Tales of Everyday Life

[osubuckeye4]

Ha, as I was reading this, I was thinking "the silver lining is that OSU just saved a shit-ton of money." Then I saw your closing sentence.

Don't worry, my wife is already thinking of other things to spend it on!

 

[osubuckeye4]

Man... my daughter is starting cheer again tonight actually. I wish she'd drop out lol. That is not my favorite activity. But the same kind of BS goes on here too because there is the 'regular' team and then the comp team (which is really good) and there are all kinds of shenanigans with the comp team and who does what. Kids promised spots than dropped back down. Other kids poached. I hate the whole environment.

Yea, I completely get the part where at my daughters (former) program they have 180-200 people to spread across 8-10 teams and it ends up being like a giant puzzle for them... they do put a lot of thought into it and they are never going to make everyone happy. Some kids are inevitably going to not like their placement/role. It happens every year.

The placement didn't matter for my daughter (she was on 'elite', and was on a higher elite level team than she really belonged on). She's always looked at the bigger picture.

The final straw was the fact that 3 weeks ago they told her she was going to have the opportunity to work on her tumbling and get it to where it could be closer to her stunting, and yesterday they said that was 'not how they do things and never has been'.

If you're going to up and lie like that, that's not cool/acceptable.




I just find it all so bizarre... it would be like a basketball team that refused to let someone work on their defense because they were so good at shooting. WTF, how do you think it's going to help your program long term to completely ignore half of the sport? I'm sure they aren't thinking long term though... they'll just plug and play from other programs as they need to fill pieces of the puzzle in future years.

 

[ABB]

Yea, the part that pissed me off is how last season they had this awesome plan lined up for her that would align with her goals and help the program.., then they lose a couple girls at the higher level who unexpectedly drop out. All of a sudden all those development plans for my daughter are out the window because they need her to bail out the higher level team, and it's basically fuck her individual development.

Rather than just be honest and say that the program comes before my daughter (I could live with that) they start lying out their ass saying that colleges don't care about tumbling (wtf, that's half of cheerleading.... of course college level teams care about that) and that this was the plan all along and my daughter, wife and I must have misunderstood.


I can live with honest feedback.. I can't justify spending all this money to be lied to and told bad things are good things.

All these clubs are merely businesses masquerading as charity college meal tickets. They say what you need them to say to keep you there, then they do what they need to do for the health of the business. Rarely do those 2 coexist harmoniously. The biggest benefactors are the top tier athletes, they get a road paved in gold. Those in the development stage get the table scraps, so long as their parents can keep writing checks.

What always made HS Varsity the cream of the crop was that everyone got a chance, regardless of economics. That's been dead for a long time now, I was shocked to learn that about 4 years ago. All that did was lead to new ways to game the system. It's pretty common out here to see a kid who's a good athlete to be held back a year in school. That puts him a year older, bigger, and stronger than his competition and makes him stand out to recruiters.

 

[osubuckeye4]

All these clubs are merely businesses masquerading as charity college meal tickets. They say what you need them to say to keep you there, then they do what they need to do for the health of the business. Rarely do those 2 coexist harmoniously. The biggest benefactors are the top tier athletes, they get a road paved in gold. Those in the development stage get the table scraps, so long as their parents can keep writing checks.

It blows because when we signed on with this place 3 years ago they were the scrappy up and coming gym (around 80-90 kids across 5 full time and 2 part time teams) in the area that would really work with the athletes and try to maximize potential. They weren't winning consistently, but they were always knocking on the door.

Two years ago they broke thru at multiple levels (including the level 1 elite team my daughter was on) and won a bunch of regional competitions, including some with powerhouse programs that charge 2-3x as much, and had a huge influx of new athletes. They also had 2 of their higher level cheerleaders represent the USA in Worlds (it was an Olympic pilot program) for USA Cheer.

Due to that they have doubled in size since my daughter enrolled and are now about 200 strong (I believe it's 185 after my daughter left). Next month they are moving to a facility with twice the square footage and while doing that they are desperately trying to level up their entire program and compete consistently with the regional powerhouses... along the way (and to get to 200) they have benefited from some of the 'discount' programs in the area closing and they've poached a lot of their best athletes.

