling—of forcing yourself to block out the unfamiliar surroundings and focusing on getting ready to play and doing your best—means the transition to a new school becomes easier, or moving into college is just a little bit less daunting. Their first job interview in a new city with interviewers they’ve never met in a building they’ve never stepped foot in before is not as intimidating as it might be otherwise, because they can deploy that familiar tactic learned in their childhood on their weekends away.
Exposure
Travel opens our minds to other cultures and other possibilities, and sports travel is no different. Maybe all those plane rides to Florida for cheerleading Summit and Worlds result in my girls feeling like Florida isn’t all that far away and therefore maybe they don’t hesitate to apply to college there. Maybe my son ends up taking that internship in Boston when he’s older because he’s been there a bunch of times on hockey trips and isn’t that intimidated by the idea of living there.
Aside from allowing them to see new places, traveling with your kids multiple times a year for sports travel teaches your kids how to travel (I learned how to read a map on hockey trips). It teaches them simple things like how to pack, how to be prepared, how to plan where they are going, how to think ahead, how to make plans with a group, how to check into a hotel, how to navigate an airport, etc. It exposes them to the concept and process of travel on a regular basis, which makes the idea of traveling much less intimidating. And when travel becomes less intimidating, the world opens up just a bit more.
Bond
Any maybe most importantly, sports travel forges a bond with your kids. Time is a frustrating thing; you can’t ever get it back once it’s gone. And while reorganizing your schedule to take off yet another Friday is not ideal and can make you feel like your hair is on fire, the 5 hour car ride with your kid gives you time to talk that you wouldn’t otherwise have. All those weekends away with your kid, the shared meals, conversations, the little rituals, that’s the glue that holds things together in the long run.
So, is it worth it?
If your child loves the sport, if your motivation is to give them experiences and lessons they’ll carry into life, then yes. Absolutely. Even in an 0-38-2 season, the answer is yes.
