Nearly all of the travel sports obsessed kids who were “recruited” for college seem to quit?

[Anonymous]

I mean sure... in theory.... but just like non-athletes, he might change his view on "what he likes"... I know a bunch of non-athletes that moved schools after the 1st year. It's happens.

Oh - I know. Just want to make sure he picks the school "for the school" not because he was recruited to play a sport.

[Anonymous]

15:20, great post.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’d rather my sporty kids attend namebrand UVA or UMD and play club or intramural sports, than some backwater no name school that only exists to exploit travel-sports obsessed parents. I’m convinced these schools would be insolvent were they not able to convince hundreds of gullible parents each year they are “recruiting” their student-athlete child.

A-freaking-men.

Well the chances of making UMD or UVA club teams are slim to none. They are as hard to make as some D1/D3 schools. So you mean intramural.

There were always 5x more fans watching intramural games at my alma mater (Boston College) than the embarrassingly few fans I saw at my niece's last soccer match at her non-selective private college. My niece had great grades and scores too! She got into some T20-T50 universities and T25 LACs. I just don't get how parents could let a kid make such a dumb decision.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Does anyone posting know any students who were recruited to work on a Wall Street firm because of their college sports experience? PP tell me what you mean when you reference Wall Street and sales?

Quite a few, but they all went to Ivy plus T15 universities and SLACs - not open-admit directionals, regionals and nobodyville LACs this topic is about.

As for sales, any meathead can pursue sales. Most salespersons hate their life; overall it's seedy and/or low prestige career.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They quit because they're burned out and finally free of their overbearing douchey parents.

Agree. I know one recruited college athlete who dropped his sport for just this reason.

+1 Psycho mom and dad can't control their little tiger anymore. I'd also include 1) partying and hooking up is 100x more fun than waking at to practice at 6am and missing weekends of partying traveling to other no-name colleges, to play in front of 20 people.
2) they went from top dog in high school to very likely bench warming nobodies at some backwater college - of course it's no fun, all they do is practice. The coaches and admissions probably promised them all these roster openings that was just a sales pitch to get them to come there and pay tuition.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just as easily goes the other way. Recruiting is often a ticket into extremely competitive schools like the NESCAC. You still need the academic chops, but you get past the lottery.

Hamilton and Trinity are fine colleges but "extremely competitive"? Furthermore, there are only 11 colleges in NESCAC, you realize this thread is largely about the other 200 LACs and 1,000 regional universities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I know a lot of student athletes quit after the first year to save face. They'd rather quit than get put on academic probation and benched. Also, at DIII schools, academic > athletics. The professors are much less apt to really work with you regarding missing work and tests. DI players get a lot of leeway in that area. Many leave the DIII school because they were only there to play a sport that's paying their way and they didn't really like the school to begin with, so once they end up riding the bench/not making a starting position, they're left with putting in all the work athletically at a place they didn't really want to be in the first place. I had more than a few teammates who left because of that.

Nailed it.

[Anonymous]

There are no more lucrative jobs on Wall Street. Not anymore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:33% of D1 athletes quit their sport, 50% of those are due to injury.

It very hard to make it through all 4 years ... injury, time commitment, playing time, etc.

That is why athletes are highly recruited to jobs ... it's hard and they are in a very small percentage of the population who can actually do it.

I do find it odd, though. When the chance of being an athlete is so low, and then the chance of making it 4 years is only 66%.. that I know a ton of athletes that did it and did it at highly academic schools.

I'm calling bs on this. My husband and I both worked in recruiting for technical jobs for years. At no point was anyone ever considered because of the sport they played in high school or college. I also think the poster who mentioned special recruiting for college athletes is not being entirely honest. If there is special recruiting it is because the college is worried the athletes don't have enough to get jobs.

And you are assuming that every industry works exactly the same way? Regardless of any one family’s personal experience, there are a lot of kids who are recruited in part due to their athletics. The ones I know all had an easy path into finance, sales, or other business-oriented fields. The percentages of female CEOs who played college sports are really eye-opening.

