One of the things about having only twins is that you get to experience certain parenting events just once. For example, both kids will go through the college process together. This means you go in with zero experience, learn on the fly and when it's over, you have all these knowledge and experience that's basically useless to you. Take the Terrible Twos...it's double the trouble for you but once it's over, it's over. Unlike those who space out their children and have to repeat the process 2, 3 years later. Or (oops) 10+ years later.
Both of my kids play travel soccer. Because soccer is literally my first love, everybody thinks I either pushed them into playing soccer or strongly encouraged them. Which is totally untrue. We put them in different sports...gymnastics, martial arts, basketball (a complete and total waste of money, these kids have zero basketball interest and ability), kids art and indoor tiny tots soccer. I love soccer but I don't expect anyone else to love it, my children included.
Then at age 10, we signed them for their first organized soccer team. And of course, the club starts asking for volunteer coach. Since I coached my niece and nephew's co-ed team a few years earlier, I decided to volunteer to coach my son's team. Fast forward a few years and they've been playing travel soccer for 4+ years now.
But if I had to do it all over, I would get them into track. Or swimming. Or any other individual sport. Team sports are just so full of politics and social bullshit. Individual sports with objective scoring should be #1 sport for young people. Especially those with hopes of playing that sport in high school and college. With team sports, it's very hard to stand out. Unless your child is essentially an undeniable prodigy, team sports is not the way to go. Especially for boys. Because the difference in physical development between 9th and 12th graders is so wild.
As a freshman in high school, you're most likely going to be stuck on the junior varsity team. Especially if your high school's varsity team is pretty good. Which is fine...until you watch them fast track another freshman onto the varsity team cos his father is an "assistant coach". So you wonder why is he jumping straight into the varsity team when my son's had to play 2 years on the JV team? But it's soccer. You're never going to get a straight answer...it's like asking why the Russian Judge gave the American figure skater suspiciously low marks.
Now if this was track, none of this will happen. Not saying there's no politics in track, after all it's a human endeavor and politics is always present. However, if one athlete is faster there's no way she's getting overlooked for a slower athlete. Right? Right?
Also, track is objective scoring. Your time is your time. Your distance is your distance. There's no opinion or subjectivity involved. Are you fast? Are you track fast? Can you jump high? Long? Can you throw heavy objects around? That's it. Those are the only questions that matter. But in a team sports, there's always wiggle room: we have too many players in your position, we play a different style, we need different qualities than you possess and on and on. Most of those questions are valid but a lot of them are utter bullshit.
Finally, take Quincy Wilson...the US track prodigy from Maryland. He's clearly a gem and he was quickly fast tracked unto the Olympic team. That will never EVER happen in soccer, basketball or lacrosse. Not unless his father was teammates with the president of US Soccer. In soccer, Quincy Wilson will still be playing in the very expensive US Youth soccer system paying $3K+ for some club's academy team and his parents will be scouring Veo footage to put together his highlight reel. But Quincy Wilson the runner can just point future coaches to his resume.
PS
If you do make it to college soccer, you're very likely sitting on the bench in your first year. Same for football, lacrosse and other team sports. The better the team that picks you, the higher your chances of spending your freshman year on the bench.
Here are my kids track resume. Not quite as fast as Quincy but they're pretty good. Dara and Toni.
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