Their whole approach has changed and they have really started pouring all their effort into the higher level teams and winning competitions/building the brands reputation, rather than working to develop well rounded cheerleaders who work their way up with guidance.

It is what it is, and I hope I don't sound to down on them... we left the program on good terms and her coach reached out an hour ago with a letter of recommendation for her middle school team (which should help with high school as well).

What always made HS Varsity the cream of the crop was that everyone got a chance, regardless of economics. That's been dead for a long time now, I was shocked to learn that about 4 years ago. All that did was lead to new ways to game the system. It's pretty common out here to see a kid who's a good athlete to be held back a year in school. That puts him a year older, bigger, and stronger than his competition and makes him stand out to recruiters.

Cheerleading is especially weird in that regard because there's three distinct components (tumbling, dance and stunting) and teams are able to hide athletes who are multiple levels below at one of the components as long as the other components are level appropriate. Unfortunately for my daughter, the fact that she is level 4 (college is 5/6) stunting kind of fucked her because she got bumped up to a high level elite team that needed those skills, and she ended up being one of the youngest girls on a team with a bunch of high school aged girls who are level 3/4 at stunting and tumbling, whereas my daughters tumbling is still kind of stuck at the more difficult level 2 tumbling passes. As a result, they were basically hiding her (and 9 other girls, who don't care because they don't want to do college cheer) in the back for all the stunting, jumping and dance portions.

Oh well, we got a solid plan for this year and maybe my daughter ends up dominating track and field like I did (hopefully avoiding catastrophic injuries... which I didn't) and pivots in that direction. The best part about track and field is that a 400 meter time is a 400 meter time... there's no paying your way into a better time and hiding behind weaknesses.



I can also train her to excel in track... I don't know shit about cheerleading. I can (and do) help with core strength and conditioning, but that's about it. That's what really sucks, when the coaches say they won't work with her on her back handsprings I can't step in and cover that because I don't know how to spot those or train someone to do them.

 

[Los Lobos]

Well, my daughter decided to drop out of her cheer program.

They completely lied to her about how she would be used this year and she was PISSED... her and I talked to the coaches and the coaches didn't seem to understand what either of us were saying.

The plan going into the season was for her to be on two teams: one lower level team where she could work on all-around cheer (tumbling, dance and stunting), and another high level team where she would be used pretty much exclusively for her stunting (which is multiple levels ahead of tumbling). Instead, they pulled the rug on her and put her only on the high level team, and for 90 seconds out of the 3 minute performance she is legit just standing there with her hands on her knees with 9 other girls who can't tumble at that level, while the other 20 do all of the tumbling/dance.

When we brought this up to the coaches and explained that my daughter is all-in on cheerleading and wants to eventually cheer in college they were like, "well, we see her as a really good base/stunter, and our philosophy is to maximize the things people are good at, and not spend time on the other stuff". I was like, "Ok, we understand her tumbling isn't up to par with the level team you put her on... we're not asking you to put her tumbling into the routine, we're just asking that you break off some time during practice to have her work on it along with the girls that are up to par"... and they were like, "yea, we don't do that.. she'll work exclusively on stunting because that's how we do things". When I broght up the other team they lied and said, "we had to cap it at 15 girls"... but, I know for a fact that last week they offered another girl a spot (to make it at 16 girl team)... I didn't bring that up though, because I didn't want to throw the other parents/girl under the bus if that spot was offered in confidence.

So, fuck them... we're out. They also tried to lie by saying that lots of colleges will accept cheerleaders that are really strong at one component and rudimentary at another... I looked around at 20 different programs and all of them say that she needs to have at least level 3 tumbling skills to even get a tryout, which is something that the coaches said they didn't really have any desire on working with her on developing.

She's still going to continue with cheer, but this year she'll cheer for her middle school and do tumbling classes at another gym and she'll work with me on strength and conditioning... next year we'll shop around the area for a program that is willing to work with her more on her tumbling and not just exploit her for how good she is at stunting.


On the plus side, saves me around 5 grand!

That sucks. I know cheer was a big part of your lives. Fuk them! There's probably a lot more cheer programs out there. Good luck!

