Somewhere in Pennsylvania last summer, a father watched his son hit his second home run in a Little League baseball game. He turned to his wife and said, “He’s going to play for the Phillies one day.”

Out in Ohio, a high school boy scored his 35th basketball point in a game, giving him an all-time record of 1,400 career points for his team and his father said to his wife, “Our boy is a natural. If he puts in the work, he’ll go pro one day.”

In Central New Jersey, a D1 senior college tailback ran for three touchdowns and set the university’s record for most yards gained in one season. His coach told his parents that their boy could become a draft pick in the NFL.

The hard truth …

With a college recruiter at my side, I once held a seminar for parents of athletes at Colonia High School in New Jersey. We passed out paper and asked them to write down where they believed their kids would play their sports after high school. The recruiter collected the papers and began to read each one out loud. “Arizona State, Rutgers, Texas, Penn State, Michigan, Notre Dame.” He threw all the papers in the wastebasket except for two. “Kean University and Middlesex County College,” he read. “Now these are much more reasonable.”

He went on to explain the incredibly difficult odds of becoming a professional athlete in baseball, football and basketball, which have increased exponentially since this seminar was held many years ago. A website called, “Chasing the Dream” recently reported that only 5.6 percent of good high school baseball players will play at any level of college ball and only .05 percent will ever be drafted by a Major League Baseball team.

What about playing in the NFL? An NCAA study reported that in every one million students who play high school football, only 251 make it to the pro level; that’s a percentage of 0.023 percent.

What if your son or daughter is an All-State high school basketball player getting a scholarship to a college? The Sports Digest said that only 44 out of nearly 156,000 high school players will be drafted by NBA teams. Similar odds of 0.03 exist for a high school girl basketball player getting drafted into the WNBA.

A personal story …

As a varsity high school baseball coach for six years, one of my All-County scholar athletes was accepted at Duke University and was invited to try out for their fall team. He had told me that on the first day, he stood behind 21 other invited players from across the country that were invited to try out for just the second base position for what Duke calls their junior varsity.

I also was a head coach of a freshman football program for 17 years that averaged 45 rostered players each season. We were very fortunate to have plenty of gifted athletes whose teams won 95 games with three undefeated seasons over that time period. One of my players went on to become an All-American at Kansas and then was drafted by the Denver Broncos before he injured his knee and never played afterward.

Another player went to the Naval Academy and played two seasons for the Midshipmen’s football team. From about 765 football players in my program over that time span, just two went on to high level collegiate teams and only one of the two was drafted into the pros.

The bait on the hook …

Youth programs are waving carrots in front of parents trying to convince them that their kids can get athletic scholarships or even get drafted to play pro ball. Travel baseball, athlete showcases and AAU programs get hundreds of thousands of dollars every year from parents who dream of watching their sons and daughters playing on TV.

A high school baseball coach in the West had this to say about showcases that are supposed to be great opportunities for earning college scholarships. “They are expensive and most of the kids going to showcases do not earn scholarship money. It’s a pipe dream for parents who continue to hand over their money for these events. If your kid is that good, they will find him.”

He advises parents to save their money, let their kids play summer and fall ball and make videos of his talents. Of course, this is just his opinion while many parents and coaches swear by the value of showcase events and the fact is that is the best way to get athletes national exposure.

In the last 10 years, 81 Pennsylvania players were drafted by the NFL with the most recent and notable athlete being Saquon Barkley from Whitehall and now of the Philadelphia Eagles. In the MLB, Pottsville’s Travis Blankenhorn was drafted by the Twins in 2015 and has had brief stays with the Mets and the Nationals. He plays the game that has several layers of minor leagues that can send their players home without ever stepping up to the Show. A recent study reported that of the 1,500 players drafted by the MLB every year, about seven percent reach a major league team, and of that only three percent sustain a relatively long MLB career.

The ultimate goal …

Of course, there are those athletes that make it all the way, but they are the few that are the exceptions. I am happy to watch my son play club baseball at Lehigh University, and we have kept only one thing in our minds since the first day he carried a bat up to home plate in the Jim Thorpe Little League. Play hard and try to help your team win, but throughout the game, the only goal that matters is to have fun.

As youth sports become more of a business than they are a recreation, the pressure of performing can be buried under an ocean of cashed checks, unrealistic hopes and broken dreams. At six or 16 years old, ask kids and they will say they just want to have fun, make friends, and enjoy the competition of playing a sport.

As parents, shouldn’t that be all we want for our children?