Parents Upset About My Sports Scholarship?

Athletic Recruits
1

<p>To most parents, this would be very good news, that their kid has an opportunity to play a sport in college, however, my parents are not very happy about it. This past signing period, I committed to play my sport at a D2 school in California, and my parents are not happy about it one bit. Basically, they were hoping I would stop playing my sport after high school and go to school and focus on academics. The school I'm going to is giving me a decent scholarship to play, and has a pretty good financial aid package. I've always wanted to play my sport in college, but my parents are not happy about it one bit. They felt that I could do, and could've done better in high school (I currently have a 3.7) had I not played my sport. They felt that it disrupted my studies. I want to say that my parents are both from India, and the idea of college athletics is absolutely obnoxious to them. They feel that I will not be able to handle both athletics and academics, and that I am "throwing my life away" because of this. We got into a major argument about this, and now I'm looking for some advice. </p>

<p>So how can I go through with this? I got accepted into Arizona and Arizona State, and my parents really wanted me to go to one of those schools and leave my playing days behind. They also are pushing me to study engineering or pre-med, neither of which subject I am interested in, despite the high-income potential. I understand playing a college sport is a commitment, but this is what I wanted to do. They're having a tough time with it, and my mum has even cried and begged me not to go. They have gone as far as telling me "if you go to this school for sports, you are no longer welcome in our house." I mean, I want to play, but I can't just de-commit, but at the same time, I don't want to lose my parents. They will never forgive me and they'll be mad at me forever. </p>

<p>They have threatened to cut everything off from me if I decide to go, and at age 17, I really do not know what to do. I too am wondering, is my college endeavors really worth hurting my parents? Is it time to just give up and move on? What do I do? I have ONE shot to play my sport in college! I cannot "walk-on" at ASU or UofA. They're too talented at my sport. Maybe I can play on ASU or UofA's club teams? Even that will probably be an issue as well, because they explicitly told me they expect me to be done playing my sport as soon as I'm done with my senior year. They tell me I am no longer a child, and I should not be playing a child's game anymore. In fact, the original plan was that they did not even want me to play my sport my senior year, they want this year to strictly focus on my studies, SAT's, etc. I got about 1700 on my SAT a few months ago when I took it. I finally convinced them to let me play my senior year because my head coach talked to them, and he even had a tough time convincing them. My parent's biggest regret in life is letting me play my sport as a child, cause they saw that it got underneath my blood, and anything that is a "threat" to my academic career is the worst thing to them. </p>

<p>Anyways, any advice? Should I pursue my college athletic dreams or just watch them die just for the sake of keeping my family happy? I honestly feel this effort may not be worth a destruction of a family.</p>

2

<p>As a parent, I am sad that your parents feel this way. My feeling is that you need to pursue your dreams, not their dreams.</p>

<p>You committed to a school that recruited you. Go, take advantage of the financial aid, explore different classes and figure out what you want to major in. It’s you that has to make a living after college, so it should be a career in a field you’re interested in.</p>

<p>You may find that the CA school doesn’t fit. It’s OK to change schools, and to change majors.</p>

<p>If you follow your parents’ wishes, I forsee future issues of control – who you can date, whether you should marry, where you should live, what kind of car you should drive, how to raise your children, etc etc. </p>

<p>If you have a school counselor or religious advisor that can help you speak to your parents, perhaps they will be more understanding of your choices. </p>

<p>Good luck to you in YOUR future endeavors.</p>

3

<p>My daughter also chose D2 and so far it has been great. She does have to devote a lot of time to weight lifting, conditioning, practicing, but the benefit has been the structure of her day. She is in engineering but has found time to do a few other things like go to the beach, join a sorority, attend other games (mostly soccer) at the school. I love having her on a team because the coach and trainers follow her pretty closely. She has 8-10 hours of study tables per week, the coach pulls their grades several times a month and woe be the athlete who has skipped class or failed to complete an assignment. She is in bed most nights by 10 because those 6 am workouts come awfully early.</p>

<p>You might point out to your parents that this school you’ve chosen is smaller, that you’ll get better course selection (coaches make sure that your schedule works with the team’s schedule), study help if you need it. The team will provide you with structure, an instant group of friends, keep you in shape, take care of medical needs quickly. I also was happy to learn most of my daughter’s games are home games, so she’ll miss very little school next spring.</p>

