Club Soccer + High School Cross Country

[coachsamy]

So, my son tried out for the XC team at his HS and he got in. Everything was perfect until I realized (yeah, it was dumb of me not to think about this when he told me he wanted both and I said "sure!") some of the meets will be in days where he has Club league game.

Has anybody dealt with this? Any tips (other than cloning him)?

Another thing you have to keep in mind is that right after XC is done, the HS soccer season comes, then most kids that enjoyed their time in XC end up in the TF team. You are looking at possibly your son doing 3 sports during his HS years, so there maybe some consideration in which time of the year he should be taking a break. Not to scare you (injuries) but at the end of the school year, you should have a conversation with him about what he wants to do in regards playing year round soccer vs becoming a 2/3 sport HS letterman.

 

[Technician72]

My kid is playing club and doing varsity cross country. Several kids on the team are. Only been a couple weeks now but we leave XC practice early for soccer practice. Those two days are long days though, hoping there’s no burn out. Just make sure your kid is up for it, and you are..its been super busy with both.

What works for us:

Have your kid and XC coach have honest / realistic conversations, at best my DD will make 1/2 of the practices / races and that's all there is to it. She's doing XC for fun, as academics and soccer are her vehicles for college. No illusions of being an all star runner.

My daughter has her schedule planned out and it was part of her agreeing to do XC and having the coach be okay with it.

Academics 1st, Soccer 2nd, XC 3rd and that means purposely avoiding too many back to back practices and having a full day off from sports in the middle of the week. She got lucky with her soccer schedule this year.

If at any point XC starts to infringe on academics or soccer, it was a nice try but that's that.

Best of luck to everyone's kids performing the balancing act!

 

[Own Goal]

The challenge comes when your child plays soccer at a very competitive level and they are also a talented runner . Throw in one or even worse both coaches who are not supportive of the other sport and it creates an almost impossible situation for the athlete who wants to make the most of their high school experience