A college education means many things to many people and this is, in my humble opinion, where athletes and their families often screw up the recruiting process. Let me give you an example.
I had nice long leisurely chat with Marcus O’Sullivan last year at an indoor meet held on the Notre Dame campus. We got onto the subject of Catholic schools and he explained to me the differences between Villanova (where he coaches), Georgetown (my wife’s Alma Mater) and Notre Dame (the campus we were on at the time). I’m a curious person and so I enjoyed his analysis, yet think how important that information could be for a young woman who wants balanced helpings of academics, athletics and Catholicism in her collegiate experience. All three programs qualify a women’s team to the NCAA Cross Country Championships most years and all are considered solid academic schools, which could mean that the infusion of Catholicism into daily life may be the variable that guides the young woman’s decision. When I write about the “infusion” of Catholicism into the daily life of a collegiate athlete, this is not something unique to religiously affiliated universities. At every university in America there is some kind of “infusion” into the life of the campus–religion, parties, art, music, etc. In fact, I would wager that most college graduates remember those things more than the academics and athletics. A college student spends about 16 hours a week in class; a college runner spends another 25 with their team. This leaves about a 125 hours each week for a college athlete to live, study and, hopefully, sleep some. In short, college “life” is a critical part of any University and, therefore, should be a consideration in the recruiting process.
And for the sake of argument we’ll say this young woman has run 2:06, 4:44 and 10:28 and has full ride offers from all three schools (yes, quite a hypothetical as recruits rarely have three identical offers).
Here’s the problem. Let’s say the young woman took a vacation to Banff National Park the summer before her senior year and thinks that she might want to be a park ranger some day because she loves the outdoors. But she and her parents have already agreed that the smartest thing to do, regardless of where she ends up going to college, is to be “open option” for the first couple of semesters to get accustomed to college life. Meanwhile, ACME State University coach Joe Blow reads in an interview that the young woman “might want to be a park ranger, but I’m definitely going to be open option for the first couple of semesters because I really don’t know what I want to do.” Fast forward 8 months – through multiple official and unofficial visits, numerous emails and phone calls from coaches (she’s run 2:06 and 10:28 so she’s had lots and lots of phone calls) and the young woman signs with ACME State because somewhere in this process the three really important variables – running, school and Catholicism – were confused by the idea that becoming Ranger Ricky might be fun. My point here is not to disparage the Park Ranger profession or suggest that our hypothetical athlete made a “bad” decision. Unfortunately, collegiate decisions are often judged at the end of a career not during the first semester. But, the key to making a good collegiate choice–which was lost in our hypothetical–is to really try to keep the focus on your core priorities (whatever they may be).
The point of this post is that I’m often going to write about recruiting in the hopes that my posts help HS students and their parents get through the “noise” in the recruiting process and make decisions that the student and family are happy with at the end of 4 or 5 years. There is no template that every family can follow, yet there are many general principles—all common sense (minus those involving NCAA rules)—that tend to get lost during the recruiting process.
If you have specific questions that you’d like answered let me know and I’ll try to weave them into a post. I’ve got several things I want to highlight—yet in the spirit for “a resource for coaches and athletes”—I want to make sure I’m answering the questions that you have.
