The bigger problem with the freshman host who got drunk on her own (un)official visit is that the coach saw it as no big deal and still recruited her to be on the team. Huge red flag.
Our daughter just returned from her first OV (swimming) at a top-20 D1 program. Freshmen hosts, lots of fun activities, upperclassmen were involved and met the recruits. Some teammates were great, some not so much. They had clearly been coached on what not to say and how to behave. No drinking or parties at all.
My kids are not athletes so we’re never going to have this experience…but if they were…and if they had the experience that the OP mentions…i would knock that school so quickly off the list that their heads would spin. 
Just want to chime in quickly on the drinking issue as I think advice has been spot on about the bad team vibe.
I really can’t imagine a situation where a coach/team would “test” recruits by checking to be sure that they refuse a drink if offered. Further, if a recruit drinks because he or she feels pressured to by a team member, the onus is on the team, not the recruit.
That said, the reality is that college students drink at parties, and part of an OV often involves going out and socializing with team members at a college party. There are schools/coaches that absolute forbid taking recruits anywhere that there might be drinking, but there are also many that more or less leave things up to the team. At those schools, honestly, while a recruit getting falling down drunk might influence a coach negatively, a recruit’s drinking a beer or two (or not) is not likely to get much notice one way or the other. I’m not saying that kids have to drink to be accepted by a team and yes, obviously, underage drinking is illegal. But I prefer to not hide my head in the sand…and I prefer my kid to head to OVs with a realistic, cautious, but not overly paranoid view of what’s ahead.
While true, for the student taking part in the OV, I would counsel him/her not to drink, or at most, nurse a beer for the entire evening. It is highly unlikely the team is going to disparage a student for not partaking, but it is very likely that the coach will be none too pleased with a falling-down-drunk recruit. Hold off on the beer until the acceptance is in the bag.
I have a feeling the coach never found out about the falling down drunk recruit who is now on the team. I’d anticipated D getting hauled off to parties and had prepped her on how to handle getting offered a drink, etc.
What actually bothered me more than the drinking, b/c I know it’s college and a lot of the kids drink, was that the team didn’t engage her or the other recruit in conversation during team dinner. They asked her one question, “What are you going to major in?”, and the proceeded to talk among themselves exclusively. That didn’t bode well going forward, and yes, this school is off the list.
This is cut and pasted from our club swim team website:
To Drink or not to Drink on a Recruiting:
Here is a typical recruiting trip. You fly in on a Friday and one of the coaches picks you up at the airport. You go to lunch with the coaches and your student host. You meet with the academic counselors and maybe attend a class or two with a student-athlete. You go and watch practice then hang out with the team at one of the coaches’ homes. You go back to the dorm room with your host and maybe watch a movie and talk.
Saturday morning you meet the swim team for breakfast then meet with one of the coaches while the team is training. You then head out with the team for a day of fun and probably go to a football game. Later that night the team may host a party for you and the other recruits.
Everyone is making you feel welcome and you are excited to feel like you are part of the team. You notice that some of the team is drinking (hopefully only some of the team) and one of the upperclassmen brings you a beer. The upperclassman tells you how much everyone likes you and shoves a beer in your face telling you it is OK because all of the recruits drink on their trip.
I am not going to sit here and tell you of all of the reasons not to drink, but I am going to remind you about two of them. It is illegal and you could be arrested or given a citation. Wouldn’t that be a fun conversation to have with your parents and your coach when you get back home?
You can be assured that the coaches will find out. Don’t let anyone tell you that no one will know. With today’s cell phone cameras and social media outlets it is only a matter of time before your mug is plastered all over facebook with a beer in your hand and you are labeled as a partier.
Now you are back at home waiting for the coaches to call you, but the phone doesn’t ring. The coaches have asked some of the team about you and perhaps have seen the photo of you holding a beer. That one moment has labeled you as a party animal and I guarantee you that coaches don’t recruit party animals.
So what do you do without coming across as uncool?
