I actually disagree. I think that kids and parents do have choices. When they sign up/try out for a team they are making a commitment to abide by certain rules and regulations. Regular attendance is once of them. Parents do have choices when they schedule things and they should, when possible, try to schedule them so that kids don’t miss practices. As far as vacations during the season, why does it seem that these thing problems tend to come up mucb less in sports like basketball and football?
Although those sports come with their own sets of problems having a “bench” is a significant deterrent to certain problems like missing practice and games. We do have a bench in track, we just tend not to use it.