 

[Los Lobos]

Yea, the part that pissed me off is how last season they had this awesome plan lined up for her that would align with her goals and help the program.., then they lose a couple girls at the higher level who unexpectedly drop out. All of a sudden all those development plans for my daughter are out the window because they need her to bail out the higher level team, and it's basically fuck her individual development.

Rather than just be honest and say that the program comes before my daughter (I could live with that) they start lying out their ass saying that colleges don't care about tumbling (wtf, that's half of cheerleading.... of course college level teams care about that) and that this was the plan all along and my daughter, wife and I must have misunderstood.


I can live with honest feedback.. I can't justify spending all this money to be lied to and told bad things are good things.

Yeah, maybe JUCOs.
That's like saying college football doesn't care about speed.

 

[Los Lobos]

Im glad my kids are super smart and very athletic. They take after my wife.

 

[osubuckeye4]

That sucks. I know cheer was a big part of your lives. Fuk them! There's probably a lot more cheer programs out there. Good luck!

There are a good number of other programs in the area. The problem is that the good/competitive ones cost a fortune... we're talking $9,000-$10,000 before travel, which is oftentimes another $5-10k depending on how many events you're doing and how good the team performs.

The ones that are cheap are not much better than just having my daughter do cheer at her middle school (which is what she's going to do this year).

This was the one program that was both 'budget friendly' and competitive... we had kind of hit them right at their growth point and were riding the wave.

They are leveling up and starting to adopt all the same tactics the big gyms use... tuition this year was going to be the same as last year, but you don't double your square footage and hire a bunch of new staff and keep the budget the same for future years.

I'm finding that you really can't win with this stuff if you don't have a ton of disposable income.

Yeah, maybe JUCOs.
That's like saying college football doesn't care about speed.

Yea, that was the dealbreaker... don't repeatedly lie to me and my daughter.

We're not delusional and we weren't asking them to cater/adjust their entire program to please her individually... we're just asking that they either honor their word and let her do 2 teams (like they had told her).. or, balance their desire to win with her desire to eventually compete in college and let her work in with the tumbling drills. I don't think that was too unreasonable, but they refused to even consider it because 'that's not the way we do things'.

Which again was a lie because they had done that in years past for other girls that were on my daughters team that weren't up to par with the stunting.

They are basically abandoning their old approach and trying to be like the megagyms in the area (now that they have the square footage and the trophy case is full)

Well, good luck with that approach going forward.


And to be clear, they'll be fine this year without my daughter... I'm not suggesting that she's some superstar. She is elite at stunting for her age, but her tumbling lags way behind. The fact that their approach is essentially, 'forget half the sport and focus on the half you're good at right now' is not how you develop a top tier gym over time.

 

[Los Lobos]

There are a good number of other programs in the area. The problem is that the good/competitive ones cost a fortune... we're talking $9,000-$10,000 before travel, which is oftentimes another $5-10k depending on how many events you're doing and how good the team performs.

The ones that are cheap are not much better than just having my daughter do cheer at her middle school (which is what she's going to do this year).

This was the one program that was both 'budget friendly' and competitive... we had kind of hit them right at their growth point and were riding the wave.

They are leveling up and starting to adopt all the same tactics the big gyms use... tuition this year was going to be the same as last year, but you don't double your square footage and hire a bunch of new staff and keep the budget the same for future years.

I'm finding that you really can't win with this stuff if you don't have a ton of disposable income.



Yea, that was the dealbreaker... don't repeatedly lie to me and my daughter.

We're not delusional and we weren't asking them to cater/adjust their entire program to please her individually... we're just asking that they either honor their word and let her do 2 teams (like they had told her).. or, balance their desire to with with her desire to eventually compete in college and let her work in with the tumbling drills. I don't think that was too unreasonable, but they refused to even consider it because 'that's not the way we do things'.

Which again was a lie because they had done that in years past for other girls that were on my daughters team that weren't up to par with the stunting.

Well, good luck with that approach going forward.

Found video of you training your daughter..."Annnd DUCK!"

 

[ABB]

It blows because when we signed on with this place 3 years ago they were the scrappy up and coming gym (around 80-90 kids across 5 full time and 2 part time teams) in the area that would really work with the athletes and try to maximize potential. They weren't winning consistently, but they were always knocking on the door.

