Please identify any sport where the top athletes in the world at that sport have achieved their success by playing / training with “only” their neighbors.

If you want your child to become the best player “that He/She can be” then they must play / train with and against the best “that He /She” can compete with.

My kids will play for their JHS Team but I would not want to hold a player back if that child had the ability to play and train with a much more competitive team. To restrict a player and coerce that player into playing for “only” the Town/JHS Team would be selfish.

I guess in some of these towns, if a child became a Professional or Olympic Athlete that athlete would be shunned by certain people if they had played / trained with a “Club” other than the “Town Club”.