Originally Posted by Anonymous
HELP. My daughter was fortunate enough to make one of the 2018 teams, incoming 7th-grader. My spouse and I are debating/yelling/battling back and forth over whether the commitment is worth it at this age. Her primary concern is whether it's "too early" to make such a large time/financial commitment. She feels that it might be better to wait a year, brush up on her skills and take try again next year. My fear is that the girls that opt to play will likely improve significantly, making it more difficult for my daughter to keep up. In short, I wonder whether we're already somewhat late to the party and frankly was surprised by our invitation.

Any thoughts / advice would be much appreciated.


You are certainly not too late to the party, my first thought is the financial part you can expect to pay on top of "tuition" $200 a tournament for hotels not including food, gas and tolls could be another $200 there will be 5 travel tournanments this summer for that group so..$400 to $500 a tournanment is about $2500 for a $3800 total, ask yourself if you can swing it. Secondly your daughter will definitley get better practicing and playing against better competion, this may awaken in her a drive to get better and you may find she is practicing all the time, (wall ball, taking a stick to the beach, freinds house etc..) thirdly time commitment can you get off work for friday tournamnent games? fouth. she may make some great friends, and hopefully you can do the same.
the bottom line is that it is probably never too soon to start and there are many positives to staring early, but does it work for you.