I have a Freshman athlete already on campus in pre-season and who sounded pretty discouraged and miserable today. She went in with an injury, so I know that in addition to the level of commitment being a bit more, she’s also not in her best physical shape and is feeling it. She moved on campus early, so there are very few people in her dorm (roommate doesn’t move in for another week). She left a very tight group of friends behind at home, and is feeling the sting of not being around them, realizing that her time isn’t really hers until November, getting her butt kicked at practices, and the adjustment to being away, and I have a kid that actually said to me, after working 6 years to get where she is, that she’s not sure she wants to continue playing.
Anyone else experience this kind of thing? I’m trying to be objective, and told her to give it a little more time, wait for the other students to arrive on campus, for season to start, before she makes any decisions. I’m concerned that she’s going to make a hasty decision that she can’t undo. She received significant academic money so not playing doesn’t affect her being able to attend, but I still have a good amount of out of pocket – the only reason I was all in on this school is because she had a great opportunity to play, which is what she wanted. Totally didn’t see this coming – playing for this school is all this kid has talked about for the last year. I know the coach is going hard this year, and that a few second year players have actually quit already, because the preseason this year is far tougher that in past years.
She’s never quit anything, I don’t want her to have what I think will be a significant regret later on, and one that can’t be undone. Any “words of wisdom” I provide seem inadequate. Anyone have any thoughts or experiences with this kind of thing and if so what did you do?
I can address one small piece of this. My S14 is a rising college sophomore, and this year he will be an ‘orientation leader’ for the incoming freshman. He moved into his dorm a week early for orientation training. He was one of three kids in the entire dorm. He was miserable, and he couldn’t understand why he was more homesick this year than when he left home as a freshman. The answer is of course obvious – He moved in last year simultaneously with his roommate and a dorm full of kids. They were up all hours of the night talking, laughing, and getting to know each other. So I think that you’re spot on by pointing out how isolated she is right now before the rest of the kids arrive. Hopefully she’ll feel better when everyone is there and she’s into the full swing of things (with stuff other than her sport in which she’ll be involved).
She may be exhausted, and that may be contributing to her mood. My freshman son went to college a week ago for pre-season training in excellent condition, but the three a day practices have left him very tired. Although he played soccer at a very high level, the college practices are a lot tougher. Once your daughter gets her conditioning back, starts playing games and is surrounded by a dorm full of kids things will look a lot brighter. My son spent today helping the non-athlete students move in (he was stuck carrying the fridges since he is a freshman) and had a scrimmage tonight and called home sounding much more upbeat than he sounded a few days ago. Things will get better.
Just dropped off my freshman also. Her college selection was based on her ability to play. With a perfect transcript and near perfect test scores, she had a lot of options. She is also questioning her decision to play now as she doesn’t want her sport to be the predominant experience in college as it was in high school. I advised her that these four years are about her shaping her future. If playing her sport hinders that in any meaningful way, she should give it up.
My daughter was the same last year (her freshman year) and a lot of it was nerves about how she’d fit in academically and on her team. Really, they don’t know how good they are until they see the other kids play and they are worried. It really took until her first quiz academically (an A!) and her first few practices and a mini tourney until she felt comfortable with the team and it helped when the coach admitted that DD was a lot better of a player than the coach had thought; really, couch recruited DD thinking she was just an okay player (stats weren’t spectacular) and was surprised that she was so much better than other recruits who were just okay.
It is a huge adjustment. Your daughter was used to being top dog both in her sport and academically. Unfortunately, so were all the other kids! Now they have to proved themselves all over again. And coaches are HARD on these kids. The level of college play is HARD. It’s like being on an all star team all the time.
Most schools have a time during the first week or so when kids sign up for clubs and interest groups. Have your daughter sign up for at least one club that doesn’t have anything to do with her sport. My daughter joined a sorority and so got to get away from her teammates/roommates and that was big. Also, her coach required study tables in the library so she got into a routine immediately of conditioning, classes, practices, study tables, bed (early). The coach wasn’t happy about the sorority, but I think it really saved my daughter’s sanity. This year she’s not rooming with anyone from her team, but with other athletes. I think rooming with teammates was a mistake because issues carried over from apt to field/filed to apartment. Too much drama.
I hope your daughter has a success soon. It will change her outlook.
First day of practice, Year II, and it is still hard. My daughter thinks the coach hates her, and I think it is true that she is not a coach favorite. Coach announced that, to be a captain (or THE captain, not sure if there will be more than one), grades must be 3.0 or above (knocking out 4-5 of the 16 eligible) and must pass all the fitness tests on the first try. After today, only 3 left in the running. DD feels the coach was out to ‘get her’ and called her out several times. Lots of grumbling, but the rules are the same for everyone.
