<p>As a segue from the actual experience vs. reality thread below, I thought a discussion of redshirting might be helpful. In top Div. 1 programs, it is a common practice to redshirt freshmen in some sports. And of course, injury sometimes necessitates redshirting at some point in the student's athletic career. So perhaps some of you more experienced parents of athletes would care to comment on either your child's personal experince as a redshirted team member, or how redshirting works on your child's team. </p>
<p>Possible questions to be answered: Was your child redshirted, and if so, was it expected? For what reasons does your child's coach redshirt? What are the rules that govern redshirting that the athlete should know? Does it lead to social divisions on the team between the active players and the redshirted players? Were there any unexpected implications of redshirting that your athlete wishes s/he had known?</p>
<p>I'll start with one fact we just learned. For D's individual sport, if the student is not officially rostered on the team but is asked/required to compete unattached as practice and for development purposes, then that student must pay for his own registration fees and transportation to competitions. This was a surprise. In the high school system we were used to, the lower level athletes merely attended novice or freshman events if they were not up to varsity standards. But they were still officially on the team, they received a uniform like the better athletes, and were registered by the coach and transported by the school to competitions. There is no JV in college. Of course it makes complete sense now, because obviously if the college puts the kid in even one college event in uniform, then the kid is officially competing for the school and that counts as a season of eligibility. But we just didn't fully grasp how things were handled.</p>
<p>I can’t speak from experience on this one, but D has a few friends who have been redshirted. In some cases, (football) it was expected that he would spend a year to develop and learn the speed of the next tier of the game. In another case, cross country, it was a little bit of a disappointment but not completely unexpected. This is a top tier CC team and of course the distances increase from what they were used to running in HS. </p>
<p>I wasn’t aware that when the student competes unattached he or she needs to pay their own fees and arrange their own transportation, but I guess it makes sense when you think about it. Still, has to be kind of hard,</p>
<p>Socially, I haven’t heard that there is any sort of divide that develops, They still spend a great deal of time together in workouts.
When D was going through the recruiting process, she asked the coach of a big time D1 program if she would likely be redshirted her freshman year. Coach replied, ‘not unless you get injured - we want you to come in guns-blazin’ freshman year’. In reality, I feel like it’s a very rare freshman that can come in and contribute at a top tier program freshman year.</p>
<p>Our S has had to redshirt 2 seasons. In the Ivy League, the rules and process are a little different - redshirting is only allowed if the athlete has a documented injury - you can’t redshirt for purposes of development. It’s a fairly complicated process requiring paperwork that the athlete, coach, and physician have to complete to document the injury. It’s likely that our S will never get to use those seasons as he anticipates graduating in 4 years, but if he should go straight on to graduate school, it’s possible that he might use those seasons. In his case, it would never have been something he would have chosen to do if he could have avoided it, but injuries do happen!</p>