While there are many sports here at school, there are also several travel teams in Roseville as well. They take up a lot of time, energy, and money, but can benefit you in the long run. Taking your game to the next level, building close friendships, sharpening time management skills, and career success are benefits of playing travel sports. However, there are a lot of pros and cons of travel/club sports.

One con of travel sports is that it is very expensive. Parents have to pay for hotels, food, and fees to play in tournaments. $1,000 or more is pretty common for the cost.  Constantly traveling for sports can take a toll on the parents, having to balance their work life and family life, all on top of their kid’s sport. Kids also practice almost every day of the week, not including games. It is a struggle for them to balance their school work, social life, and sports life. Kids sometimes have to miss school for a tournament, and can fall behind in the curriculum.

On the other hand, with taking it to the next level you can have more colleges look at you. Your skills also improve with more practice time, games, and tournaments. It gives you more time to fix your mistakes and get better. Another pro is the memories and friendships you make. Building close friendships within your sports is key to having a good team. Once you are on a team for a while and get used to playing with those players, you get to know their strengths and weaknesses. You also sharpen your time management skills, because you have to learn to balance everything with school, your sport and social life.

“I don’t think it takes up too much time unless you have other things going on. If you love and enjoy the sport then travel sports should not take up most of your time,” sophomore Madison Milot said.

As you can see there are pros and cons of playing travel/club sports. If you pursue a travel sport, managing time with your sports life and your school life is very important since colleges look at both. If you are looking to start a travel sport, make sure you talk to your parents and weigh out the good and the bad to see if a travel sport is right for you.