article 'The Mad, Mad World of Niche Sports Among Ivy League–Obsessed Parents'

Athletic Recruits
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I was a nationally ranked junior squash player and this article is pretty spot on. I loved the game and was more than willing to put in the hard work to be ranked. When I played there were some pretty horrible parents who put a lot of pressure on their kids to win. I was a bit burned out by the time I got to college, but many kids I knew had so much pressure put on them that after college they have not picked up a racket.

When parents ask me about squash and how it can help their kid(s) get into college, they are often surprised to learn the truth. The top ten kids get recruited pretty hard, 11-20 less so, if you are ranked outside the top 20 you will not be recruited. I was ranked in the 11-20 range and got only nibbles of interest from Ivy League colleges. Most of the coaches who contacted me were from schools like F&M, Trinity (this was before they became the powerhouse), Navy, Rochester, Bates, Bowdoin, etc. Decent schools, but not the Ivy League.

I cannot speak for fencing, but a friend of mine in high school was the #1 ranked American junior fencer and got into Princeton early, told me the recruiting numbers are similar. His freshman year at Princeton he was the 5th best fencer on the team. Think about that, #1 ranked American junior is only the 5th best on his college team. That shows that international recruiting is huge.

The article mentions that there is an 88% acceptance rate in the Ivy League for students who are endorsed by the coach. What parents need to realize that translates into two students per coach for niche sports. The #1 ranked kid in the under 19s when I played applied early to Princeton and got accepted with just over a 1000 on the SATs. The #5 ranked kid who also applied early to Princeton was wait listed, the coach wanted to see if there were any great international recruits before he chose him. He was later accepted.

The one point the article misses, parents can throw all the money they want at their kids junior squash. At the end of the day it only helps marginally. The #1 ranked junior squash player, the year after I graduated, started playing at an introduction squash camp we both attended. The day he got on the court he was a beast and was beating players who had been playing for years. In case you are wondering he wen to Williams College. While I was never as good as he was, when I started playing within a couple months I could beat many kids who had been playing for years. The best players are born with the skills and mental aptitude. While there was changes every year in the 10-20 rankings, most years the top 5 players were the same. Had any parent of a kid ranked 10-20 hired a former top ranked professional as their private coach they sill would have never cracked the top 5 and highly unlikely the top 10.

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Q: What sports-obsessed parent pushes his kids too much and throws too much money away on the sport?

A: Any parent that pushes his kids more or who spends more on the sport than you do.

Athletes can without doubt gain a bump in admissions, but it is a bump and not an earthquake. It’s tough for anyone to get into an Ivy, and just being a varsity athlete and a weekend club team warrior in all likelihood will not move the needle. On the other hand, there are a lot of great “name brand” colleges that offer intercollegiate sport. The serendipity of recruiting is finding one of those schools that needs exactly what your athlete can offer and that in return will offer your athlete a great fit. They definitely do exist, and with an open mind you will find them.

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@A3A welcome to CC, and thank you for relating your experience – very interesting, and very helpful!

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@A3A I definitely agree with your conclusions.

There are several sports where the best athletic programs are the Ivy’s, for example in rowing (exception University of Washington) and squash. I’m not sure about fencing but I would suspect so as well.

For other athletic programs like track, football, basketball, water polo, golf, etc the Ivy’s are far behind other programs athletically and they aren’t getting the best athletes in those sports.

The Ivy’s though in those sports have rosters full of international recruits. In squash for example no US player is competitive internationally, almost without exception, when you look at the results of the British Open, the presumptive world championship tournament. Harvard’s roster now is composed of all professional level players, with a rating of 6.0 or higher, mostly all internationals.

One thing these schools like about the niche sport players, whose sport requires technique and coaching, access to (expensive and generally private) specialized facilities, and time and money to travel to compete, is that they are generally full pay students.

I don’t want to take anything away from the athletes that aren’t the nation’s best who get in to Ivy’s from less competitive sports, in that they are still highly dedicated athletes who spent many many hours on their sport, more so than most any other extracurricular. I personally believe that athletics are an important part of growth, and build a great set of values and skills that are lifelong.

The more concerning issue for these schools is that 1. the percentage of recruited athletes as a percentage of the overall student base is high; and 2. the diversity among these athletes is lower than the school’s general profile. However, the school determines its desired allocation, and the current students and alumni find that athletics are an important part of the school experience, as well as alumni relations.

Back to the thrust of that article, it presents extreme examples that are not normal, but it does show a directional thrust of the professionalization of these sports. No observant parent now believes their student will get in to Harvard playing squash, at least once they are U15’s. Few parents have the means or attitude to do what is presented in that article. As for the athletes, let them have their dreams of glory; it’s pretty normal. Anyone that has dribbled a basketball didn’t want to “Be like Mike?”

I have seen bad behavior by parents at tournaments, but that is often censured quickly by other parents. The kids that play are all great and very sportsman (sportsperson?) with their competitors. Squash becomes a life long sport for many, at least until knee troubles surface later. I know that I continued rowing post college for 30 years, when where I lived allowed access to water. I wasn’t recruited, but rather picked/recruited out of a class registration line since I was tall at a D1 school, obviously after I was already attending that school. The sad part is that no one can really walk on these sports anymore like i did; I would never have an opportunity to experience college sports today.

