Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Here’s some advice for the uninitiated, as a parent of a former D1 4-year athlete.
Coaches don’t care about your child. They don’t care if your child gets injured. They don’t care about academics. They own your child and demonstrate that 12 months a year.
Most of the freshman athletes you join the team with will be gone by graduation. The transfer portal makes it easy for decent athletes to leave. Coaches will also tell less talented athletes to leave. Some will just quit. Others will get career ending injuries.
Just because your child got a scholarship doesn’t make them safe. Coaches will torment them. They might make them quit. They’d certainly bench them. The coaches take their responsibility to replace players with better players very seriously.
Your child will get injured, a lot. It will be a constant theme. Pre-season and the actual season takes its toll. Every year they remain on the team, the more damage they’ll do to their bodies. Concussions, knee, ankle, shoulder and elbow injuries happen. There is always a push to get players back to practice faster than necessary. Athletic training rooms are like M.A.S.H. units. Make sure the AT facilities and personnel are excellent or your children will suffer.
Athletic teams haze. You’ll don’t hear about it, but they do.
You’ll see your children less than the parents of NARPs. Athletics gets in the way of holidays, milestones and vacations. When you visit your children on campus you’ll be lucky to get a few hours with them for dinner depending on the sport, team culture and academic rigor.
D1 athletics are a mental and physical grind. Generally the benefits outweigh the costs, but that’s far from guaranteed.
Don’t exaggerate any athletic success in a college sport. Universities all post readily available statistics. People can see if your child isn’t contributing.
Athletics are a full time job. Make sure both you, and your child are ready for it.
It's not just D1. D2 and D3 are, as well. My child is a D3 athlete (had a D1 offer and is so thankful they didn't take it) and it was a GRIND. Practices or games 6 days a week. Super early lifting. Film review. Individual sessions. Travel out of state (mine had at least 3). Athletic/rehab training. Missing classes and dealing with professors about that. "Team bonding." Mandatory Study hall. And that is on top of classes.
Look, I like our coaches and team. But what we were told during recruiting was just words. They made assurances that were not kept. They made it seem like the Head Coach was super friendly and treated the kids like family (really, it's just the starters). Coaches have left (fine, that happens). And they do not GIVE TWO SH--- about mental health, no matter what the NCAA says. You either do it, do it well, and do it with no complaints, or nothing.
My kid's team absolutely did not haze. So, not all do.
Kid has not been home since summer, which was harder on them that I thought (and me too).
And to put salt in the wound, D3 gives no athletic money. You're doing all of the above for the love of the game. So you better make sure that you do because it's great. But it's also awful. 
One final thought: those who diminish what athletes contribute can suck it. These kids have leadership, time management, grit, smarts, etc. that NARPs don't in the same way.
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}