<p>If they are still against it, you’ll have to decide if playing is worth it to you. My other daughter plays club hockey at her school and has had a great time. In fact, she’s going to play club lacrosse in the spring because she’s really enjoyed playing with little pressure. Club is a good option or some kids. </p>

4

<p>Can you have the coach talk directly to your parents? Or even a guidance counselor? Oftentimes sport teams have collaborative environments where they have certain times where they are required to sit down and study to make sure they are staying ontop of their academics, and coaches can even be the biggest supporters of this. See if you can show that academics and athletics success are not mutually exclusive. Of course, I sense there could be larger issues at play, especially if they are against you choosing a major that may be a better fit. Having a trusted adult or even other parents (ex: those who did athletics in college yet still did well academically) may be able to cross some of the barriers you may be having from just talking to your parents alone. Or at the very least, having a guidance counselor talk with you could give you a support system with advice so you don’t feel like you are alone.</p>

<p>If you aren’t able to convince your parents, you may have to evaluate how much playing the sport at that particular college is worth it for you. Club and intramural sports are still an option. You may want to get your GC involved to see how to resolve the commitment issue. However, even if you go this route, it is important to resolve some of the underlying conflicts, such as the control over the choice of major or life in general. It’s really sad that your parents aren’t able to see the success you have accomplished, but know that you will always be their son, no matter what they might say during heated arguments.</p>

5

<p>I’m sorry you are dealing with this type of strife and conflict!
As someone who is able to compete at the Division II level in your sport you have to be accomplished.
As an athlete this is it for you, your last opportunity to participate in that type of competitive environment. You don’t want to regret not participating later on.
While I understand the fear and anxiety that parents have in regard to their children’s path in life I see their role as to guide not to dictate. A young person should follow their own interests and passions not those of their parents.
I wish you good luck with this! It is not an easy position to be in.</p>

6

<p>OP, you say you signed with this school - I assume you mean a NLI - I was under the impression that parent/guardians were also required to sign for minor children.</p>

<p>(Sorry I don’t have any advice for dealing with the parents)</p>

7

<p>First, congrats on your athletic accomplishment. It’s a long road to walk simply to be good enough to get an opportunity to play in college; but to get into that position without enthusiastic parental support is even harder.</p>

<p>I hear your frustration, but have no magic elixir. </p>

<p>What you have is a cultural clash pitting more traditional, tried and true paths (study, study, study, grind, grind, grind) against a novel (at least to your parents) path. </p>

<p>From your parents perspective, the rest of your life is completely dependent upon your academic performance in college - grad schools tend to choose students based upon objective metrics (scores and GPA). Your parents are playing the “long game” of looking thirty years down the road. That’s what many parents, regardless of culture, do in trying to assure that their kids are better off then the parents (and grandparents).</p>

<p>As a teenager/college student (a long long time ago) and as a parent (much more recently), I have seen both sides. Regardless of the fact that I have seen both sides, every family dynamic is different, so suggestions I make may or may not have potential to break the long jam.</p>

<p>Your goal is to play NCAA sports in college. Your parents goal is to have you put in a position where your professional opportunities (expressed either as an engineer or doctor) are maximized. Neither you nor your parents want to go the “nuclear option” of cutting all ties. (While that seems a bit extreme to many, it wasn’t that long ago that Jewish parents took extreme positions when their kids married outside the faith.)</p>

<p>If you can prove that you can play AND not burn you professional options perhaps your parents would be willing to listen. So, do a bit of research on Indian athletes competing in college - find a bunch of successful stories. Try looking at rosters (focus on high academic schools), look at the juniors and seniors and their majors. Look at sites such as LinkedIn. Look for Indian professionals who played NCAA in college. Compile your list and present it to your parents.</p>

<p>Then offer a deal - one year of playing and great grades gets you another year of playing. Conversely, fall on your face academically and you stop playing and focus on academics (whether at that school or at a new school).</p>

<p>Also tell your parents that engineering and pre-med may be complementary, but engineering is not the most efficient way to position a person for getting into medical school. Because med school admissions are very very objective structuring a course load should be focussed on balancing the required difficult courses (e.g., orgo) with easy classes. This gets you the high GPA needed to get into med school. Engineering is the hardest major to accomplish that task. (In my Ds school, engineers with a 3.15 are doing great while pre meds majoring in history are getting 3.75s.)</p>