To me the great loss is how focused high school athletes need to be to have a chance to continue their sport in college. It excludes many other things. I don’t doubt that these students find the trade off worthwhile though, and I imagine few regret it. The parents just need to keep everything in perspective.

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What, niche sports and no mention of Cricket and Handball?

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This might be nit-picking as I don’t think it undermines your central point, but track is a bit different from these other sports. Ivies actually do get a decent number of highly ranked track athletes, at least if were talking top 20ish or so. Usually more on the distance side than speed/power due to the climate. Whether FL, NXN, or Brooks, there are Ivy recruits doing well every year. I mention this not only because I think it surprises a lot of people but also because a lot of these athletes don’t match the athletes being described in the article at all.

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Ivies are also better in basketball than some realize. Yale was a strong team in the last NCAA tournament and their best player was drafted into the NBA.

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@politeperson @ShanFerg3

It would be a rare exception if an Ivy track or distance person would be good enough to be scholarship level at a USC (track) or Stanford (distance) , or other top D1 for example.

Same thing is true of basketball players.

We can point to exceptions but the recruiting marks speak to it well.

Look at D1 nationals and see how many Ivy athletes are in the top results.

https://www.tfrrs.org/results/62668/NCAA_Division_I_Outdoor_Track_&_Field_Championships/

Again, there are exceptions.

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@arbitrary99 I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree. I think you’ll find that, if you look at the recruiting classes at the stronger Ivy programs, the 4-5 distance kids they’re using slots to get would fit right in with scholarship athletes at most strong distance schools. And in fact I know from personal experience that most of the better Ivy distance kids were weighing scholarship money (pretty meager in track) at top programs vs. Ivy education. And that a decent number of kids who ended up at Stanford, UW, Georgetown, etc., also had Ivies in their top 4-5.

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The Ivy League Conference is ranked in the top 15 of NCAA Men’s Basketball. This is a stronger conference in the sport than you suggest. http://www.warrennolan.com/basketball/2020/conferencerpi

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I tend to agree with this (while acknowledging there are exceptions)

Additionally, the academic requirements for the Ivy League (Academic Index) prevent the vast majority of athletes from being qualified for admission

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Ivies tend to be more competitive in headcount sports as their financial aid package for middle and lower income families are often much more generous than a partial athletic scholarship, with no sports condition attached. For example, Ivies are routinely top ranked teams (and even national champs) in lacrosse and ice hockey.

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Ivies are also strong in fencing. ALL of the fencing recruits are the top ranked.

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@BKSquared I think you mean non headcount sports, correct? If so, I totally agree and that’s why Ivies are a great option in track, where limited scholarship money is often spread thinly (especially for guys).

On the Ivy track athlete issue, I took a look at the Harvard and Princeton incoming classes. Several 2:10, a few sub 4:50 women, a couple top 15 Foot Locker finalists, a 4:05 miler, and several guys close to 9:00, just for starters. I don’t know any of these athletes but no question they had interest from good distance programs (and have better marks than kids I do know currently competing for top 10 programs).

This is not an atypical recruiting year. If anything, past years have been stronger on paper (given that this incoming class did not post senior marks). So I guess if these are what people are saying are the exceptions, then maybe we all agree. But it’s just flat out wrong to say that an Ivy distance runner getting recruiting interest from another strong D1 distance program is the “rare exception”.

I was focused on distance but notice that Princeton has the PAC 12 PV champ coming in as a transfer from UCLA.

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@politeperson , yes, typo.

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@arbitrary99 …It would be a rare exception if an Ivy track or distance person would be good enough to be scholarship level at a USC (track) or Stanford (distance) , or other top D1 for example…
I had a kid that was a track recruit, went to a HYP, but was also strongly recruited by many the D1 schools including the schools that you mentioned. Their interest was a top academic school so only looked at the top schools.
I do not think they were an exception on the track team. I believe that there were other athletes/recruits like them on the team.

I think it can also depend a bit on the particular Ivy

…“Same thing is true of basketball players…” Certainly the Ivy’s cannot recruit and get all the same kids or the depth of most upper D1 basketball programs but they can certainly pluck away some D1 recruiting talent, especially a top Ivy. In basketball one or two players can go a long way.

I also do not think you can compare the more niche sport recruits in the Ivies with the more mainstream sports. There are 1000s of more kids playing hoop, running track, soccer, etc. than fencing, squash or even rowing.

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The reporting in the Atlantic article seems to be getting quite a bit of criticism, including in the WaPo:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/10/30/atlantics-troubled-niche-sports-story/

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…and now a fairly lengthy editor’s note explaining inaccuracies has been added to the original article.

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What I don’t get is why exaggerate this? I’m positive that every single one of us has at least one crazy parent on our kids’ team. I am thankful that for the most part, in our sport, it’s only one crazy parent. My point is that the article could have been written utterly factually, with a little more leg work I guess. I just don’t see the need to blow things out of proportion when crazy parents exist in EVERY sport.

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The sizzle was rich parents from a wealthy area being driven to get ahead to the point of being foolish. Writing about a middle class family chasing a 1/10th baseball scholarship is a big downer and doesn’t surprise anyone.

The twin to this story is wealthy driven family curates their kids lives so they can get into a prestigious school. This happens all over the country, but it sells if it’s set in the bay area.

The story writes itself, but the quotes are tough because it’s a small group of crazies.