It often feels to the parents as if their child is a commodity. At one end they experience pressure to commit and on the other selling approaches that can be unsavory and even dishonest.

The second point relates to player development. Parents are leery of clubs that represent themselves as being focused on player development but then display three behaviors that parents see as belying this commitment.

These behaviors are playing only their bigger and faster players so they can win games, taking guest players to tournaments — not to make up for regular-team players who are unavailable, but to strengthen the team and use the tournament as an opportunity to recruit the guest players — and building a team not by developing existing players into better performers but by recruiting players who are already better.

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