High School sports vs Club Sports
A lot of competitive athletes play for multiple teams. Usually to get more experience, they play a sport for their high school team and they play for an independent organization outside of school. Playing for school and playing for clubs can have their own respective benefits, but they also can have negative results.
Playing for a high school team often means having flexible practice times and games, allowing athletes to focus on other tasks as well. However, school teams have participation requirements, such as maintaining a certain GPA. Club teams don’t have such requirements which means one will be able to participate in practices and games, even if their grades don’t meet the minimum requirement. At clubs, athletes are separated at their skill level.
Benefits of playing on a high school team can include chances at getting scholarships, having flexible times to do homework, studying and other activities outside of sports such as social time, personal time and relaxing.
“I would prefer high school sports better because of the flexibility,” Wilcox High School freshman Aiden Casas,who plays both school sports and club sports, said. . Unlike club sports, high school sports give students times with other activities such as homework and studying as they are part of the school and want students to keep their grades up while participating in games and practices.
Another benefit high school sports have is the way they push students to have good grades. If an athlete's grade point average is not a 2.0 or higher, they are suspended from participating from any sport activities until it is brought up. This incentivises athletes to be better
Benefits of playing club sports are you can play at your skill level, you don't need good grades to play with the team and the opportunity to have college scouts come to watch you play. Mathias Miu, a student here at Fremont, plays club soccer and school soccer.
“I prefer club sports over high school sports but both are good fun,” said Miu. “I prefer club over high school because you get this bubble that takes you out of the real world while in club you can relax and you are not stressed about performing well with grades because you always want to perform well.”
College scouts often come to club games to see how good you are at your sport. When you try out for a team are you placed in a team that has the same skill level as you.
Although high school teams can have their benefits, there are downsides as well. Some downsides can include the ability to not play if your grades are not kept at the minimum GPA of 2.00 or above. Also, the probability of playing every game is
dramatically decreased as there can be factors such as level of fitness, biasness, and competitiveness. Coaches can be biased with certain players as they might have personal connections and are hateful to other players. Sometimes, this results in the best players being benched for the majority of the season because of biasness. In club sports, biasness is not allowed.
Club sports have their benefits but they also have some downsides. While clubs have some amazing benefits, it also cost a lot of money. Some athletes may not be able to afford to play with the team. For club, you also have to travel to different places to play your sport. Sometimes you may have to travel long distances to play one game. Club may also be very tiring. At club you may have to play for two days in a row. That may be very hard for athletes to do.
To conclude, there are many benefits playing for either high school sports or club sports. There are however downsides as well and gives either sports its pros and cons. However, it all comes down to preference, availability and affordability.