Blakely and Wong Attending National Team Camp

[Bob]

I guess World Champions Centre is still doing strong. Tiana and Dulchy are both still there

They were advertising wildly for elites from other gyms to go across to them.

 

[RedBirdie]

They were advertising for kids as young as 8 with elite dreams to come to WCC and enter the homeschool program and train a bazillion hours. Seemed pretty desperate, tbh.

 

[rlayt]

That’s a recipe for disaster.

 

[RedBirdie]

My mistake, it was ages 10+. But still. it's gross, imo. And they've posted this, or a variation of it, to instagram numerous times. Reading between the lines, it also says they don't have potential elites in their existing developmental program

 

[Hatsumomo]

They were advertising for kids as young as 8 with elite dreams to come to WCC and enter the homeschool program and train a bazillion hours. Seemed pretty desperate, tbh.

A homeschool program in Texas

 

[irichluck21]

Yes. Likely Abeka curriculum.

 

[QuietColours]

Cordelia Price said something about Texas' school attendance policy being a guaranteed fail if a student missed more than 10% of days, so private or homeschooling would be the only option. Not sure how accurate that is, but at least it makes that part of the advertisement make sense.

The fact the advertisement exists at all, on the other hand... And it does not say good things about WCC's dev program that they've been around this long, attracting every kid with Olympic dreams in a reasonable radius, and they can't produce any elites through their own system. Has anyone even moved there at level 8 or 9 and made it to elite under them?

 

[RedBirdie]

I'm 99% sure under then Landis the only person they had successfully test elite, not transfer in as an elite already, was Dulcy Caylor. And Caylor spent 1 year as a level 10 there, she had already done 2 years of level 10 at Texas Dreams and successfully competed Hopes. I'm a little more fuzzy on the Amiee years.

Apparently WCC's Academy is technically a private school. The website isn't up-to-date, and it's pretty lacking in info, imo. The fact that they offer classes at the elementary level bothers me. No child that young should be in schools for just a few hours a day so they can be doing sports. But WCC is happy to charge you $7,000+ a year on top of gymnastics tuition and fees so your child can attend The Academy.

This whole business of sports clubs setting up schools ("schools") solely so kids can spend the bare minimum time on academics and remain NCAA eligible is predatory. It was predatory when IMG first started this shit decades ago, and its just as predatory today. They're springing up with alarming regularity around the country. 99% of the kids enrolled in these won't be going pro. 98% of them won't get college scholarship, and 95% of them won't even make a D3 team.