I’d love to hear from fellow parents of serious athletes who decided not to play their sport in college. My son got close to offers from D3 NESCAC schools but it was clear during the process he had no interest in spending his college years in small schools (especially in isolated areas). He has always been a very serious athlete and it’s breaking my heart that he decided to forego athletic recruiting to try his chance at a big school where he will think he will fit better (especially one with a strong football culture. His sport is soccer but he loves watching football as well).
It’s getting frustrating to me to explain to friends and family who watched my son grow up that he will not play college soccer at the varsity level. Some make me feel like I failed somehow or that we did something wrong in the process. I’m dealing with a barrage of emotional feelings, including the loss of our many weekends spent watching him play.
Any advice or words of comfort to help me deal with this? He is a wonderful kid and I am proud of him, while at the same time wondering what happened there that he is choosing this route. We spent soooo much time and so many resources in soccer over the years and is heartbreaking that soccer is potentially not giving him any help in admissions.
I think the end of any kid’s playing a sport can be bittersweet for a parent, especially if they are playing at a high level. After all, you also have put in a lot of effort supporting your son over the years!
It is not a failure in ANY way to give up playing a sport at the varsity level in college. In fact, I applaud his maturity in seeking out a college that will be a better fit.
It is not likely that your S would have gone on to become a professional soccer player so he would have to move on at some point.
If your S wants to continue with a sport in college I’m sure he can find intermural options on campus. These are not as time consuming and can be great fun.
I understand you feeling this way, but keep in mind that the pool of soccer players from any given class that get help with admissions is much smaller than you think. Not everyone you see posting their “commitment” is actually getting help with anything.
My child made the same choice and I feel awesome about it now for the following reasons:
Most importantly, she has been able to explore other sides of herself and have experiences that were denied to her when she was constantly at practice or games or traveling to and from. It enabled her to participate at a greater level in hobbies, clubs, and groups and she really blossomed.
I think she was honestly a little burnt out on her sport, too, and it was freeing (while sad) to let it go.
Many former teammates who went on to play at college did not have great experiences. One dropped out and came home midyear. Another didn’t play at all and transferred. Another was injured early on and is no longer on the roster. Etc.
My D22 is at a school that is both less expensive and better suited to her academic/career goals than her D3 sports option would have been. She landed an internship with an international firm that recruits at her large school, but not at D3s, for example. She got a lot of credit for her AP classes and is earning dual BS degrees and a minor, which she also could not have done at the D3 school.
In the game of “life,” she is ahead of most of her former teammates who are choosing to focus on their sport right now. Not that it isn’t a valid choice because you get only one opportunity in life to play NCAA sports, but it can limit or delay other significant opportunities.
EVERYONE has to give up their team sport someday. Only a few play professionally and rarely past mid-30s. Everyone else is done somewhere in college. So whether it is now or 3-4 short years from now, everyone or almost everyone you know from your child’s circle will be saying goodbye to their playing days soonish.
My kid is very content with her choice, as are we.
It is a grieving process for you, as you spent so many years fully entrenched in soccer. It must be very difficult to abruptly stop. I would take comfort in knowing that your son seems happy and mature, which is a great way to begin his new life.
Once he begins college and flourishes in other ways, my guess is that it will start to be easier for you.
I have always said to people that they should pick a school they would like even without playing sports. I have seen so many D1 athletes who stopped playing sports because college sports were completely different than high school sports. Many of them wanted to focus on their studies and many other activities their school had to offer.
I think your feeling is a bit of lost with your son moving on to become an adult and giving up his childhood activity that you were a big part of. Both of my girls were very good ballet dancers. An activity they soient 20+ hours a week on. They didn’t choose their schools based on ballet, but they did continue to dance recreationally in college.
I think a question to ask is if your son would be a professional soccer player someday? If not, isn’t it more important for him to get the most out of college? To be on a sports team in college is a huge time commitment. A lot of students do it for scholarships. I have always thought schools should pay those athletes considering how much revenue they bring in for the school.
If people question your son’s choice, you can explain that he isn’t going to become a professional soccer player (which you know because he’s not currently on the U18 national team) so rather than spending 30 hours a week on soccer with school on top, he’ll be spending 30 hours a week on college and will add club soccer on top as well as other clubs and activitiies that will lead to internships and jobs.
People should understand that and respect both your family and your son.
He should check the quality of club soccer at the colleges he’s interested in.
As the parent of a D23 who did pursue D3 recruiting and successfully got admissions help, let me say that the flip side is seeing the range of trajectories of her former club teammates this first fall in college, many of whom committed to programs ranging from D1 to D3. These run from one getting starting time and all-conference honors at a top-5 D1 powerhouse, to others with worse outcomes, including getting no playing time at all even in early season, being excluding from the travel team, and eventually being red-shirted.
Some of the players weren’t able to get recruited at the types of schools they were interested for size and academics. Their outcomes range from successfully making highly competitive club teams in the sport to quitting the sport and doing something else entirely.
Overall, there seems to more second-guessing than not among the athletes who did get recruited and committed, in terms of the schools they chose and their role and prospects moving forward on their teams
Bottom line: the road not taken by your son wouldn’t necessarily have been paved with gold. Odds are that it would not have been.
Your child knows what he wants and that’s a good thing. It shows strength of character. He’s not throwing away anything. He’s growing and taking a lot of intangibles that he learned from his sport with him. This is what you want. Good on him.
Don’t be that parent! My brother encouraged my nephew to believe he was “all that” as a soccer player because nephew had been heavily involved with club sports for years.
