Recruiting Stories Part II -- "Regrets -- A Parent's Point of View"
I'm probably not the best person to ask for advice. Much to my regret, my daughter is not too happy at college, and she is looking to transfer....
I am happy with the college because it's paid for for 4 years, it's close, and the classes are small. It has a good science department, which she needs. We visited several different schools -- even had better offers -- but ruled them out because of the distance from home, etc.
Shasta......
I guess the first thing you need to get your daughter to do is decide how far she wants to go away from home, what class size is in her best interest -- I had huge classes and regret it, but I don't think I was as self motivated as my daughter -- and, of course, money counts!
Make sure she watches the team play. Pay attention to who the coach plays -- upperclassmen or best players. Ask the coach how the team is going to do over the next four years. Who is he losing? What position does he want her to play? Who else in that position will she have to beat out for playing time -- senior or freshman?
Try to get the coach to commit to amount of playing time she'll get. We were told she would play a lot and probably start. Neither happened. He's a foreigner and played all the foreign students -- even if they sucked -- which totally surprised us.
Make sure she talks with players. Find out whose happy and why. Find out whose unhappy and why. Ask players what they would change about the team. Ask what they think their strengths are and weaknesses. Don't just ask the player they assign to you -- this one is recruiting and will say what you want to hear. Ask how the team gets along.
For each of these questions, we found out the hard way. It never occurred to us to ask these questions. The team was divided. The foreign players stuck together and didn't mingle with others. My daughter said it doesn't feel like a team. They were also cut-throat. Maybe this is something we should have expected. We didn't realize that at this level you compete for playing time which can boil down to money. It was a rude awakening for us all.
Ask how the team gets to games. They stuff the whole team plus gear into a 12 passenger van. Ask them what the food allowance is for out of town games. My daughter gets $5. They wanted the girls to pay for warm-ups, but they refused.
Find out if the campus and community support soccer. Very few students went to my daughter's games. Not a lot of fun or very motivating if the school doesn't care. Big on football at her college -- been there, done that, sick of that.
Well, those are a few of the things I wish we had known. Not sure what she will decide. In a way, I wish she would stay another year and give this coach another chance. That's the biggest problem -- he let her down big time!
If I were you, I'd call some of the parents of the players. I wish I had now. I hope this helps some. This is such a mess. It's hard for me to think about throwing away 4 years of free school JUST for happiness. There are no guarantees at another school.
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