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[quote=Anonymous]I think the discussion about the time commitment for college athletes is a good one.  It is also one that kids do not necessarily think of exploring when they are looking at competing in college.  Just the day to day logistics can be daunting.  Kids really need to understand that if they play a sport in college, and in particular at a competitive Div I school, their college experience will be dominated by that sport.  It will be who they are and what they do.

My impression is that pretty much everyone expects that during their sport's competition season they will be very busy and the time demands will be high.  What was a surprise to us was how much time was required in the off-season.  For a Div I sport the ncaa allows a coach to have contact with his/her athletes up to 8 hours a week in the off season.  Fitness training, if voluntary, does not count towards those hours.  My kid plays soccer but those rules would apply to the other sports as well.  What it means is that in the off season she would practice 4 times a week for a couple of hours.  The team also had voluntary fitness work 3 to 4 times a week of about an hour each session.  Add to that is the time required to get to and from the practice facility and the time spent changing into and out of practice gear.  At the two schools my kid was focusing on -- and I doubt they are unique -- had mandatory freshmen study table of a certain number of hours each week (5 at one school, 6 at another - at both schools no longer mandatory for upper classmen with a gpa over 3.0).  Realistically there is no free time.  That is fine for lots of kids, but it is a very structured life style for a college student.  I would add that is a particularly rough lifestyle for a kid who may be riding the bench.

I think the article missed the boat though with the discussion of the limited number of scholarships available, and with the discussion regarding the percentages of kids whoW get a scholarship.

In terms of the number of scholarships available the article needed to explain the difference between "head count" sports and "equivalency" sports.  Div I Head count sports -- football (FBS only), mens and womens basketball, womens volleyball, women's gymnastics and women's tennis are sports where every scholarship given must be a full scholarship.  Equivalency sports allow a school to divide up a specified number of scholarships.  So, for example, a Div I school that fully funds its women's soccer team can offer up to 14.9 scholarships.  A typical college team will have about 30 kids on the roster.  The coach might give 20 percent scholarships to 5 new players and 80 percent scholarships to 5 older players who see a lot of playing time.  A super recruit might get a 100 percent scholarship while other kids might get nothing or a very small amount.  It is all up to the coach.

The article missed a real opportunity to push the value of getting good grades.  The ncaa has grade and standardized test score benchmarks that student athletes have to hit IF they want to stack academic money with athletic money.  That can be a very big deal because academic money at many schools is much easier to qualify for than athletic money.  My kid graduated HS with a 3.7 "academic" gpa (art/gym etc. do not count) but she did not have a great ACT score (24).  At a top academic school she would have gotten little to no academic money, but she was not looking to go to a Stanford, et al   We were looking at a mid major school where she would fit academically, had programs she was interested in, and she could play soccer at.  At her first choice school (cost $22,000) her gpa qualified her for about 9,000 in academic money.  The coach was willing to give her a 20 percent athletic scholarship - call it $4400 - with the promise that it would go up if she played regularly.  That ability to stack meant the first year cost for her would be about 8,600.  The ncaa gpa benchmark is 3.5 in academic classes.  If my kid had a 3.4 gpa with her same test scores she still would have qualified for about 6000 in academic money, but she could not have used it, because, per the ncaa rules, it would have counted against the team's scholarship funds since she would not have met the benchmark level.  The coach would not have allowed that to happen and she would have ended up with just a 20 percent athletic scholarship.

Finally -- the percentage discussion is not very helpful.  Again, take girls soccer as an example.  The percentage of girls playing high school soccer who will receive some scholarship offer is indeed very small.  However, those kids are not looking to play in college.  The percentage of girls playing high level competitive club soccer who will receive a scholarship offer is much higher.  My kid played for teams that were never the most competitive in the state, but probably were always in the top 10.  Out of her sophomore and junior year teams (when most of the recruiting goes on for girls soccer) I would guess that 50 to 75% of the kids received an offer and many received multiple offers.  Whether they were from schools they were interested in attending is a different question.  Parents who have teens who may be seriously considering playing in college need to understand where the schools are looking for their prospective recruits.  Outside of football which has no club equivalent not much recruiting is done at the high school level.  (Although I am very much in favor of kids playing for their high school teams.)  One of the regrettable changes in high level youth soccer in recent years, in my opinion, is that the top level of play for boys (called "Development Academy") does not allow kids to play for their high school teams.

My two or three cents worth this morning.

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