I don’t agree with everything the coach does or says, but she’s the coach and everyone knew the criteria for being captain. My DD is going to be mighty disappointed when she doesn’t start every game this year.
Back in my day, they called it “de recruiting”. As @twoinanddone says, pretty much every athlete on a competitive college roster is used to the sport being, in some sense at least, both easy and rewarding. They think that they have worked hard, and have experienced success. Now, they are working harder and not seeing the success they saw in high school. Plus, the coach who just last year told them they were all that and a bag of donuts is jumping down their throat, and if they are any good at their job, picking out things the athlete thinks of as really minute, ticky tack flaws. It takes time to realize that these small things often are what is keeping the athlete from having success at the college level.
The important point, I think, is that this adjustment phase is normal, and if you keep your head down and work, it will get better.
Amidst these disheartening descriptions of what returning and newly-recruited athletes are facing, it must really be amazing for a walk-on to make it through!
@fenwaypark, it is that. Especially when you add the other hurdles a walk on faces in addition to the regular transition. No training table, limited facilities space, last one in the training room, less time with the playbook, team materials, etc. On the other hand, they seem to come in with fewer illusions than the guys who the coach was kissing up to just a few months before. Over all though, walk ons who stick, and especially those who earn their way to scholarship status, are helaciously dedicated people.
@ohiodad51 - that really isn’t the way walk ons work anymore in most programs. Walk ons are typically recruited athletes who didn’t make the cut for scholarship money. In my experience they are treated virtually the same way as scholarship athletes as far as training table, locker room space, training room, preseason camps, playbooks, etc.
Ohiodad is correct for the Ivies, at least. No access to the weight room or other facilities reserved for varsity athletes (probably for insurance reasons if nothing else) until they have been placed on the roster.
Concomitant to that, while they are trying to grab the last available roster spots, no complaints about loneliness, or homesickness, or tough coaches, or projections about playing time for these freshmen.
Walk on players are on the roster. If you guys are talking about kids who make it through a tryout, I see what you are saying, but tryouts at the d1 level are fairly rare.
Since last year, the walk ons who made the roster can partake of the food, and of course now the food is much more plentiful depending on the team’s budget. I was looking at a comparison chart for football teams (D1) and it was amazing how much more they are spending on food now than 2 years ago. Thousands more. Bagels with cream cheese for everyone!
My only experience is with football. Maybe it is different for the non headcount sports, but in football, at the D1 level, there are scholarship counters, preferred walk ons and regular walk ons. Regular walk ons generally go thru a physical and a try out before being considered a member of the team. Preferred walk ons do not. However, and using a real world example from this year, one of my son’s high school teammates is a scholarship player at a MAC school. Two others are preferred walk ons at the same school. The scholarship guy was on campus, taking classes and more to the point in the training program all summer (as is the norm for D1 football now). The two preferred walk ons did not report until the beginning of fall camp. One is rostered, the other is not, at least as of last week. How that part of it works, I have no idea but I would guess it depends heavily on how many non counters are already rostered from previous years.
Things are a bit different in the Ivy (of course they are), and I do not think many walk ons end up as rostered players because the roster limit is the same as the number of players who can be supported in a four year cycle (120). By contrast, the regular D1 limits are 85 scholarship players and 110 rostered, so there is room built in to the system. That said, some Ivys do seem to encourage walk ons for football (Dartmouth in particular). In that case though I do not believe the walk ons can participate in any of the pre camp activities that are now common place. AFAIK, no walk ons participated in any of the pre camp work my son has done this year.
As far as how walk ons are treated, I can only go by my own experience from many years ago, but at that time at least the walk ons had to really push for reps and had to work very hard to get the coach’s attention. I would be surprised if it were much different today, just because of the numbers. There are only so many available reps in a practice, and it is hard enough to get a look at the younger scholarship guys. There is just not a ton of room left for the walk ons, and it makes an already hard task much more difficult.
@twoinanddone, as the father of an offensive lineman, let me say that the new unlimited food rules are a big deal. The old rules were crazy, and in no way adequate for a “big ugly”. Bagels, but no cream cheese, no protein except for nuts as a snack, just crazy stuff. Hopefully, the new rules will keep the kids away from supplements, which would be a good thing. In camp this year, my son’s team is eating five times a day. It’s all about the protein!
Rightbehindher – Not sure if you have the ability, but this may be time for an in person visit to see firsthand how she is doing. At the very least, have a long heart to heart talk. Find out if she is really not sure about being on the team anymore or if homesickness has just kicked in and there is no support network for her to tap into.
