You summarized it perfectly: "a beauty contest." I hope and assume you're not 100% OK with that.
And who said it SHOULD be easy? My point is, the selection process as currently constituted includes little or no due diligence (calls to club coaches to confirm what you think you see during split-session, 3-hour tryouts); zero objective evaluation of key components of athleticism; and perhaps 5-10 minutes (at most) of genuine individual technical evaluation.
Conversely, it includes a lot of hyped reputation, looking at last year's team lists, and general grab-assing. "John Doe was held over last year. He MUST be good." (Except little Johnny hasn't grown or improved.) KIDS CHANGE!!! They grow. They get injured. They burn out. They have girl/boyfriends. They get distracted and sidetracked in a million and one ways. All I ask is that they DON'T get sidetracked by a crappy process.
I ask that evaluators have and use the time to form their own HONEST and CURRENT opinions -- not just go with the flow and what's been done before.
I've watched it long and hard, my friend, and that's NOT what's happening now.
