Fully anecdotal, but one of my 6th form rugby teammates went to watch a high school american football game, and said they were comparably as good as we were. Only difference is they filled a stadium and we’d get 3 dads on the sideline.
Junior teams for professional clubs do very much pay attention to school leagues and youth club rugby for players to ‘scoop up’.
Seems like a purely cultural difference around going to watch lower level matches to me, rather than the player skill and career trajectory being different.
Yeah I don’t know enough about how the US system works. From the media it seems like every high school has a team that draws a crowd.
My experience in the UK system was that even the same secondary school doesn’t consistently have a team for each sport.
Also in the UK, it seems like we don’t get behind our school teams (even whilst we’re in school with them). They’re just seen as something the sporty kids do. But that’s all purely my experience of our school system. Could be completely different in a different city/county.
It’s the whole setup. The marching band comes in and plays, too. I was in band but I don’t really remember if it was actually every game we came and played too but it was a lot. So they’re like big events. Cheerleaders also, that’s a lot of students with parents who want to see their child perform.
Yeah but imagine that secondary schools and 6th forms were doing grass roots, then unis were scooping up the best players for their own uni teams.
Fully anecdotal, but one of my 6th form rugby teammates went to watch a high school american football game, and said they were comparably as good as we were. Only difference is they filled a stadium and we’d get 3 dads on the sideline.
Junior teams for professional clubs do very much pay attention to school leagues and youth club rugby for players to ‘scoop up’.
Seems like a purely cultural difference around going to watch lower level matches to me, rather than the player skill and career trajectory being different.
Yeah I don’t know enough about how the US system works. From the media it seems like every high school has a team that draws a crowd.
My experience in the UK system was that even the same secondary school doesn’t consistently have a team for each sport.
Also in the UK, it seems like we don’t get behind our school teams (even whilst we’re in school with them). They’re just seen as something the sporty kids do. But that’s all purely my experience of our school system. Could be completely different in a different city/county.
The media is accurate. I don’t like sports but in high school we’d go to the football games because that was the social event.
It’s the whole setup. The marching band comes in and plays, too. I was in band but I don’t really remember if it was actually every game we came and played too but it was a lot. So they’re like big events. Cheerleaders also, that’s a lot of students with parents who want to see their child perform.