The Pressure of
Athletic Recruitment
Over
420,000 student athletes compete in twenty-three NCAA sports at over 1,000
member institutions across the country (Hewitt, 2009) . While not every one
of these students will receive a full or partial scholarship, consider the
number of students who do, and the value of those scholarships is high. Over 126,000 students receive either full or
partial scholarships that have a total value of one billion dollars. With the monetary
value of an athletic scholarship being high, it makes getting an athletic
scholarship a high stakes game for student athletes. Not only is there pressure on student athletes
to get a scholarship, but there are also pressures on coaches to win, which can
lead to aggressive recruitment of student athletes.
The
recruitment process for athletes can be very stressful and even be intense for
those who are 14-18 years of age. With
email, text messaging, and phone calls that can be made to prospective athletes,
pressure for the athlete rises (Yen, 2011) . With the constant contact by coaches, many
athletes feel the pressure to commit early, which can lead to excitement for
some and sometimes the wrong fit for others. Although young athletes may have
the physical appearance that coaches like, do these athletes really know what the
right fit is for them at a young age when they are unprepared for the pressures
they will likely face?
Hewitt, P. M. (2009). The Recruiting Process. College
Student-Athletes: Challenges, Opportunities, and Policy Implications, 37.
Yen, A. C. (2011). Early scholarship offers
and the NCAA. Boston College Law Review, 52(2), 585-616.
I definitely can relate to this article. I started talking to a coach my senior year before I turned 18. He followed the rules about contacting me, but I still felt like I was always getting calls from him. I became injured in track season after I had already signed. At first the calls made me feel like he was genuinely interested in me. While I was injured, the calls from him made me feel guilty. I worried that he didn't want me to be on the team anymore and that he regretted giving me a scholarship. When I was back to running, I felt guilty for not running fast enough in my high school meets because of the injury when he was expecting me to have a better season than the previous year. As a result of the pressure to perform well, and having a bad season, I gave up my scholarship and took a year off of college track. I ended up going to a different university. The pressure high school athletes feel is real. I signed because I got a scholarship before I even knew what I really wanted.
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