It’s late July. If you’re a youth sports parent, this may be one of those rare times: a weekend without your kid’s “elite” team playing a couple of games, or traveling to a “showcase” tournament.
Maybe your child’s batting, shooting or goalkeeping coach is on his own vacation.
But the clock is ticking. The fall season — for youth and high school sports — starts in a few minutes. The 11 1/2-month cycle begins again.
Much of it is driven by one goal: to catch the eye of college coaches.
Dave Smith has an important perspective on it all.
He and his wife Jeanne have lived in Westport for over 15 years. Their 4 children played multiple sports, including football, basketball, lacrosse, baseball and volleyball.
Caleb (Staples High School Class of ’24) is playing lacrosse at Boston University. Nathan, a Staples senior, will play football at Trinity College. Chloe is a Staples sophomore, while Noah looks forward to being a freshman there next fall.
From left: Nathan, Caleb, Dave, Noah, Chloe and Jeanne Smith. Caleb and Nathan starred on Staples’ 2024 state champion football team.
Dave played basketball and ran track at Trinity. He runs a leadership coaching practice. Today — with years of youth sports experience behind him — he offers these insights into college recruiting:
According to a recent New York Times article, the youth travel sports industry is now a $40 billion business.
Lots of parents shell out lots of money, while trekking all over the country to help their kids succeed in sports.
“Two in 10 youth sports parents,” the article says, “think their child has the ability to play Division I college sports.”
Playing college sports is a terrific dream, one our family has pursued for all our kids. And we contributed mightily to the youth travel industry along the way.
Recently, my oldest Caleb and I were on an “06880” panel discussing the challenges of navigating youth sports. The notoriously opaque process of college recruiting can be even more bewildering. Having stumbled through recruiting with 3 of ours, my perspectives may be helpful for parents mapping out your child’s journey.
Staples High School sports signing day ceremony, 2024. College sports is a goal for many young athletes (and their parents). But the road is far from smooth. (Photo/Lynda Kommel-Browne)
√ With the NCAA athlete settlement in June, universities opting in (to avoid future litigation) will have roster limits (no more walk-ons), and pay athletes a portion of the school’s revenues. NCAA football and basketball will become the equivalent of baseball’s minor leagues. To play at these Power Conference schools, D1 recruits typically attend specialized private/prep schools, and oftentimes “re-class” (repeat a grade) to have a chance.
√ For smaller D1 schools who don’t opt in (like the Ivy and Patriot Leagues), competition for recruitment is fierce. Even at this level, if you don’t fit the D1 football or basketball measurables for size and speed, you’re unlikely to be considered, regardless of your high school career success or performance at showcases and camps.
√ Some college sports – such as swimming, rowing (erg stats) and track – recruit solely on times.
√ Lacrosse (boys and girls) remains the most viable college recruitment path for Fairfield County public school athletes. The Fairfield County Interscholastic Athletic Conference (FCIAC) is one of the top high school lax leagues in the country. Size does not matter as much as speed and athleticism, making lacrosse viable for many more athletes. As a result of Title IX, the path is easier for girls (125 D1 lax programs) than boys (73 D1 lax programs).
√ Rugby is an up-and-coming sport, with a blossoming youth league and a nationally ranked program at Staples. Size is less of a factor in rugby recruiting than in football.
√ College coaches still value multi-sport high school athletes. They demonstrate a variety of skills, and can adapt to play multiple positions — providing teams with the flexibility needed in today’s college game.
Playing more than one sport is appealing to college coaches. Athletes learn how to deal with a variety of pressure situations, and learn from various coaching styles — while avoiding burnout and overuse injuries. (Photo/Mark Conrad for Ruden Report)
√ D1 recruiting for most sports is heaviest after one’s junior season. Communication with college coaches is conducted through the high school coach. D1 lacrosse recruiting (boys and girls) is heaviest after their sophomore season, and is conducted through their summer club team coach.
√ College coaches prefer not to communicate through parents. In fact, pushy parents are seen as a negative, and can hinder prospects. In my view, college recruiting firms are not worth the money.
√ Lastly, D3 sports are grossly underrated. The quality of competition is tremendous, much better than when I played. Most D3 schools participate in both conference tournaments and national D3 championships. D3 may be an ideal target for public school athletes, especially those who are undersized by D1 standards.
