AAU ball is worse than I thought

[Laettner]

My 9 yr old son was fortunate enough to make an 11U AAU team which qualified for a holiday tourney. Head coach was away for Thanksgiving so I volunteered to handle the duties. Our team begins warmups & it's quite evident the opposing team has 12-13 yr olds in an 11U tourney. Game starts and opposing coach is screaming directions non-stop like Bobby Knight & General Patton. Up 30+ points in the 2Q they continue to full court press. The director of our program asks the opposing coach to call off the press, coach goes bananas & parents now get into it. A lovely scene!

At the half I approach opposing coach and he states "we're building a program, not calling the press off". I reply " building a program scared to play in it's own age bracket. What exactly are you accomplishing beating kids 2 years younger?". He walks off in a huff.

After the game, AAU tourney coordinator apologizes for allowing them to play and notes the X-mas tourney will have age verification. There is no age verification process!!!! Too late, I pulled my team and we'll head elsewhere.

I heard AAU was shady but this validated it. Youth hoops is clearly headed in the wrong direction.

 

[Willcampbell]

Incredible story. And it's not just hoops. One more reason I'm glad I'm old. I played four sports in high school and never had to put up with all the crap that goes on these days. We actually had fun playing sports when I was a lad.
OFC

 

[Laettner]

I enjoy asking the intense dads where they played college ball & you hear "well I could have played D1 but didn't take it serious enough" or "high school coach screwed me so never had the chance". Sounds about right.

 

[Willcampbell]

I enjoy asking the intense dads where they played college ball & you hear "well I could have played D1 but didn't take it serious enough" or "high school coach screwed me so never had the chance". Sounds about right.

And if they tell you they played at X school, you can look it up and, more often than not, they're lying.

 

[Dad2ze]

My 9 yr old son was fortunate enough to make an 11U AAU team which qualified for a holiday tourney. Head coach was away for Thanksgiving so I volunteered to handle the duties. Our team begins warmups & it's quite evident the opposing team has 12-13 yr olds in an 11U tourney. Game starts and opposing coach is screaming directions non-stop like Bobby Knight & General Patton. Up 30+ points in the 2Q they continue to full court press. The director of our program asks the opposing coach to call off the press, coach goes bananas & parents now get into it. A lovely scene!

At the half I approach opposing coach and he states "we're building a program, not calling the press off". I reply " building a program scared to play in it's own age bracket. What exactly are you accomplishing beating kids 2 years younger?". He walks off in a huff.

After the game, AAU tourney coordinator apologizes for allowing them to play and notes the X-mas tourney will have age verification. There is no age verification process!!!! Too late, I pulled my team and we'll head elsewhere.

I heard AAU was shady but this validated it. Youth hoops is clearly headed in the wrong direction.

City Rec leagues are getting just as bad. Kid 6'0 talk weighing 140 and his parents say he just turned 11. Kid walks up smoking cigarillos driving a cutlass and he is 11. Maybe a little exaggerated but I know where you're coming from. Coaches and some parents are ruining it just for there kid to get a chance to be seen by a scout.

I lost the stats but only like less than 2-3% of kids who play high school sports get recruited to a D1 school and way less than that go to play pro ball. If your kid is that good you don't need for him to play down 2 age brackets

 

[ChapelTower]

My son have been playing AAU basketball for a few years now. Every once a while, we were asked to bring a copy of birth certificate to the games. But never once, did anyone ever asked to see that piece of paper.

 

[DukeDenver]

Coach K has alluded to there being waaaay too much money in amatuer athletics. That's what causes bad behavior. It's sad.

 

[DukeDyNasty22]

I coach an AAU team in the Durham / Raleigh aRea and I agree that some of the tournaments we take the kids to aren't always sanctions events. Certain ncaa certified events do have age restrictions and are more careful on birth certificate.

One event this past summer we went to a warm up tournament before the cp3 event the next weekend. The tournament was a mom and pop event they asked for our parents to run the score board and operate the stats. Our parents were irate because they paid 10$ to get in and then we're forced to work at games they are paying to watch there kids play. We learned that we should take only serious tournaments that actually gave our team a chance to get better.

 

[HuffyJB]

If you haven't, read Play Their Hearts Out by George Dohrmann. It is a great book about that very thing.