• As soon as you get to the party get a lemonade or a soda so that you have something in your hand.
• Don’t stand in the middle of the room like a statue. Interact with the team, especially with the non-drinkers.
• If someone offers you a drink politely decline and let them know that you already have something to drink.
• If they persist, let them know that you are focused on your training for this season and that your coach would kick your butt if you had a drink.
If you feel pressured to drink in order to fit in with the team, then you should re-evaluate if the team is right for you.
Under no circumstances should you drink on a recruiting trip!!!
Advice to youngsters preparing to go on OVs:
It is expected, and typical, that the recruit has more questions to ask about the team and the school, than the current players have to ask about you.
Both sides should do their best to try to make the conversation flow, but if a recruit does not ask a lot of questions, risk is that the hosts will be left with an impression of disinterest.
The OP’s daughter quickly lost interest for other reasons, in the case presented here, so no conversation in that instance was not an issue.
I disagree that the problem was my daughter not asking a lot of questions. I put it on the older girls who are supposed to be hosting her to help get conversation going during dinner. They asked one question, then turned away and started discussing their classes among themselves. The other recruit was in the same boat. It’s not as if they were chatting up my daughter and she responded with one word answers and they gave up.
I read this piece to my college athlete, and he thought it was pretty hilarious. I agree with skieurope that falling down drunk is just stupid (for a lot of reasons), and that drinking a coke or nursing one beer is smart, but that bit from the swim club website strikes me as an overly dramatic scare tactic.
Not criticizing sanmin’s daughter (I don’t know what she did or didn’t do), but I agree with fenway that it’s important for the recruit to be engaging and friendly–in fact, I think in terms of team members reporting back to the coaches, a quiet recruit who doesn’t ask questions or make an effort to take part in the conversation is far more likely to get a meh report back from the team than one who does or doesn’t choose to drink a beer.
Coaches are quite often “volunteering” their team members to host. While in the best of worlds, the team would be as keenly interested in the capture of great recruits as the coach, I suspect that’s not usually the case. My kid loved hosting guys he already knew from school or camps, but there were week-ends when he’d honestly much rather have been studying or relaxing with friends than keeping a high school student he didn’t know entertained. That said, he generally didn’t mind as long as the kid was easygoing and had interesting things to ask or say.
Frankly, it doesn’t matter whose responsibility it was to spark conversation. Maybe the team just got chewed out and the current atheles did not want to think about their sport for awhile. Maybe two kids were fighting, or someone broke up with their boyfriend. Who knows. There could be a lot of reasons why the dinner was not as pleasant as I am sure all parties would have hoped.
My personal opinion is that you are close reading this too much. How many kids get in a car, who drinks and who doesn’t, how the team treated her at dinner are all just pieces of the larger question - did your daughter feel “at home” with the athletes at the particular school? Were they kids she identified with, who shared similar values and priorities. That is what matters. The rest is just noise.
If your daughter did not enjoy the time she spent with the kids on the team, if she could not see herself as a member of that particular group, it is best that she move on. Wherever she lands in college, she is going to be spending a lot of her time with her teammates. Best to spend that time with others like herself, who she enjoys being around.
That’s exactly it, Ohiodad. Thanks for putting into words what I was having trouble articulating. D did not enjoy her short time with the team, so she is moving on.
I didn’t mean for this thread to start dissolving into an analysis of my daughter’s social skills. All I wanted to know was if teams are usually friendly to recruits on visits. This team was not friendly to my daughter or the other recruit. Friendly hosts are important to her, b/c that’s how she would treat a recruit if she were the host. Moving on.
@sanmin: I was hoping you wouldn’t read my comment that way. Rather than seeing the thread dissolving into a critique of your daughter, I was hoping it would open up a bit to a general discussion of OVs, what to expect, what to do, and what to take away. But yes, the visit is a two-way street, and I think we’re all in agreement that this one definitely warrranted moving on.
