I'd add a corollary to this, which is that it is OK for a child to pursue a sport even if the child will never reach the "top" levels. My oldest played second-tier club soccer until this past year, with no aspirations of playing team soccer in college, just because he enjoyed playing the game at a club rather than rec level. My daughter will never reach L10. Her body won't tolerate that intensity of training, and she may be switching over to XCel, but she's still in the gym because she loves doing gymnastics.
Had an interesting interaction recently about men's gym in college in which another parent told me that s/he would never pay for a child to do one of the high end clubs like SoCal United, Temple, or UW. NCAA or nothing. That got me to thinking about all the significantly less worthwhile ways a college student could be spending time and the significantly less valuable investments a parent could make while a child is in college. There are worse ways to ensure that the child's college experience will help him to learn discipline and time management, to stay physically active, to build a strong cohort of good friends, and to take in from a more mature perspective all the things gym can teach. If my son is interested and he can do his part to earn an academic scholarship to a school with a club team, at this point, I'd be inclined to support it.
- that sounds a lot like what college gym is too.