Playing a sport in college is a fantastic experience, and an awesome goal for any athlete. But I try to remember what Tony Boselli, a National Footbal League Hall of Fame lineman and All-American at the University of Southern California told an audience of all-staters: His fondest memories across his entire football career were those high school Friday nights, running onto the field representing his classmates and his town.
Yes, work for the future. But be sure to enjoy the present!
Some Staples High School lacrosse players will continue in college. All will always remember their state championship. (Photo/JC Martin)
The other thing that is great about playing at any level college sports is that when looking for a job after college many firms look for college athletes because it shows a total commitment and dedication to working hard as well as helpful traits learned from being part of a team. Many top college athletes, especially those who maintained high academic achievement while being a student athlete show great leadership qualities and know how to work effectively , efficiently and multitask well.
It doesn’t mean that if your child(ren) don’t decide to continue their sports career into college that they won’t have luck getting a good job out of college, as most HS athletes don’t play in college, but it is helpful. If they can show in some other way a commitment of some activity during their four years of college, such as a volunteer program, work program or another activity while still getting decent grades that will also so self motivation and the ability to multitask well as well as leadership qualities and some times knowing themselves well enough to know what they have a passion for.
About 4% of high school senior athletes play in college—most play club sports.
Coaches of each college or university have prospective recruits ranked on a depth chart. The college coaches communicate with all players initially like they are very desirable until they get a commitment from a better player on that depth chart, then they go silent. The recruit doesn’t know why they haven’t heard from the coach so the player thinks they did something wrong.
Not many people understand that being a D1 athlete is the equivalent of a full-time job (40 hours a week and a commitment of 12 months with one week with family). D1 programs schedule you to start school the summer of senior year to take a full course load so you only take one class in season, which means missing the last couple weeks of high school including graduation celebration with family and classmates.
D1 & Ivy take a lot of players through regular admission but small schools like the NESCAC do 90% through Early Decision. The NESCAC schools are 2000+ students; they must field the same amount of teams as a D1 school so they use ED to guarantee the players are coming.
I played normal seasons, one sport at a time, and had summers free. When “travel” was to another town close by, not up and down the east coast with long car rides or plane rides. Years ago I coached recreation here in Westport and it was so hard because part of my softball team was also playing travel soccer. It was impossible to run good practices without a full infield.
When I had my own kids who played soccer, I loved the clinics that were from these outside companies. The coaches where excellent. However I soon realized that IST etc were all recruitment tools to find the most talented kids. I saw that there was this pressure on parents to play what ever the coach said, no matter the cost. The cost being to the family with time and money. Time, how family was schleppjng everywhere or one parent heading one direction while another parent heads the other direction. No more Sundays having a day of rest, no cohesive family time. Let alone the financial strain. Big money as Dave explained. Also parental anxiety to have a place is massive. All of this has also generated pressure on facilities in all towns. There was an educational book called Race to Nowhere, but the race to play sports is equally stressful to some families. I felt relieved as an athlete myself that sports was not my children’s dream so recreation through 8th grade was a sufficient experience. I didn’t have to navigate these difficult decisions. But these pressures exist in the music and theater arena also. Pay to play is not all it’s cracked up to be. Do what you need parents for yourselves and your families as a whole. It will all be well and good enough. We haven’t even mentioned burn out with student athletes. I feel for parents so much.
Great post. I expect varied “takes” on this topic. I think the underlying point of the author’s final point is the one that rings most true: if and when an athlete chooses a primary sport, make it be the one the athlete truly enjoys because competition become so fierce, most won’t enjoy it or even last if they aren’t also passionate about it.
Moreover, while I find sports to be a fantastic way to learn about teamwork, which helps in most walks in life, I’ve learned that most students involved in the public schools theater program (whether part of their work on a performing, technical and/or pit team) also developed these same teamwork skills as they collaborate to put on the best performances that they can. That was eye-opening to me: that theater provided at least as many opportunities for teamwork as being part of a sports team and, from what I observed, actually probably much more so because there are so many ways to contribute. I’ve now seen how those skills learned in middle school and high school in town are applied professionally every day.
yes when my children were in their first orchestra I felt the same way, A choir, a theater group an orchestra all need teamwork to a collective goal.
I remembering having to choose between Orphenians and Staples Basketball my junior year due to after school practices for both. The things I learned and experienced singing were quite valuable and a great source of pleasant memories.
And as I was a really untalented basketball player, the odds of me making varsity my junior year after a mediocre JV season were pretty low. But I like to tell myself that I made a conscious decision to sing over play basketball. The stories we tell ourselves.