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Down the Road
Is Your Daughter Ready for Travel Sports?
By Kelly Burgess
What do softball player Michele Smith and soccer player Mia Hamm have in common? Well, both are heroes to millions of little girls, both are world-class female athletes and both have represented the USA at the Olympic games, bringing home gold and silver medals in their respective sports.
One other thing the two women have in common is that as young girls they not only played for their community leagues but also participated in what are known as "travel" leagues. These leagues are formed as a sort of year-round, all-star team to allow girls who love sports to play beyond the few weeks of the regular season.
Travel leagues are not unique to girls, although it's generally recognized that softball was one of the first sports to organize travel leagues on a regular basis. Bill Redmer, editor of Fast Pitch USA Online and an elite softball coach/consultant, says that year-round leagues probably started in the 1970s as girls started to become more involved in sports. California, with a climate that's conducive to outdoor sports almost all year, was in the vanguard of the movement. Now, virtually all sports have these travel teams for both boys and girls.
They are called travel teams simply because they often travel around their region playing other teams. What they actually are is a carefully handpicked team of some of the most dedicated and talented young athletes of their area.
According to Redmer, the ultimate and original goal of these teams is money – college money, that is. College coaches rarely attend high school sports events simply because they don't have time. Unless your child is such an incredible player that she is written up in USA Today, the chances are a college coach will never see her play. This is where travel sports come in. Many of these sports host local college showcase weekends or big national tournaments that are attended by college coaches. This allows them to see a lot of talent in a short period of time.