NY Times: Committing to Play for a College, Then Starting 9th Grade

Parents Forum
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<p>An intensifying competition for top players has led recruiters to focus on younger girls, but many coaches and parents worry about a psychological toll.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/27/sports/committing-to-play-for-a-college-then-starting-9th-grade.html"&gt;http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/27/sports/committing-to-play-for-a-college-then-starting-9th-grade.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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The article goes on to say that many of these girls recruited & locked into deals so young don’t pan out by college. But by then, the colleges are locked into the scholarship deals. </p>

<p>The college coaches say they have to do it, because everyone is doing it. Where have I heard that before?</p>

<p>The colleges go thru all this trouble to recruit girls they don’t really want, just so they can recruit the boys that they do.</p>

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<p>These coaches certainly DO want to give the scholarships to women - they are the coaches FOR the women. They want the best players they can get. The problem is that if everyone commits by freshman or sophomore years and Coach A is the only hold out who waits to see what talent there is after junior year, Coach A will get whoever is not committed. The coaches all know each other and ‘stealing’ recruits is frowned upon. Similarly, the player who waits for Div-I until junior year will find all the scholarships at good schools have been given out. The really good players can wait and a school will always find a position, but those players are few and far between. </p>

<p>Recruiting for the top teams is similar to the frenzy on CC over the top 20 schools. There are plenty of schools where women can play soccer and lacrosse, but everyone wants to go to a top 20 school, on a full scholarship, and the schools want the best players. There are bragging rights to saying you were recruited at age 14. Committed players wear pink armbands at recruiting tournaments to show they are ‘taken’ even though it is not a binding commitment on either side (and many coaches contacted my daughter even though she was wearing an armband). The top 20 teams also want the best players, just as the top 20 schools want the top scholars, the UrM, the perfect geographic mix, so they court them.</p>

<p>My daughter, tiny as a freshman but bigger and stronger as a junior (for spring sports, junior year season is really the last before offers are made and applications to the schools go in). No interest in her at all at 13, but after junior year she had a lot of interest. Not the top 20, but a few opportunities in D-1, D-2, and a lot in D-3.</p>