Uh huh. Sales at Best Buy. Do high school coaches get some kind of kick back for having kids signed at colleges?

I was referencing CEOs of large companies, like the people mentioned here: https://www.inc.com/rebecca-hinds/the-1-trait-94-percent-of-c-suite-women-share-and-how-to-get-it.html . Why are you so prejudiced against athletes, if you don’t mind sharing?

I'm prejudiced against parents who don't do what is best for their kids. I have multiple kids all involved in sports and most of the parents I encountered were certain their kid would be a pro at whatever sport until the kid hit high school. Reality hit a good percentage of those parents in the face at the high school level. The high school stars I know have not gone on to succeed at college and none have gone pro. I know the families of several kids who've gotten great scholarships at d1 schools and I've seen what happens to those kids.

DP. Stop making things up. What you claim to know personally is so statistically improbable that it's obvious you are lying to anyone who can do basic probabilistic math.

You are delusional. The vast majority of kids who do sports get no benefit re career recruiting. Are you a coach?

I am not a coach and my kids won't play college sports. I can just spot a liar when I see one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think a lot of the parents speaking up here are trying to give an alternate, maybe more realistic, view of what happens after the sport obsessed family's kids graduate from high school. I don't think the parents are jealous - they are more or less sending a warning.

The parents are going to be exposed to so much hype as their kids move through the years of travel teams and special teams.

You could be right, but if that’s their goal, they’ve come to perhaps the last place where that message is going to be of any use to anyone. If you spend any time on the DCUM college forum, you will quickly realize that the vast majority of posters here are well educated and extremely focused on finding the best possible college for their kids (whether that is in terms of prestige or fit). Almost no one here would choose a “lesser” school for their kids if they had any other options, no matter how much the kid enjoyed athletics.

Keeping in mind that those are the posters and audience here, I think those who post about athletics here are either:

1. Those of us who have high level athletes (or have friends in this boat) who are weighing how best they can balance athletics with academics to help their kid get into great schools and have great career options. Most of us in this group live among others who are similarly focused on academics. We are the ones who seem to know a lot of very successful college athletes who go on to great careers. Our kids probably generally attend pressure cooker schools, but not always.

2. Those posters who are themselves well-educated, but live in (or their kids play sports in) communities where others are either less so or don’t really value academics as much. Apparently these posters see a lot of families who make college decisions based almost entirely on athletics and they think all or most athletes in question are unlikely to succeed in college or their careers, so they think the athletes’ families are delusional. The posters in this category incorrectly think all or most recruited athletes (or recruited athlete wannabes) are like the ones they know.

3. Posters who think all athletes are dumb and/or that it’s ridiculous that any elite schools give them admissions preference since they contribute nothing that a university ought to value. These posters tend not to know many athletes at all.

If the people in category 2 really want to spread their message, it would make more sense for them to directly target families of athletes who are bright but don’t have much parental guidance about colleges. There is no one here in that category.

This post is spot-on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just as easily goes the other way. Recruiting is often a ticket into extremely competitive schools like the NESCAC. You still need the academic chops, but you get past the lottery.

Hamilton and Trinity are fine colleges but "extremely competitive"? Furthermore, there are only 11 colleges in NESCAC, you realize this thread is largely about the other 200 LACs and 1,000 regional universities.

If you don’t think Hamilton is extremely competitive, no offense, but you’re too stupid to help.

[Anonymous]

Some of these responses are obviously from coaches and admissions/AD reps at crummy LACs and regionals. They have to sell you on smoke and mirrors you can't measure because they have no hard data to justify attending them. There's no OCI, there's no impressive alumni network, the town is usually downscale. Financial aid at most of these places is awful, they're using a team roster spot to get gullible families into writing checks. They put their sticker price at $55,000 but nobody actually pays $55,000, they give every family all these bulls*** scholarships and grants to make you feel special.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some of these responses are obviously from coaches and admissions/AD reps at crummy LACs and regionals. They have to sell you on smoke and mirrors you can't measure because they have no hard data to justify attending them. There's no OCI, there's no impressive alumni network, the town is usually downscale. Financial aid at most of these places is awful, they're using a team roster spot to get gullible families into writing checks. They put their sticker price at $55,000 but nobody actually pays $55,000, they give every family all these bulls*** scholarships and grants to make you feel special.