Two years ago they broke thru at multiple levels (including the level 1 elite team my daughter was on) and won a bunch of regional competitions, including some with powerhouse programs that charge 2-3x as much, and had a huge influx of new athletes. They also had 2 of their higher level cheerleaders represent the USA in Worlds (it was an Olympic pilot program) for USA Cheer.

Due to that they have doubled in size since my daughter enrolled and are now about 200 strong (I believe it's 185 after my daughter left). Next month they are moving to a facility with twice the square footage and while doing that they are desperately trying to level up their entire program and compete consistently with the regional powerhouses... along the way (and to get to 200) they have benefited from some of the 'discount' programs in the area closing and they've poached a lot of their best athletes.

Their whole approach has changed and they have really started pouring all their effort into the higher level teams and winning competitions/building the brands reputation, rather than working to develop well rounded cheerleaders who work their way up with guidance.

It is what it is, and I hope I don't sound to down on them... we left the program on good terms and her coach reached out an hour ago with a letter of recommendation for her middle school team (which should help with high school as well).



Cheerleading is especially weird in that regard because there's three distinct components (tumbling, dance and stunting) and teams are able to hide athletes who are multiple levels below at one of the components as long as the other components are level appropriate. Unfortunately for my daughter, the fact that she is level 4 (college is 5/6) stunting kind of fucked her because she got bumped up to a high level elite team that needed those skills, and she ended up being one of the youngest girls on a team with a bunch of high school aged girls who are level 3/4 at stunting and tumbling, whereas my daughters tumbling is still kind of stuck at the more difficult level 2 tumbling passes. As a result, they were basically hiding her (and 9 other girls, who don't care because they don't want to do college cheer) in the back for all the stunting, jumping and dance portions.

Oh well, we got a solid plan for this year and maybe my daughter ends up dominating track and field like I did (hopefully avoiding catastrophic injuries... which I didn't) and pivots in that direction. The best part about track and field is that a 400 meter time is a 400 meter time... there's no paying your way into a better time and hiding behind weaknesses.



I can also train her to excel in track... I don't know shit about cheerleading. I can (and do) help with core strength and conditioning, but that's about it. That's what really sucks, when the coaches say they won't work with her on her back handsprings I can't step in and cover that because I don't know how to spot those or train someone to do them.

Boy do I understand this one, I been living it for 4+ years. The clubs are playing the long game. That means there's gonna be down years. Just like when a pro team is in a rebuilding stage. You just gotta hope your kid isn't going through that club during their "rebuilding" stage, because the kid only has 2-6 years to get the potential benefit that your hard earned dollars are paying for. It's all a matter or timing, timing you have no control over. Our VB clubs out here range from $5k - $25k. The $25k club is the most established, the most promising. But we can't afford that, so we go with the $7500 club. It's worked out ok except for 1 year so that's good enough I suppose.

Hard work and persistence, by the athlete, is what got my daughter recruited to a good college team this year. She did most of it herself. I'm proud of her. Bc unless you're the one in a million talent, you're gonna have to get out there, find those recruiters, and show them what you got regardless of what level club you're on. The $25k club will get you in front of that recruiter far more often, and usually have the recruiter come to the club. The $5k club's recruitment opportunities will be far more sparse but the athlete can make up ground by being hungry and taking initiative. And that will show based upon who's really driving the show. The $25k club player's mom will be doing all of the legwork. At the end of the day recruiters don't like that.

 

[osubuckeye4]

Boy do I understand this one, I been living it for 4+ years. The clubs are playing the long game. That means there's gonna be down years. Just like when a pro team is in a rebuilding stage. You just gotta hope your kid isn't going through that club during their "rebuilding" stage, because the kid only has 2-6 years to get the potential benefit that your hard earned dollars are paying for. It's all a matter or timing, timing you have no control over. Our VB clubs out here range from $5k - $25k. The $25k club is the most established, the most promising. But we can't afford that, so we go with the $7500 club. It's worked out ok except for 1 year so that's good enough I suppose.

Hard work and persistence, by the athlete, is what got my daughter recruited to a good college team this year. She did most of it herself. I'm proud of her. Bc unless you're the one in a million talent, you're gonna have to get out there, find those recruiters, and show them what you got regardless of what level club you're on. The $25k club will get you in front of that recruiter far more often, and usually have the recruiter come to the club. The $5k club's recruitment opportunities will be far more sparse but the athlete can make up ground by being hungry and taking initiative. And that will show based upon who's really driving the show. The $25k club player's mom will be doing all of the legwork. At the end of the day recruiters don't like that.

