Twitter blowing up about 7th grade rankings

[PapaBear]

It was simply a summary of his reasons with my commentary.

Though I can’t actually divine his true intentions without being a mind reader, the skeptic in me suspects #3 might actually be his #1 reason, but at least he included #3 in the list…

He helped launch ESPN and FloSoftball so he knows how to profit off of a need for sure.

 

[PapaBear]

Not middle schoolers though. and that is the rub for those coaches on Twitter. Ranking kids in middle school. Do you see them complaining about ranking older kids? Nope. Do you see them complaining about All conference or All District awards for high school and college players? Nope. they are complaining about ranking middle schoolers, so again, your analogy does not hold water. It does not apply regardless of how hard you try. You're trying to fit a square peg into a round hole with that argument.

No but claiming mental health. And I’m for recognizing mental health and addressing it. To me it’s more detrimental for an individual to be cut from a team than a national ranking. No matter the age. 8U-18U

 

[PapaBear]

I am very skeptical when I have to pay money to view the full list of something, no matter what the content is. It’s truly a great way to suck parents in and get them to subscribe to the various sites that do these rankings.

Any different than paying for local online coverage for high school sports?

 

[_MIA_]

No but claiming mental health. And I’m for recognizing mental health and addressing it. To me it’s more detrimental for an individual to be cut from a team than a national ranking. No matter the age. 8U-18U

Kids have been cut from teams since the beginning of time though. The mental health issue seems to be more recent (and I am not putting the entire onus on rankings for this)

 

[PapaBear]

Here is my question…..silly as this may be, Is this type of ranking done with the boys of this age? If the answer is yes, then why would we expect anything different. My guess is Mom and Dad aren’t as outraged about the actual existence of the list, more that little Suzy didn’t make the list.

College sports is now officially “Big Business”, I think we all can agree. Money is being paid, oklahoma Is raiding everyone’s kitchen. Very soon another program will step up and begin doing the same thing they do. More and more programs will use the portal to poach others players. There will become a clear line between the haves and the have nots. It is already happening. This ranking is part of the evolution of the sport, for good or bad, who knows. I guess we will see. I’m sure the first 7th grade national football rankings were pretty lame as well. I’m sure kids were missing or incorrectly included. It will take time, but I’m sure the bugs will get worked out, in time the list will become more accurate. But, now that $ is involved, this ain’t going away. These NIL collectives want to know who they’re spending money on.

Yes, Perfect Game baseball has a Class of 2028 ranking for the boys.

 

[Gambler Bob]

Does your daughter promote the ranking when she’s emailing coaches? Teams promote the rankings once they sign the kid, makes them look good.


And I’m not disagreeing that they are not a joke in some cases. But they do get promoted by players, organizations for their benefit.

No she does not promote the rankings. She has never even sent an email to a college coach, no point in emailing college coaches when you are that young. You are just wasting the coaches time and the players time.

 

[PapaBear]

Kids have been cut from teams since the beginning of time though. The mental health issue seems to be more recent (and I am not putting the entire onus on rankings for this)

I remember the first time I was cut. Did more to me than not making All District or All State. That was 30 years ago and remember it well.

 

[PapaBear]

No she does not promote the rankings. She has never even sent an email to a college coach, no point in emailing college coaches when you are that young. You are just wasting the coaches time and the players time.

That’s fair, I would be interested down the road once the recruiting process starts. How old is she?

 

[_MIA_]

I remember the first time I was cut. Did more to me than not making All District or All State. That was 30 years ago and remember it well.

The mental issues topic is more about the expectations put on kids who are ranked at an early age vs the ones who are not. Again, as mentioned earlier in this thread, one could say that this on the parents to make sure their kids have some perspective but sometimes that is not enough for some kids

 

[Vertigo]

Any different than paying for local online coverage for high school sports?

How do you mean? When my dd played in HS (and my DS now) there is a HS news outlet that posts the local schools’ coverage for free. Actually, there are a few news outlets in our area here that do that. I never payed for anything to see my kids’ write-ups.