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Post by phillyhoops4life on May 29, 2015 1:21:47 GMT -5
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Post by JoeFedorowicz on May 29, 2015 7:18:29 GMT -5
I get that the guy is protecting his livelihood, but that is just it. AAU Sports has become such a moneymaker for those involved that the actual product...the kids...aren't being protected. Most of my exposure to the system is on the girl's side; my sister played throughout her childhood and finding the right AAU team actually got her onto a D1 team, when she didn't have the exposure before that.
So she is the success story and my sister was a decent player that could shoot. That said, I've seen dozens of players get on the right team and get sold to schools only to never play at the D1 level. The right AAU coach with connections sells a D1 coach that these three girls can all play when they can't. That AAU coach then sells to a hundred girls that he got all of these players D1 scholarships. So this group of girls, most of whom cannot / will not play D1 basketball, try out and pay money to play on this AAU coach's 3rd / 4th / 5th team. And we're talking hundreds and thousands of dollars here. The good girls...they girls that could make it without playing AAU at all...they aren't paying that money. The coach wants them. The money is in the other teams.
So now you have girls that are borderline high school varsity players paying hundreds / thousands of dollars and playing in 14 tournaments a summer, tournaments with 500 teams in them at 500$ a pop (tournament sponsors are a completely different issue). So that money gets to the AAU director and he is, all of the sudden, very wealthy. And his wealth comes from 80% of the players that will never make it at the college level, but AAU has become the new "activity." It isn't about exposure or about refining the game (definitely not about refining the game), but about giving 100 players something to do when they aren't in school. That isn't a bad thing, but we have to refer to it by what it is.
And there are 50 of these programs in the Philadelphia area. How are they all sustainable? Because all it takes is a few success stories. A few players in the Big East or ACC, and you have dozens of prospective HS varsity players looking for exposure with money in hand.
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I know that was a rant, but I've hated the AAU system since I saw what it was when my sister went through it. And if it was like that for the girls, I can only imagine what the boys system is like.
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Post by thelasallelunatic on May 30, 2015 10:02:29 GMT -5
I'll second that, and I coached at the AAU level. I got out of it after 1 year, when my brother and sister-in-law decided to start a family. Now I don't coach anymore, but I do have a beautiful niece!
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