My nephew choose to attend an underresourced D3 college in the middle of nowhere just so he could play soccer as a recruit. IMO, it was a mistake for several reasons:
the college had limited majors and course offerings. Nephew could only choose a few majors like psychology or education or law enforcement. While I don’t think he would ever studied science or engineering, he didn’t have those options either
he chose this college because he liked the coach; however, the coach left at the end of his sophomore year to move on to bigger, better coaching opportunities. Nephew and the new coach did not see eye-to-eye on how the game should be played and nephew spent 90% of his time riding the bench his last 2 years while the younger players new coach had recruited got playing time priority.
playing college soccer convinced nephew he had a real future as a pro player. He spent considerable time and money trying to get tryouts for pro teams at any level to the detriment of actually moving onto a real career. He racked up additional debt on an unfinished master’s degree at a low ranked British university over a 2 year period trying to get a tryout with a British club team. (Never happened.) Back in the US, he paid to attend several tryout camps which are mostly intended for talented HS students in hopes some pro coach would notice him.
Nephew has finally given up on ever playing soccer. He doesn’t even play recreationally now. But his singular focus on soccer has set him back on finding a career. He has a generic degree from a virtually unknown college and lots of education debt. He never did any job-related internships so he doesn’t have any good connections or job experiences. His college’s placement office focuses mostly on teaching positions for which nephew isn’t qualified. He has had trouble finding a job that pays well/has benefits and has the potential to turn into a career path.
S23 decided to pull out of the recruiting process and I’m so glad he did. He is at one of the top schools for his major (which is a D1 that doesn’t offer either of his sports), enjoying the D1 football atmosphere as a fan, and most of all, so involved in opportunities (both socially and academically) that he could not have had if he were playing his sport (many of which he had to give up with all of the travel that he had to do when playing). When I compare his year to his friends who are playing, I can see how much more he has grown as a person and how he is working toward a future rather than dragging out playing a high school sport.
Do I miss watching him play? A bit, but I also don’t miss all the BS that went along with it. And part of that BS was listening to parents who were only focused on their kids playing in college rather than what college is really about. I have been known to go down to our local rec fields and watch the little kids play a few games and it brings me so much joy to see kids playing while not having to be caught up in all the parental politics.
If he is telling you he doesn’t want to play anymore, listen to him. Sorry to be harsh, but you should be applauding your son for making the right and mature decision and for wanting “more” out of college than sports. This is about him, not you. If you were spending time and resources with hopes only of college admission, rather than your son’s growth and enjoyment, you were focused on the wrong things. Your son does not “owe” you bragging rights and a chance to sit in the stands and watch him play soccer.
S 25 is a recruitable athlete but is planning to play at the club level in college. He will thrive at a big SEC or ACC school and most don’t offer his sport at the varsity level. (Many club teams are very competitive, BTW. ) We are thrilled that he won’t be selling his soul to D1 athletics.
I know it’s ancient history (and woman’s sport besides) but my sophomore roommate had to choose between her sport and being pre-med. After 5 am practices and the coach monitoring every detail of life… and constant travel for meets, it became clear that acing organic chemistry and staying on the team were incompatible goals.
Medicine won… and given her career, I’d say it’s a win for society, her patients, and for herself and all the good she’s been able to accomplish in the world.
Your son seems to be showing an uncommon amount of maturity and I think you should be incredibly proud of him!
I didn’t mean it literally. Just that it’s a massive commitment and varsity (not just D1) athletes are often limited in what else they can do. For example I know a D1 athlete who wasn’t allowed to take certain classes because they were deemed too difficult/would take up too much time. I know others (D1 and D3) who weren’t allowed to join fraternities and sororities.
If my son was set on D1 or D3 athletics, we would of course support him fully. We’ve found one of the bright sides of his decision to play club, and I’m just sharing that perspective.
I hope you will find comfort in knowing that the changes that occur in kids when they transition to college can be such a wonderful surprise. I have a sophomore and if you had told me 2 years ago where he would be attending school, what he would be doing, and what his current passions would be, I would have had a hard time believing you. Our kids have so many potentials inside of themselves. When all goes well, it can be pretty thrilling to watch unfold.
Best of luck to you and your son. You are doing a good job.
I get it! There’s so much to grieve – the loss of the shared experience of being at games and tournaments, the way it marks the end of an “era” , possibly loss of a dream. But wow, good for your son in prioritizing what he wants! So many kids just go on playing because they always did – not becoming they are intentional about their future. And for most, their soccer career will end within the next 4 years in any case.
My kid made a similar choice when the coaches who wanted him were not at his top choice schools. He did walk on in another sport (and also suffered a serious injury later on, so got to experience college as a non-athlete after that.) He played his “high school” sport when he was abroad as a way to make local friends. He’s played on numerous teams (including other sports) on company and city leagues. Iow, the end of “serious” play didn’t mean he couldn’t play for fun and use sports as a way to make friends and build community, so the investment made in athletics did continue to pay off.
But even more important, the time he got back when he stopped being a college athlete allowed him to pursue some other musical interests, ones he still pursues for fun and a little $ on the side. This, honestly, was a path I would never have imagined but one that has been a great source of joy and community.
So this is all to say - yes, saying good-bye to the path you imagined is sad, but the path it opens may hold surprises and joys none of you imagined. And the path he’s not taken might not have been what you’d hoped either. As for the friends, it’s fine to say you’re going to miss it but that he wants to go all-in to college and experience it without the second job of soccer player.