TRAVELING TEAMS, which one is best? Choose the club/travel team that is best for your athlete.  Some club coaches are so consumed with being the #1 club to play for, they forget that the most important reason to play is to develop your skills.  If your athlete has to play a different position then what they are known for or want to specialize in and have to wait behind other “better” players because the coach is more concerned about winning…move on.

I coached park/rec for years.  IT IS our responsibility to develop these athletes!  Winning is wonderful, but in these early years (pre-college), winning and losing are important in the development process.  To be able to take a player that is behind and help them develop over the course of a season, is rewarding.  A coach that wants to cherry pick players in the name of having the best team, tells me a couple things about the coach.  Especially with travel teams.

The coach:

1) Does not want to take the time to develop players. The coach would prefer work with players that require the least amount of work.

2) Is more concerned about winning. Believe it or not losing teaches valuable lessons in composure, teamwork, and character development.

3) Is concerned about their ego. To be the best by selecting only the best players allows the coach to feel like they are the best even though, they contributed little to the development of the players.

4) Is concerned about their pocketbook. Now they “can” charge more for athletes to be part of their “special” team and guess what? It’s going to cost you more in traveling expenses because now they want to travel all over the “world” to show off their special team.  When a team has cherry picked ALL the best players in their region, who will be their real competition?  Not local teams, because all the best players are on this special team.  So now you will HAVE to travel to find any real competition.

5) They are more interested in instant gratification and may have a shorter temper with these athletes when they do not perform to their standard, even though they have done little to develop that athlete.

BUT…what about exposure tournaments? Shouldn’t I select the club that goes to the most college exposure tournaments?

College exposure tournaments are the new buzz in club/travel teams (they are BIG business).  A travel team that focuses heavily on exposure tournaments as their selling point and DO NOT have a comprehensive plan of action leading up to those tournaments to get the attention of coaches, is pointless!    Let me say that again.  If the travel team is selling you on how valuable these tournaments are, but are not doing the pre-marketing required to get the attention of college coaches for your athlete, they are wasting your time and money.

Have you seen how many athletes are at those tournaments? In reality, college coaches go to these tournaments to watch a list of athletes they ALREADY know about. Coaches don’t show up because they have nothing better to do than to evaluate every single athlete.

Exposure tournaments, when done right, will work in your favor. But just showing up at a tournament does not guarantee your athlete will be seen. You need to have an ongoing dialogue with college coaches that will want to see your athlete at the tournaments.  And that takes months of prior work.

These club/travel team coaches are not college coaches recruiting and paying your athlete through scholarships. And they are not professional coaches paying/recruiting players to perform at the highest level.  THEIR JOB SHOULD BE TO DEVELOP PLAYERS in both winning and losing situations, preparing them for the next level.