You're definitely preaching tot the choir on this... youth sports is such a different beast now than it was when I was growing up.


Between you and me... I hope my daughter excels in track this year (she ran a 63 second 400 with literally no training during gym class... smoked every girl at her school, including the entire girls track team. Only a handful of boys on the team beat her.) and that's her route to a scholarship. She's got a very legitimate chance to get a full ride at the D1 level if she is willing to put in the work.

Track is both incredibly difficult but also easy to get a scholarship for.. you don't need to send a bunch of tape or highlight reels... you just run a really fast time (hopefully consistently) and the mail will start building up in your high school AD's inbox (well, I'm sure it's emails now... for me it was physical mail that our AD would dump off at my locker every week). If you only run a fast (not really fast) time then you go to the schools track camp, meet their coaches, get put thru a week of hell and you win them over with your work ethic and winning personality... but, if you are fast enough you don't even need to bother with all that.



Cheer is a bizarre sport because a lot of the big schools don't even have a full competitive team, they just do sideline (for basketball and football primarily) and due to it being an official club sport you're locked out of NIL and generally only getting partial scholarship.

There are definitely some universities that offer cheer scholarships (like University of Kentucky for their super elite Blue Squad), but you're talking like 0.01% elite of all the high school cheerleaders in the world that get considered for that offer. My daughters not on track for that, and I honestly/realistically don't think she will get there even if she puts all the work in.

If my daughter does get a cheer scholarship it'll likely be a partial, and the route will be her picking a school she wants to go to and then going to their cheer camp, meeting the coaches, and working out a deal that will allow her to afford college without going into crippling (only some) debt.


It's hard though because I can't force her to do the thing she is best at, she has pick it.

 

[Los Lobos]

You're definitely preaching tot the choir on this... youth sports is such a different beast now than it was when I was growing up.


Between you and me... I hope my daughter excels in track this year (she ran a 63 second 400 with literally no training during gym class... smoked every girl at her school, including the entire girls track team. Only a handful of boys on the team beat her.) and that's her route to a scholarship. She's got a very legitimate chance to get a full ride at the D1 level if she is willing to put in the work.

Track is both incredibly difficult but also easy to get a scholarship for.. you don't need to send a bunch of tape or highlight reels... you just run a really fast time (hopefully consistently) and the mail will start building up in your high school AD's inbox (well, I'm sure it's emails now... for me it was physical mail that our AD would dump off at my locker every week). If you only run a fast (not really fast) time then you go to the schools track camp, meet their coaches, get put thru a week of hell and you win them over with your work ethic and winning personality... but, if you are fast enough you don't even need to bother with all that.



Cheer is a bizarre sport because a lot of the big schools don't even have a full competitive team, they just do sideline (for basketball and football primarily) and due to it being an official club sport you're locked out of NIL and generally only getting partial scholarship.

There are definitely some universities that offer cheer scholarships (like University of Kentucky for their super elite Blue Squad), but you're talking like 0.01% elite of all the high school cheerleaders in the world that get considered for that offer. My daughters not on track for that, and I honestly/realistically don't think she will get there even if she puts all the work in.

If my daughter does get a cheer scholarship it'll likely be a partial, and the route will be her picking a school she wants to go to and then going to their cheer camp, meeting the coaches, and working out a deal that will allow her to afford college without going into crippling (only some) debt.


It's hard though because I can't force her to do the thing she is best at, she has pick it.

As someone who works in youth sports, this is a racket. Some of our sports leagues have gold, silver, & bronze divisions. So if you your kid is not good, you can still pay 5k for them to play on the bronze team.

 

[osubuckeye4]

As someone who works in youth sports, this is a racket. Some of our sports leagues have gold, silver, & bronze divisions. So if you your kid is not good, you can still pay 5k for them to play on the bronze team.

My old manager at work got bamboozled by the "bronze tier" with AAU basketball. I kept trying to explain to him that 5'7 Mexicans have no chance at getting a D1 basketball scholarship, but they kept feeding his wife the lines so he caved and went along with it.


