When Jaidelis “Jaida” Rivera joined the Boston Showstoppers grassroots program this spring, she and her father, Isaac, made the choice to drive two hours from their New London, Conn., home to Boston twice a week for practices. That made for some late Wednesday school nights and early Sunday mornings.
The Riveras were seeking a better-fitting program compared to Jaida’s previous AAU experiences. But the move was also an important test. Could the Showstoppers give the family what they were looking for in a travel team — while also charging zero entry fee?
“I was like, you know what? Maybe I could save the money and take the drive,” Isaac said. “And I took that risk, and it so far is paying out. It works. She's having the best time.
“Actually, it’s the best move I've ever made.”
INSIDE THE COSTS: Here's how small expenses stack up quickly for AAU families
The Boston Showstoppers were, relative to their level of play, the most successful grassroots program in New England this summer. They fielded the only 17U team from the region to make a circuit championship game, reaching the finals of the Hoop Group Showcase League. The 15U Showstoppers also won the HGSL championship, taking down a regional foe in Team NSSA.
But that’s not the special angle. It’s that zero Showstoppers families paid entry fees to join the program.
The hot-button issue in youth sports today is how skyrocketing costs continue stretching families to their financial limits. In New England grassroots basketball, as we’ve established, it’s practically expected that families fork over $10,000 or more per year to put their child through the AAU pipeline and travel to watch them play.
Entry fees represent a sizeable slice of the pie. Isaac said he paid roughly $1500-1800 per year in entry fees to place Rivera in her recent AAU programs. The Showstoppers ask only for uniform fees and for parents to cover their own travel costs.
Clinton “Bronco” Lassiter, who is also vice principal and girls basketball coach at Cathedral, founded the Showstoppers in 2007 to give his nieces a local club option. He had been charging families $350 until two years ago, when he wiped entry fees from the board.
The Showstoppers aren’t the only program on this mission (Shooting Touch also covers all entry costs for its players and covers travel costs for its top team), but their cause is ambitious given the smaller, home-brewed beginnings of the program.
Lassiter only fields six total teams, starting at fifth grade, and will combine grades if he doesn’t have the numbers for a full roster. Only the high school showcase teams travel to all the major showcases. Lassiter says he searches for individual donors and mixes in some team fundraising activities to cover costs. The Showstoppers ran a donation calendar giveaway this summer as an example
“It's a grind. I think honestly, I probably work harder for that than I do for my real job, and I'm a vice principal,” Lassiter said. “I didn't grow up paying for sports, and I don't feel like parents and kids should be paying for sports either, because it's supposed to be something fun and not a stressor.”
Lassiter is an AAU cynic. He looks at the volume of teams, countless showcase divisions and tournaments and wonders why much of it is necessary. The Showstoppers don’t play on the highest tier of grassroots circuits, but by keeping things small and manageable, Lassiter believes he develops a more personal understanding of his players as prospects and also opens up an accessible path to hoops.
“A lot of these bigger programs are going to tournaments for free anyway,” he said. “They're not paying the entry fee, so their costs aren't really their costs. They're getting free hotel rooms. They're getting free entry fees for their teams. So all that money is going to their pockets,” he said. “And they might pay some coaches' travel expenses — I'm not saying they don't do those things — but the bigger picture is that a lot of their mortgages are being paid, or properties, or land, or cars, and things are being paid off the backs of these kids' entry fees.
“... It's just sickening to me, seeing people charge parents and kids thousands of dollars to play youth sports.”
Lassiter builds the schedule in December for the following spring season. Still, many of the Showstoppers families are working parents who don’t have the time and money available to constantly travel with the team. He estimates that roughly 50 percent of parents are on the road with the Showstoppers at a given major showcase. During the HGSL championship tournament from July 24-27, four of 10 families for the 17U team made the trip to Manheim, Pa.
Getting the players there was its own team effort. Some traveled with the families of younger team members. Others drove part of the journey to the Riveras in New London, Conn., where Isaac and Jaida picked up the next leg to Spooky Nook.
“Because we're built on family principles, thankfully, we have families that are willing to do whatever it takes so no one's left behind, and it's been a blessing,” Lassiter said.
Isaac runs his own painting company and his wife, Jasmine Torres, is a nursing assistant. Jaida Rivera is the youngest of their three kids, and the parents have so far been willing to part with the typical high costs to place Rivera on a high-level grassroots team.
But Isaac noticed something shifted after joining the Showstoppers this year. By not placing a thousand-dollar-plus down payment to play, Isaac stressed less over Rivera’s playing time and performance.
“As a parent, you're paying all this money, and then you think that you're not doing enough, and you kind of want to push your child,” he said. “... There's a reason for this: so eventually it'll save us money for college. So I thought the investment wasn't good. By it being free, it was much (more) relief, because now I did not care if she played or not.”
Rivera was one of the top players on the 17U Showstoppers, along with Alaysia Drummonds (a rising senior at Foxboro), Denai Williams (Natick rising senior) and others. She bonded quickly with her teammates and felt more relaxed without the weight of an entry fee on her mind.
“It definitely released a lot of pressure while playing,” she said. “It made me feel like I was free to play and I could play my game without so much pressure on me — and having to rely on the money that my parents put in, and making myself think I have to have a good game because they paid so much money in order for me to play, so I can't let them down.”
Between her previous AAU stops, her former New London team and the Marianapolis program she’s transferring to, Rivera has a large network of teammates for a reclassified junior. She believes that many young athletes feel the same financial pressure to perform, even if it’s not directly coming from an adult.
“I've heard it from other players before. I feel like you could see off a lot of players' attitudes, and especially coming off a game, you could see the faces players make or the way their attitude changes after a game,” she said. “Even if they didn't have a good game, you could see the way their whole entire perspective changes. They start going all serious, and you could see, like in AAU, I feel like you could see a lot of different emotions. Especially after games, you could see some kids don't look so happy (and) some kids are happy.”
As the season went along, Isaac found himself staying and watching nearly every Showstoppers practice at Cathedral consistently, just because he enjoyed it. He called this season an eye-opening experience as a parent because of how dramatically his mindset changed.
“I remember one time I was like, well, who cares, you know? We can try (this program); it's two hours away, and I didn't pay anything for it (so) I would just walk away,” he said “But of course it didn't work that way — of course I was amazed.”