<p>If effect, your parents are insisting you take a major (engineering) which could doom your chances of a U.S. medical school. (Now, there students who follow this route, but why make it so hard if the goal is med school.)</p>

<p>If there are other Indian families whose kids were college athletes in your parents social circle, bring those stories to their attention.</p>

<p>It’s tough for head strong teens (who know everything and nothing) to take on head strong parents (who know nothing and everything). Try to use the few moments when emotion doesn’t rule both to open a calm measured conversation.</p>

<p>Good luck. And congrats on achieving such a high level in your sport.</p>

8

<p>That’s kind of the issue here, Indian college student athletes in this country are very, very rare. In fact, at my own circle of Indian friends/community, I’d be the first to achieve this, playing college sports. I’m not saying I’m the first Indian student athlete, but in my family’s social circle, NO ONE played sports competitively. From my parents perspective, there are no others to take an example of. And that’s their point. “No one in our community does this kind of things so why do you?” My particular Indian community in which is my parents primary circle, all the other children are geniuses. They all have some interest in some STEM related field, and in high school they were involved in clubs such as robotics, scientific research, Bollywood dance, etc. They saw me as the odd man in our community, cause I was the only one that played sports, and was able to compete at a varsity level. Even the kids of their Indian friends/colleagues that did play sports, they only played for YMCA leagues, or other community leagues, none played at a high school level. They hate this because simply, the time commitment. They just do not like the fact that we play or practice every single day during the season. They complain “why can’t this be like your YMCA days? Where you could just practice once a week, one game a week, and then it’s over. This stupid game is cutting into your study time. And now you’re going to continue this behavior in college? This kind of things will not feed you or get a job, and you are not going to play this game in professional leagues. So why continue? It’s time to give it up. You are no longer a kid. You have to study, and if you want to keep in shape, just go to a gym. That’s it.” They absolutely hate this system, and they always are angry at the fact that they feel that schools nowadays are putting more emphasis on athletics than academics (they do have a point, though). And they get angry at me, that it’s my fault that I go to practice/games every day. They feel that I can just come and go to practice/games as I please (like my YMCA days), when I have told them it doesn’t work like that. They told me that I am the one who’s going crazy. They told me that me going to college for this really is an unhealthy addiction and that it went too far, and that I am the one who needs help and needs to go see some kind of professional to “get this out of my head.” </p>

<p>My parents very rarely socialize with actual American people too, so it’s not like they can go talk to them. Like I said, my high school coach tried speaking to them, but he even had an issue as my parents and him got into a very heated argument, though he finally convinced them. My mom is a stay-at-home mom still stuck in 1960s-1970s India, and my dad is a high-level engineer for Intel, and ALL of his colleagues are other Indian people, so of course, he just takes examples from them. They do not come watch my games anymore, and their support died down greatly. So basically, I really did this without any help from my parents. My mom actually hates sports. My dad supported it through my childhood but immediately stopped as soon as he saw how the competitive high school system worked. Every day they just repent. “Oh, why did I allow my son to do this kind of things? Now look at how bad this has gotten. He is now obsessed, and is crazy about this stupid game.”</p>

9

<p>It’s only one data point, but you can tell your parents about my son’s experience. He was an NCAA athlete and competed all four years while successfully pursuing a STEM major. He tells me that several prospective employers noted that they value the attributes that student/athletes bring to the table. In fact, he’s convinced that being an athlete made the difference for one job offer he received.</p>

10

<p>And I also wanted to make it clear that my parents are making me choose engineering OR pre-med. Not both, though they’d probably be ecstatic if I wanted to do both. I guess I have some thinking over to do. I contacted my future college coach and informed him of my situation as well, so hopefully he can have a positive impact. </p>

11

<p>Have them watch “Bend It Like Beckham”.</p>

12

<p>There is biomedical engineering to make them double happy!</p>

<p>My daughter goes to a tech school, and there are a lot of athletes (D-2). More than half of the school are engineering majors, and the majority of the rest are math, science, and psychology with an emphasis on autism. You need to start gathering some information about the school you want to attend to present to your parents. What are the other athletes majoring in? What are the gpa’s? Graduation rate? What are you planning on majoring in? Your parents want statistics? Give them statistics!</p>