Thanks, classicalmama. I know you didn’t mean your comment that way, but I could see the discussion rapidly hurtling in that direction, so I though I’d speak up. And I really appreciate everyone’s input, as I have no experience with any of this up until now. I have learned a lot from this forum in general in regards to recruiting. Thanks to all!
You know, it is really hard to generalize. I both went on and hosted official visits during my own college days. I know there were times when I as a player was not a good host. Either because I just got chewed out in film (I seem to remember that happening a lot) and was pissed or simply because I didn’t click with a particular recruit. It happens. The coaches try and match kids up with players they think will spark, but you never know. My son only went on one OV, although he went on several unofficial visits. At some places, things just didn’t click. It doesn’t mean the kids on that particular team were jerks, or that he was not a priority recruit. It just means he didn’t fit. You need to remember that teams and programs develop their own personalities. Some times there is a fit, some times there isn’t. Usually, the kids figure that out very quickly. Often, a cigar is just a cigar.
Also, I am not a huge fan of do’s and don’ts on recruiting visits. Sure, basic stuff. Use good manners. Be respectful. To borrow from another thread, nothing wrong with texting your host after the visit saying thanks. But other than the big generalities, let the kids be themselves. They are going to spend hours and hours over the next four or five years in and among their new teammates. Why try and hide who you are or where your interests lie?One last point. What kind of a sick freak coach would set up a scenario where he or she would test recruits by having current team members take them to a party just to see if they would accept a drink? If that is what they do with recruits, can you even imagine the head games the coach plays with the players? I would rather chew off my own fingers than play for a coach like that.
Sanmin, you did say your daughter was just a junior on the trips, and only 16. She could have very good social skills and still be overwhelmed by the older team members. My daughter played on a club team where one of the girls was playing up two grades. Not a big difference in college, but there is a big difference for a 5th grader playing on a 7th grade team. My daughter was actually an 8th grader but age wise should have been in 7th, and this 5th grader stuck to my daughter pretty tightly. They made a great ‘assist and goal’ duo. Socially? This other kid was in 5th grade so didn’t fit in.
Are the OV supposed to be friendly and fun? Of course. But if the school is one she’s really interested in and the OV didn’t feel right, she’ll have to decide if the situation is right for her.
I concur with your last post.
As for the quoted sentence, if a recruit is not interested in the school being visited, then for sure do not hide that by asking questions about the team and school. (But why would the kid have gone on the visit in the first place?)
By the same token, if the recruit is interested in the school, I would recommend that the recruit not hide that either, and make it a priority to ask about lots of stuff. Otherwise, an erroneous impression may inadvertently be created.
These opinions are based on what I have heard from a couple of kids I know well who have been on one side or the other of, I don’t know, over a dozen visits.
Thanks for the additional input. D did get along with her host fine and that girl was very nice to her.
I asked D a little more about dinner and why she didn’t feel comfortable. She said there were also random boys at team dinner, who I think were then connected to the parties. She was overwhelmed and just not comfortable speaking up much, especially once the team, in her estimation, had made it clear they weren’t interested in chatting with her. It was just not a good fit on either side of things.
D was genuinely interested in this school and loves the coach, so is quite conflicted. It’s good she has more visits coming up for comparison sake. I guess the takeaway message from all of this is that these visits are tremendously important in the decision making process. I’m glad she went.
My D just hosted a recruit to her very small team. Last year she was the recruit, and it was the warmth and openness of the team that made her turn down a tippy top ranked college for where she currently is. She shared with me that the recruit didn’t have much to say, communication felt strained and awkward. It is an individual sport, and the girl was home schooled so never had the team experience. This coach values dynamics among the team over skill, and this recruit probably won’t get an offer.
@sanmin, you might suggest that your daughter reach out to her host and ask her if what she experienced was normal or aberrational. In my opinion, there is a big difference between your daughter being overwhelmed because it happens to be a big party night, or if that is just the general vibe of the team.
That’s a great idea, Ohiodad, thanks. I will mention that to her.