I don't just mean $ but that does come into play. I just mean, there's this whole culture of "advanced league" sports that can get pretty involved. Tons of time practicing. Tons of time travelling. Tons of money spent. People say you HAVE TO do these to get to "the next level" and some say it's not worth playing unless you are competing against "the best." But what percentage of kids are actually realizing the former (or even the latter)?

Example: I have a friend would has a daughter that was super involved in soccer. Took over the whole family's lives. Everything revolved around practice and traveling to games for YEARS. She was pretty good. She seemed to like it. She gets to the end of HS and ends up playing at directional school in Iowa that half the people in Iowa has never heard of. I doubt there's much financial assistance.

Sure, some f the trips were probably fun. She learned hard work and dedication, etc. I'm not saying it's useless because she just ended up at Southwest/central Iowa Academy of Corn. But was it really worth it to go through all of the stuff the entire family did to reach that goal? Could she have maybe even reached that goal without doing all of that?

Also, I 100% recognize "hindsight is 20/20" and "you miss all of the shots you don't take" but how many of these kids that, say, play baseball every day of their lives and spend thousands even get to play after HS?