13

<p>Here is the contact info and bio from a SLAC division III athletic program coach at a well-respected LAC (Haverford in PA). He is Asian, as are many on his team; however, he is Pakistani, not Indian. I post this in hopes that it may provide a lead to demonstrate success of student-athletes to your parents:</p>

<p><a href=“Haverford Athletics”>http://www.haverfordathletics.com/sports/cricket/coaches/khan_kamran&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

14

<p>Definitely is a cultural issue…</p>

<p>What would happen if you decided to continue to play your sport at college?
I think right now they are trying all they can to convince you to live the way they want you to…but will they go through with it?
If they cut you off financially, can you afford the rest of the costs?
If they won’t let you in the house, what would you do?
If you start calling them on this…"Mom, since I will be playing sport, I can’t come back to the house, right? Should I take all my stuff with me? Will Auntie X store it for me?</p>

<p>Also you can always agree to do “pre-med”…as a pre med you can major in anything you want!</p>

<p>They tell you that you are no longer a child…but you can tell them that yes, you are not and you get to make your own decisions…you have decided to use this sport to help pay for college.</p>

15

<p>Some employers value the hard work and time management skills that are integral to success as a successful student athlete. My daughter said being a college athlete was much harder than the 100 hour weeks as an investment banker. </p>

<p>Since some interviewers don’t understand how much time college athletics requires, my children list how many hours their sport requires each week. Some interviewers view athletics as a distraction like playing video games or being involved in a fraternity. Unfortunately for the OP, his parents and their friends and co-workers don’t appear to understand the extent of his commitment and even if they did they probably wouldn’t support spending so much time on it.</p>

16

<p>I have seen many D1 athletes study chemical or biomedical engineering and be successfully admitted to medical school. Part of your difficulty is that your parents have not associated with parents of other athletes and have not seen the success story of other high school student athletes that compete at the national level and make 4.0/ NMF/ ACT scores of 32-36. You may want to contact your college coach and athletic department and ask about former athletes that have gone on to become successful doctors and engineers that you can tell your parents about.</p>

<p>I would talk to your parents about how it is important to you to both play your sport and make good grades. You may be able to convince them to accept this if you agree to stop playing if your grades suffer.</p>

17

<p>A tough situation, sorry to hear you are struggling with your parents on this. I do echo the suggestion that you develop the pros of your sport in college in terms of future goals. We know students recruited by the most desirable firms precisely because of their sport – because of the proven ability to work in a team environment and manage significant commitments. Look for success stories on how continuing to compete can enhance your competitiveness, rather than detract from it. </p>

<p>As the parent of an athlete, I suspect you do better with your sport in your life than without it – it has helped you keep “your head on straight” all this time, you rely on it to blow off steam, to keep you balanced etc. Removing it would probably make you less effective in the classroom, not more. </p>

<p>Sorry not to have any magic solutions – but agree that continuing to look for examples of successful athletes who went on to successful careers outside their sport is worthwhile. </p>

<p>Good luck. </p>

18

<p>Business Insider periodically publishes lists like “Athletes on Wall Street”, “Lacrosse players on Wall Street”, “Tennis players on Wall Street”, etc. Google them and show to your parents if they are not totally against this kind of career.</p>

19

<p>Hello everyone, I unfortunately decided to not go through with my athletic endeavors anymore at this time. At this time, my family and I had some very heated arguments about this, to the point where it got kind of violent one night. Thankfully no one got hurt, but the idea that me going through with this may come with serious consequences in my family life, so I have decided not to pursue collegiate athletics at this time. I have not yet done the decomitting process, but I will do so sometime later on within the next month or so. I have decided to attend the University of Arizona and major in mechanical engineering. Maybe perhaps I’ll see if I can play on their club team (but won’t tell my parents). It’s unfortunate, but I guess when my season ends in February, it’ll be my last time playing competitively for a while. Thanks to all for your kind advices, but unfortunately, it is just not worth a destruction of a family, and I am an only child. </p>

20

<p>De-committing shouldn’t be an issue. I’m assuming you never signed an NLI since your parents would have had to sign it also for it to be valid, and I assume they were not on board with that. Best of luck with your decision.</p>