Time to stop drinking, honey.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some of these responses are obviously from coaches and admissions/AD reps at crummy LACs and regionals. They have to sell you on smoke and mirrors you can't measure because they have no hard data to justify attending them. There's no OCI, there's no impressive alumni network, the town is usually downscale. Financial aid at most of these places is awful, they're using a team roster spot to get gullible families into writing checks. They put their sticker price at $55,000 but nobody actually pays $55,000, they give every family all these bulls*** scholarships and grants to make you feel special.

Time to stop drinking, honey.

Ha! No kidding. Poor dork still sad about dodgeball.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think a lot of the parents speaking up here are trying to give an alternate, maybe more realistic, view of what happens after the sport obsessed family's kids graduate from high school. I don't think the parents are jealous - they are more or less sending a warning.

The parents are going to be exposed to so much hype as their kids move through the years of travel teams and special teams.

You could be right, but if that’s their goal, they’ve come to perhaps the last place where that message is going to be of any use to anyone. If you spend any time on the DCUM college forum, you will quickly realize that the vast majority of posters here are well educated and extremely focused on finding the best possible college for their kids (whether that is in terms of prestige or fit). Almost no one here would choose a “lesser” school for their kids if they had any other options, no matter how much the kid enjoyed athletics.

Keeping in mind that those are the posters and audience here, I think those who post about athletics here are either:

1. Those of us who have high level athletes (or have friends in this boat) who are weighing how best they can balance athletics with academics to help their kid get into great schools and have great career options. Most of us in this group live among others who are similarly focused on academics. We are the ones who seem to know a lot of very successful college athletes who go on to great careers. Our kids probably generally attend pressure cooker schools, but not always.

2. Those posters who are themselves well-educated, but live in (or their kids play sports in) communities where others are either less so or don’t really value academics as much. Apparently these posters see a lot of families who make college decisions based almost entirely on athletics and they think all or most athletes in question are unlikely to succeed in college or their careers, so they think the athletes’ families are delusional. The posters in this category incorrectly think all or most recruited athletes (or recruited athlete wannabes) are like the ones they know.

3. Posters who think all athletes are dumb and/or that it’s ridiculous that any elite schools give them admissions preference since they contribute nothing that a university ought to value. These posters tend not to know many athletes at all.

If the people in category 2 really want to spread their message, it would make more sense for them to directly target families of athletes who are bright but don’t have much parental guidance about colleges. There is no one here in that category.

Well said. Our oldest 4 have all been recruited athletes (different sports) who are or did attend highly competitive schools. Children like ours and the PPs are highly motivated and highly driven. They are multi-dimensional talents, meaning that they are scholars as well as athletes.

Only 1 of our kids is in a sport where a post-college sport career is feasible. That child realizes that the probability of making it to a professional team is slim to none. Not because the kid isn't good but because the kid doesn't have the drive to do it.

For our kids not participating at the highest level on their college team would be tantamount to cutting off an arm. On the other hand, like in all things, while the love endures after the kids graduated they also have found other outlets for their energy. The 2 who have graduated are very happily working in their industries, play a little bit of their sport on the side, and have found other outlets for that athletic skill. I don't believe that our children are unique in this approach. I see it in almost all of our friends' kids and in the friends of our kids who are athletic.

Regarding the PP's #3, these people do exist. 2 of our children were in fact suitemates with people who were firm and outspoken believers that athletes couldn't be smart. It was our kids' pleasure to prove them wrong. Repeatedly. And we cheered wildly from the sidelines every time our kids proved it.