On an unrelated note, the program put out an official social media blast 10 minutes ago looking for my daughters replacement (hilarious because tryouts are suppose to be over and teams are suppose to be locked)... which confirms that they didn't have anyone level appropriate within their program and were fucking my daughters personal development up to cover a gap they created thru not propeely developing girls in the prior couple seasons when they had the chance. At least there is some vindication in that.

 

[Brick]

Off to the Denver area (Ft. Collins) for the next week or so. It's not an area I'm familiar with, so looking forward to exploring around.

 

[Los Lobos]

Off to the Denver area (Ft. Collins) for the next week or so. It's not an area I'm familiar with, so looking forward to exploring around.

 

[a-mart]

View attachment 1021

@Nastycrow I told you we need the pride flag emoji lol

 

[cmvideo75]

There's a couple of threads in the OT that I refuse to click on. The People Suck thread is the #1 do not click thread. Just won't do it.

 

[osubuckeye4]

Man, I hate what youth sports have become so much.

Wife and I enrolled the kid in tumbling classes at one of the prestige gyms in the area. it's $120/mo, there's no travel, and she gets personal instruction and most importantly it aligns with our plan for her to take a break from the 'all-star' travel bullshit for a year and let her tumbling catch up with her stunting/technical side of cheerleading.

Of course we get there and are talking to the gym director and he's asking what brought us in and we give him the Cliff's Notes version. He's like, "that's a weird position/strategy by your old gym... but we're glad to have you and the coach she's working with is great for the skills she's targeting this year. Hopefully we can get her there and you'll consider us next year when tryouts open for the 2027 season".

I was like, "sure, of course"... and it's a really nice facility (much better than the old dump) and everyone there seemed very professional.

35 minutes later the coach and director come back up and they are like, "hey we know you said you were taking a break from teams this year, and that our site says tryouts are closed and teams are locked in... but, your daughter is REALLY good at the technical stuff that kids usually lack at her age, and our gym dedicates every Saturday to tumbling and we work at least 20 minutes every practice on tumbling... we would definitely have her doing tumbling, would you consider her hopping onto one of our elite teams?"

Of course my wife is like, "of course, send us the packet with the info!"

Man, this place is around $1,500 more than the last place. I got into a decent sized 2 vs. 1 argument with the wife and kid last night, but finally I shut that shit down and we're on the same page about the plan for this year.


I fucking hate these places though... your site says teams will be locked after (insert date, usually 7/1 for most gyms). They even said their choreography was done... BUT, of course if someone comes along that would help their chances they'd be happy to just ignore all the rules and add them (for tons of money, of course there is no discounted tuition being offered).

It's all so ridiculous.

And again... it'd be one thing if my kid was a legit savant or truly elite. She's not, this isn't some LeBron James basketball situation where she's college level at middle school. She's 'above average' for her age, but she's no generational talent at this point. Majority of girls her age are a level below, but there were 2 girls at her old gym that were her age and more advanced than her. Going to these competitions, that tracks in terms of the sport. Her old team was usually in the top 3 at the competitions and the girls at the gyms they were competing with seemed to have a similar makeup for the age ranges.

 

[bconcrete]

Man, I hate what youth sports have become so much.

Wife and I enrolled the kid in tumbling classes at one of the prestige gyms in the area. it's $120/mo, there's no travel, and she gets personal instruction and most importantly it aligns with our plan for her to take a break from the 'all-star' travel bullshit for a year and let her tumbling catch up with her stunting/technical side of cheerleading.

Of course we get there and are talking to the gym director and he's asking what brought us in and we give him the Cliff's Notes version. He's like, "that's a weird position/strategy by your old gym... but we're glad to have you and the coach she's working with is great for the skills she's targeting this year. Hopefully we can get her there and you'll consider us next year when tryouts open for the 2027 season".

I was like, "sure, of course"... and it's a really nice facility (much better than the old dump) and everyone there seemed very professional.

35 minutes later the coach and director come back up and they are like, "hey we know you said you were taking a break from teams this year, and that our site says tryouts are closed and teams are locked in... but, your daughter is REALLY good at the technical stuff that kids usually lack at her age, and our gym dedicates every Saturday to tumbling and we work at least 20 minutes every practice on tumbling... we would definitely have her doing tumbling, would you consider her hopping onto one of our elite teams?"

