Wow, that's a "mouthful". Sorry Carson (and you) has to go through that. Tons of respect to the lad for having the gumption to prove them wrong! Unfortunately, that stuff is not that unusual... I lived through a bunch of crap in a "football rules" high school, so I can identify with some of the stuff that goes on.
Saw this yesterday without time to read the long story... Came back this morning to read it and it is gone... WTF???
Terry, HS baseball is year-round in some form or another. Up here in Indiana my sophomore grandson is lifting and participating in team batting practice 3-5 days a week after school. I'm guessing Carson's HS had tryouts now so they can proceed training with a known freshman team after Christmas break. Of course, in Alabama, they probably can practice outside, at least occasionally, during the winter months.
That said, I kind of think that the year-round emphasis on HS sports that now goes on is a kind of negative thing. Kids are forced to concentrate on mostly one sport instead of getting to try several and find out where their talents and interests may truly lie. JMO
Actually, my son's day starts with wrestling practice at 5:30am and ends with baseball practice at 6:30pm. I absolutely hate this, but no one wants my opinion on it. It's way too much. What I don't understand is that these guys get away with twisting/bending the rules to gain 'optimal performance.' The truth is, I feel 100% confident I could put together a team using half the prep time with kids who'd get better grades and would require raising about a third of the money that would absolutely slaughter these 24/7 programs. People buy into too much ******** these days.
Where do you see him ending up with regards to a sport or sports? Is he a Div 1 prospect in baseball and/or football? What is his best sport?
It's still too early to tell. For baseball, he's very raw. For a whole ton of reasons, he didn't get a lot of proper instruction/coaching coming up as a youth. Even worse, he didn't get to play a whole lot. He didn't have a 12 year old year of baseball. His 11 year old year, he played for a scammer travel ball dickhead that his mom hooked him up with. He would go WEEKS without playing a single defensive out or without getting an AB. They didn't play him until they were forced to play him (due to the rules) in the area tournament. He wound up getting the game winning hit in the quarter, semifinal and final games as a late inning substitute. He's in a situation at Decatur in which he'll probably only get one season to prove they should keep him. I'm going to start working with him a lot and will continue to do so over the course of the season, in an attempt to show that he's a keeper. It really does get down to whether or not he'll finally get a chance to play a lot. He's played for one team that actually started him and used him every day. That team was the club he played for last year. They won the District, Area, Region and went to the State Championship tournament. At that tournament, they shelved Carson for some of their travel ball kids and went 2 and out. They played Carson in each game. He's the only player to get a hit in each game. Take that for what it's worth. For football, it depends on how much he grows, or if he grows. At 6'2" 245lbs as a freshman, he's pretty good sized right now. He needs to improve his lateral quickness, but his vertical speed is really good and he's freakishly strong for his size. He struggled on offense this year learning all of the zone blocking reads. He excelled on defense. There, he's routinely double and triple teamed. He's improving his technique, but when he just bull rushes the assignment, he beats even the triples. Again, he's very strong for his size and he's just now starting to lift weights. South Alabama invited him to their family day game against Miss State this year, but we didn't go due to the birth of Harlow. He was invited to and attended the 4 big lineman camps here in Alabama before the school year. He's already been invited to those 4 again this year in addition to some other camps. It's interesting because he makes friends at all of these camps. I swear he has more friends playing for Clay-Chalkville than he does Decatur. I would like to send Carson to the ND camp again this year. He didn't attend last summer due to his mother's passing AND the fact that his schedule filled up quick with the camps here. It's already been suggested to me that if he gets the invite to the prep camps for either Alabama or Auburn, that we drop what we're doing and send him. I guess I'll worry about that if/when it comes. Since he's a Duke TIP award winner, that enabled me to reach out to them and make inquiries about their program. I've set him up with some extra coursework online and they'll be sending the camp info out later. Coach Cut being the old SEC guru that he is, smartly has started recruiting this area for players. They aren't landing many yet, but they are on everyone's list and that's a start. I've recently turned my son on to Ivy League football. There's a lot of reasons this appeals to me, but their need based aid programs certainly have my ears turned up. http://www.ivyleaguesports.com/information/psa/index Basically, it's a lot of 'wait and see' because there's just so much of it that is still left to things we can't control (like growth etc), but I'm trying to keep him on top of the things he can control so that if he's fortunate enough to have an opportunity to play at the next level, he'll have a variety of choices to make. That's the plan for now, anyway. It's funny because baseball is his love, but it seems that no one wants him to play it. It's always been that way. Everyone seems really excited about his future in football, but there's about a 99% chance he'd go anywhere else to play football.