Why do American HS sports have cuts? It seems absolutely ridiculous.

Oversized schools. The HS my girls will be attending had 65 girls try out for the Freshman soccer team this past fall. For sports like xc or track I can see having a larger roster size with kids that just do the home meet but for some sports it's just unmanageable

That is really the best reason I can think of, but not really a good one. I have now heard of schools even implementing cuts on track and xc teams; this sort of policy just leaves kids with nowhere to go to get exercise and make friends; the two things society constantly pushes on them and then in the USA rejects them from even being allowed to do. I always feel like Americans want the dog and pony show so bad they will sacrifice a healthy population for it. Hence they are fat and crazy.

Silly Americans… no one has ever been cut from a school’s sport team in Europe.

It's okay, pal. Keep training and you'll make it next year.

Great strategy, tell the kids to go away and maybe next year you will be worthy and be allowed to exercise on school grounds and make friends. A genius approach to a healthy student population.

Yea bro let's have a varsity, jv, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, and j team for basketball. Having 10 teams makes so much sense just so no ones feelings get hurt.

Instead of cities and towns attempting to have dominate athletic teams, maybe a better idea would be to have more high schools, about 1/4 to 1/3 the current size of some of the larger schools. Instead of high schools with 1800 enrollment, high schools with 450 to 600 kids seems like a better idea.

Do we cut kids from Algebra because there isn't space for them? We in the USA have an obesity crisis yet we have cuts and even some schools without gym classes or playgrounds. Some of these kids will be heart diseased and diabetic in a few decades if we don't change course. I realize that equipping some teams (e.g., American football) can be very expensive, but some sports such as running or soccer need much less money.

The solution IMO is more PE classes and other opportunities like rec leagues, clubs and pickup games etc for kids to participate and compete within the school. Interscholastic Sports should be reserved for the best athletes at given school to compete against the best at other schools, that is literally their purpose.

Look at it this way: boys who can run a mile in 6:00 or slower don’t need to compete against boys from other schools, there is probably already plenty of competition for them within their own school, a PE class or a club is probably fine for them. A boy who can run a mile in 4:30 or faster might not have another kid at their own school to provide meaningful competition at which point it makes sense to look outside the school for more competition. The same is true for every sport, the best athletes in each sport are going to have to look elsewhere for competition, they’ve already proven they are better than everyone else at their own school via tryouts etc. The problem isn’t varsity sports making cuts, the problem is the lack of other outlets for all the other kids who don’t make the cut.

Coaches are only allowed a certain number of kids on a team before the school has to hire another coach. I believe the number is 25 but it maybe varies from state to state not to sure on that. Easier to tell a slow kid to go home than spent money and hire another coach.

I get what you are saying but it isn’t always possible. Our school doesn’t do a lot of cuts. If there are numbers they will have a JV and freshman team. I think other teams do the same so there is so competition at all levels. It does often come down to coaching and gym or field space.

Or they could just expand the teams and only take the top kids to the travel competitions. There is no reason they can't have 100 kids on any team other than laziness, arrogance and more laziness. Why shouldn't a kid who runs 6 minutes be able to compete? American HS is such a dog and pony show. The gain from school athletics is the exercise, being part of a team effort, and the social interaction, not selecting the "best" at the expense of everyone else; the competition is actually meaningless in the grand scheme of things. Real coaches would and do push for huge roster as it allows for depth and development and the emergence of real stars, not the declaration of "you are a star" because some kids grew first. Some of the top teams in the nation have historically had giant rosters. Excluding kids from their school teams teaches them nothing. Yes, most schools could certainly afford and handle a 40-50 basketball team roster if they actually cared about the students; sadly, they don't actually care about the students and that is the primary problem.

I understand this; I am hearing now in places were they are having across the board cuts to these lower teams. Cuts for the varsity squads might make sense, but telling the kids you suck so bad to can't eve play jv of freshman level and you have to go home and think about it in silence for a year does not seem like a healthy approach that is good for the students. It seems like misguided incompetence of coaching and athletics staff and a poor use of tax dollars. The point of school sports is not to parade around the best athletes, it is the development and health of all of the students. Winning in HS sports is mostly meaningless and certainly not worth harming most of the students in order to achieve it.

That is what they have in the UK. The football (soccer) teams at the school I used to work at had the equivalent of 8th Grade A-F teams, Freshman A-E, Sophomore A-D, and then five senior (for junior and senior age students) teams. Same idea for rugby and cricket. No cuts.

You are free to donate to every school in the country so that they can hire more staff and build more fields amd gyms. Our freshmen basketball team had 60 tryout for a team of 15.

You are free to donate to every school in the country so that they can hire more staff and build more fields amd gyms. Our freshmen basketball team had 60 tryout for a team of 15.

Most public schools are lucky to have one assistant coach. You can only safely and reasonably coordinate so many athletes per coach (adult).

If people are upset with cuts then maybe act as a volunteer assistant to help out. Most coaches are more than happy to have more athletes out for their sport.

You are being overly dramatic. There are plenty of ways to exercise outside of a high school team.

And do you seriously think that kids who don't play sports have zero friends?

C'mon, think a little harder before you say such rediculous things.