Of course my wife is like, "of course, send us the packet with the info!"

Man, this place is around $1,500 more than the last place. I got into a decent sized 2 vs. 1 argument with the wife and kid last night, but finally I shut that shit down and we're on the same page about the plan for this year.


I fucking hate these places though... your site says teams will be locked after (insert date, usually 7/1 for most gyms). They even said their choreography was done... BUT, of course if someone comes along that would help their chances they'd be happy to just ignore all the rules and add them (for tons of money, of course there is no discounted tuition being offered).

It's all so ridiculous.

And again... it'd be one thing if my kid was a legit savant or truly elite. She's not, this isn't some LeBron James basketball situation where she's college level at middle school. She's 'above average' for her age, but she's no generational talent at this point. Majority of girls her age are a level below, but there were 2 girls at her old gym that were her age and more advanced than her. Going to these competitions, that tracks in terms of the sport. Her old team was usually in the top 3 at the competitions and the girls at the gyms they were competing with seemed to have a similar makeup for the age ranges.

I know it won't work, but I feel this is the ideal spot to start "negotiating" with these clowns and have a little fun.

"Oh, you want my daughter on your team? Absolutely! We're very interested in that! But just so we're clear, what are we getting out of this arrangement? Since she's deviating from what we wanted to assist you and your team, I assume we're talking at least 50% off the cost, right?

No? What, you mean you're not willing to provide a service to assist someone for less than you think it's worth? But isn't that what you're asking my daughter to do?"

Then when your wife and daughter get mad you just say "Hey honey *I* believe in you and your talent! Why on EARTH would I let you give it away for free?! I TRIED to be reasonable with them!"

If nothing else you flip the ground and make them have a completely different kind of fight than they were expecting. That's always fun.

 

[osubuckeye4]

I know it won't work, but I feel this is the ideal spot to start "negotiating" with these clowns and have a little fun.

"Oh, you want my daughter on your team? Absolutely! We're very interested in that! But just so we're clear, what are we getting out of this arrangement? Since she's deviating from what we wanted to assist you and your team, I assume we're talking at least 50% off the cost, right?

No? What, you mean you're not willing to provide a service to assist someone for less than you think it's worth? But isn't that what you're asking my daughter to do?"

Then when your wife and daughter get mad you just say "Hey honey *I* believe in you and your talent! Why on EARTH would I let you give it away for free?! I TRIED to be reasonable with them!"

If nothing else you flip the ground and make them have a completely different kind of fight than they were expecting. That's always fun.

It's funny because I thought about that, but then I was like "what if this turns into an all-time backfire, they call my bluff and say they'll match the rate I was paying at the other gym?".

Yes, I could (barely) afford that... but I really think the plan that we came up with is what will put my daughter in the best position for future success.

Also, this gym occasionally goes up against my daughters old gym... I don't know that that would be a good thing for her mentally so soon after her leaving. Next year that wouldn't be a concern, but if we did it this year the perception could cause a lot of drama for her with people who she is still friends with.



To be fair to this program, they weren't going for a hard sell. It was less, "we need her! She's a generational talent!" and more, "hey, just so you guys know... we feel that what your other gym said was really off base. To prove it, we'd move around our choreography and get her in and work with the areas that they were unwilling to work with because our coaches see the potential there. It's 100% your call, and no hard feelings if you pass.. just throwing it out there because we would view her as an asset and love to work with her."


I just hate the way these places operate because I know if my daughter comes onto another team mid-season it's going to cause ripples on that team because you know someone is going to feel like they are getting jobbed by the newbies arrival. This shouldn't be something these places even offer... lock it down and roll with the team you have. I guess if someone moves from out of state or something and is desperately looking for a gym you could consider it, but not a situation like this where we weren't coming there to get her on one of their teams.

Whatever, I think I'm more pissed at my wife for not being on the same page as me and for even entertaining it. I shouldn't be mad at the place for saying they believe in my daughter and backing it up by offering her a spot, I should be pissed at my wife for asking them to send financial info and trying to string me along. Yes, my wife is clearly the devil.