The cycle of leaving clubs for others keeps on. Having done this for 3+ years now as a 2020 parent, I have to think that our experience is the norm, rather than the exception. We left a program because we thought grass w/b greener at another program because that program limits teams to 2 per age group. What we have found is that the same problems exist--poor, sub-standard coaching, haphazard turnouts at practice, severely lacking communication from both coach and directors, to go along with selfish, "me first" attitudes amongst players and parents. The idea is that this experience costs upwards of $3k a season after everything factored in (not including days lost from work), seems to be a losing proposition for everyone involved, except the directors. The fact that college programs have very limited scholarship $$ to distribute among 35-40 players, leads me to think that if the real reason folks are doing travel lax--boys or girls--is to have little Susie or Johnny play college lax and get a windfall in aid, then they will be tremendously disappointed. While we would love to stay with lax, and daughter seems to enjoy it enough, I have to think that the $12-15k we have spent over the years of travel lax would have better spent on vacations or other family endeavors.
You're lucky you figured it out early - many never do. Think about what you can do with that $12-15K over the next 3 summers ...
I agree on lots of this financially, it's a fools-bet for the vast majority of parents to think they are getting even a fraction of school covered by lax. That said, for some that's not the sole endgame. If your daughter wants to be a competitive HS player and plays for the sake of playing I cannot imagine they'll be able to get enough reps to stay fresh skills-wise if they only play during the HS season. Every sport is more or less like this now--- you cannot be a 1 season per year player of anything above the age of say 12 unless you are just a beast... and even that won't hold up over time.
