The Future of JV Sports

The goal of these entries is to lay out a challenge and try to present some reasons for that challenge as well as some jumping off points for a discussion.

JV sports were often times the feeding ground for future varsity players. Younger players began their career in freshman and JV teams and then got better, grew, matured and became assets for the Varsity teams. Yet, for many sports in independent schools, that trajectory has changed.

There are a number of reasons for this change.

1. More varsity sports are recruiting athletes for elite level sports, often at the older years of high school, theoretically blocking a younger home grown player under development

2. Many JV Players aren’t that interested in moving on to Varsity and never have been

3. Many of our students are from overseas and unfamiliar with some of our more national/regional games (American football, lacrosse, etc.) and trying to pick a sport up at 9th grade while others have been playing since birth is a formidable challenge.

There is nothing inherently wrong about these changes, but they do push some of the following questions:

1. If JV sports are no longer feeders for Varsity. What is their primary goal ? Fun ?Exercise ? Working as a Team ? Competition ? other ?

2. Is it necessary to continue to play an old schedule and spend hours on a bus playing a team far away ?

3. Can the goals of health, team and competition be met in ways that are not spend with more time driving than playing ?

4. Are there other ways lower tier sports can be made to feel more relevant for our student athletes ?

5. Where do the seniors go who do not have the skill to ever make Varsity but want to continue playing ?

6. Is there a benefit to continuing the way it has always been done ? 

7. Do we introduce new sports rather than have lower tier sports ? that start folks on a more even playing field ? (mountain biking, ultimate frisbee, 8 man football, E-Sports, rugby, etc. )