<p>I'm curious:
If an athlete gets dismissed from a team, would he/she get the option to still be part of the student body? Or is the athlete kicked out of the school?
Are there any known cases of athletes that go to Ivy Leagues and gradually "loosen" up on athletic skill in order to focus on education? I'm thinking that they gradually loosen up so that they are not suspected of wanting to drop out and instead, are thought of as trying, but is past one's prime. Are they obligated to play every season and travel with the team after that?</p>
<p>I am not in any way trying to offend anyone here, these questions just popped into my head and I was just curious. I do realize that most division I athletes are loathe to do this, but hypothetically, can this happen?</p>
<p>If you are asking if Ivy League recruited athletes sometimes utilize their athletic “hook” to get into an Ivy League school, and subsequently drop their sport, the answer is yes. I consider it unethical to commit to a coach in order to get their admission support and then not follow through on the commitment athletically. But it is done, and the students aren’t kicked out as a result. Also, at the Ivies, there are no athletic scholarships to be rescinded.</p>
<p>Also remember that there’s a normal attrition in some sports. There may be a dozen freshmen on the team this year, but only 5 or 6 seniors four years later. An athlete may start on a team, and then find that their style of play or overall athletic ability is not valuable enough to the team to play regularly, and the athlete may stop playing sometime between the freshman and senior year. I agree with sherpa, to have a coach recruit you, and the athlete attends the college expecting to not play, is unethical. It’s a small world, and that’s not a reputation you want attached to your name!</p>
<p>There are many cases of Ivy recruits leaving their sport. Injuries are the main reason.</p>
<p>Academic pressures of students with majors such as engineering, physics, math, pre-med find it difficult to sustain a top GPA with the Div.I level time commitment of their sport.</p>
<p>Ivy professors do not regularly give any special allowances to athletes, nor do the coaches bend on academic commitments.</p>
<p>Sometimes, younger talent is recruited and the soph/junior finds himself benched for years.</p>
<p>But as the above posters warn, do not go into the recruiting process with a plan to ditch your sport.</p>
<p>It happens every year. However, the selection/recruitment process favors students who are ready and willing to make the athletic and the academic commitment necessary. </p>
<p>There’s a funny story about my son and how sports crazy he was as a preschooler. What’s really funny is that almost every kid on his college team has a similar story.</p>
<p>It is not uncommon for athletes to quit their sport due to injury, scheduling, or desire to focus more on academics. Schools do not kick you out. The NCAA tracks graduation rates for NCAA athletes and schools who do not graduate athletes lose scholarship spots and play-off spots. (An athlete is anyone admitted as a scholarship athlete) Any change of heart should be handled honestly and with respect for the coach who recruited you. Usually, those playing at the college level have a passion for competing in their sport and leaving the sport is difficult. At my son’s school, there have been kids kicked off teams in the past for infractions such as failing a NCAA mandated drug test, missing practices or classes, or failing to stay academically eligible per NCAA rules. Those kids were not kicked out of school, even though they were asked to leave the team and their scholarships were revoked.</p>
<p>I know an Ivy recruit who had every intention of staying with his sport (different sport than my son’s). He went through an intense recruiting process and was sought after by several Ivys, Duke etc. He chose his ED school (an Ivy) and wound up quitting his sport in the fall before the season even started. He hated the culture of the team and simply was completely burned out from his intense high school years. You never know.<br>
My kid was recruited despite getting injured right before senior year of high school. He expected to fully recover. He didn’t- despite several surgeries. He never got to train or compete and was so demoralized he never really joined up with the team. Some of the athletes felt that he used the coach to gain admission, but that wasn’t the case. It was extremely disappointing for our son.</p>
<p>MOWC, I feel your pain. Hope your son is doing well. One day when I have more time, maybe I will start a thread about how athletes and their families cope with unexpected disappointments like injuries, etc. I think most of the time, athletes find themselves on their own when this happens, mostly because their teammates are busy competing and cannot imagine themselves with a career ending injury. There is always the delicate dance as the coach waits to see if their athlete will be able to come back and then the adjustment period as the athlete accepts that his athletic career is ending. It can be a lonely road, no matter how supportive the school/coach.</p>
<p>Thanks. He sort of moved on and is just now (junior) really able to do some running. He does not train at an intense level. He got a good job/internship starting soph year, so he’s kept pretty busy. It really was a huge blow and especially colored his outlook freshman year. I don’t know how he would have managed the intensity of training with the intensity of the partying, studying and working… I think he felt that he would have gotten a lot more support at the DIII LAC he was considering. Once he was hurt, there wasn’t much interest in him by the coach at his current school.</p>
<p>If a recruited athlete at an Ivy has a career-ending injury between the time she submits her application and the time the school makes the decision, is she out of luck? Will she now be in the regular applicant pool and thus probably rejected?</p>
<p>^^well a likely is almost binding, and if they pull it but the student doesnt have a drop in grades the kid will have a solid case. Cause that means they pulled it for athletic reasons but ivy acceptance are not supposed to be based on athletic abilities.</p>
<p>A broken leg wouldn’t generally be career ending, just season-ending, but you are just giving an example. I hope your child hasn’t suffered a career ending injury.</p>
<p>Most coaches and schools guarantee acceptance and continued attendance at the school even if the athlete suffers a career ending injury between the high school season and admissions time. I have never heard of them pulling admission late in the game for something like that. It would be bad for future recruiting.</p>
<p>Ivys are different because of the lack of pure athletic scholarships.</p>
<p>However, our football coach routinely advises those parents whose children may be recruited that they should consider schools that they can afford, in case the boys want to quit down the road. In football, an athlete can be a real punching bag and get no playing time. </p>
<p>Most sports are time consuming and really color a kid’s college experience, especially division I. Our coach feels like a kid should have an out if things don’t work out. However, for many of our boys, football is the only way to go/pay for college so quitting isn’t an option. </p>
<p>It happens – athletes quit and they do transfer, and as other said, if you go from Div 1 down to 2 or 3, you may be able to participate the very next year.</p>
<p>Also, many kids start at two year colleges and then get recruited into a 4 year program.</p>
<p>There are a lot of kids who end up quitting their teams or getting cut because of slacking off, partying to much, focusing on academics, or career ending or repeated serious injuries. But I don’t know of any athlete who has ever gone into college thinking i’m just going to use this to get in and quit. Circumstances just play out that way. College sports (at least in my experience even though I still play) are not nearly as fun as sports were when we were younger. And many kids don’t understand the time committment that being a student athlete in college demands.</p>