She probably knows what will happen if she quits, but make sure you tell her that it her decision. After all, you can’t make her go to practice and participate even if you think that is what she will ultimately want. Talk through with her all of the worst case scenarios and ask her if she quits the team would she want to transfer to another school or would she stay. Was she so focused on making the team, that now that it has happened, the desire to participate just isn’t really there anymore? Maybe she is ready to try new things.
If she is not on athletic money, the reality is she can probably quit and then either transfer to another school or try out again next year. Obviously the odds of making the team again are low to none, but she is the one who has to do the work.
My perspective may be a little different, my son loved his first choice school until he actually got there and the reality was not what was expected. It was hard for all of us to admit we made a bad choice but he transferred and found a great fit the second time around. Your daughter may be putting so much pressure on herself to make things work out that she just needs someone to say it is ok to quit. Hearing that option out loud from you may make her really think about what she wants to do. 18yr olds don’t always think long term and she may be testing you to see your reaction, too, but make sure she knows it is ultimately her choice and has thought through all of the implications.
Preferred walk ons are allowed to start training during the summer as soon as they start taking classes - the same might be true for regular walk ons - depending on when tryouts are held. The difference between the walk ons and the scholarship players is that have to pay for the classes so they might not be able to financially swing that first summer session.
@Ohiodad51 I was being serious about the food, especially for the non-scholarship players, being a good change. Those are the kids who needed the food most, and they were having their teammates steal extra for them. I read many stories of team looking for food at 10 pm because the last time they’d eaten was 6 pm.
In the old days, I worked at the cafeteria that fed the football and basketball teams. They ate in a back room for dinner and lunch, but for breakfast they ate in the regular cafeteria, and boy did they eat! They’d line up 5-6 glasses of milk on their trays and basically every entree option - pancakes, eggs, toast, oatmeal. Mountains of food.
I’m glad for them. The ironic thing is now those at the bigger programs are also getting $4-6k for the stipend, and one of the arguments for the stipend was that some athletes needed to buy a lot of food because the team couldn’t provide all the food these athletes needed. One of the schools in the chart was showing Alabama, of course. Nick Saban had been grumbling that the stipend at Alabama was only $2500 and Penn State was almost $6k, and that wasn’t fair, blah blah blah. Suddenly the 'Bama stipend was raised to something like $5500 and Nick was happy. It also said the more than half of the football team gets a Pell grant (although not all full), so these players who were starving 2 years ago now have full meals+, the stipend and the Pell, more than $11000.
At my daughter’s school, the cafeteria is open from 6 am to about 8. Any student on a full meal plan can go in and out of the cafeteria as many times as he wants and eat buffet style. I’m sure they now provide snacks at practice too.
@rightbehindher, I would gently encourage your daughter to stick with things for now. I had a terrible time my freshman year in college many years ago, getting my butt kicked regularly in practice, having the coaches ride me constantly, and then never seeing the field on game days. There were times when if I wasn’t on scholarship I would have quit in a heartbeat. It gets better. She will get better. Although it is hard to see at the moment I am sure, I would be willing to bet the coaches will ease up as the season begins. Camp is designed to be all encompassing, and it is even more difficult as a freshman coming in to a program. Soon, she will develop a routine as class begins and the pace of college becomes the norm for her. Encourage her to give it her best effort through the season this year. If, at the end of the season, she still does not think she will enjoy competing in college then it may be time to “hang 'em up”. But that decision is a final one, and if she stops playing this early in her college career, she will always wonder if she should have stuck it out. Encourage her to give it a fair shot, and remind her that the sport has been a big, and obviously positive part of her life for a long while now.
@twoinanddone, at my son’s school, the main cafeterias close at 8 as well, and according to his schedule, they should be off the field by 6:50. One would think that would provide plenty of time to shower and get to dinner. However, speaking as one who “played crutches” for much of his college career, what happens if you need treatment after practice? Then all of a sudden it becomes more difficult to hit the caf before it closes. Now, schools can feed kids real food in the training room. Similar issue with early morning meetings/film work. We used to have 6:30am film on Monday mornings, so that we could be done in time for 8:00am classes (theoretically). For guys with early classes, that meant that you missed breakfast that morning. Now, teams can get fed a breakfast of actual food during film. These kind of things, to me, are the biggest benefit of unlimited meals.
We have been told by the D1 swim coaches that it is a violation of NCAA rules for the school to pay anything at all in the summer before Freshman classes begin. Is that just not true? Does it depend on the sport? (Swimming runs from Oct-Feb) Is there an NCAA reference you can maybe point me to??