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Frustrated by the tough schedule and lack of playing time, I asked my parents if I could quit basketball. What they said made ALL the difference in who I am today.
By Garland Cooper, Director of Softball NCSA June 13, 2017
By: Francesca Donovan
Francesca Donovan is not affiliated with LPL Financial. The opinions expressed in this material do not necessarily reflect the views of LPL Financial.
By: Josh Levine
Author | Coach | Trainer | Entrepreneur
Josh Levine is not affiliated with LPL Financial
Note: this article focuses on hockey, however, the issues with early college recruiting and the reasons for stopping early recruiting apply to many sports.
It’s time to stop the race to recruit earlier and earlier and fix the college recruitment process. The current situation is unnecessarily hurting athletes and increasing the workload for college coaches. As colleges commit to players who are younger, the risk of making the wrong pick increases, and the need to “stockpile” players becomes greater.
"There are no points for second place."
Those words may fly at elite military institutions like Top Gun, in moments winning can mean the difference between life and death, but it is not the case in youth sports leagues across America, where kids get points for coming in first, last, and everyplace in-between. A product of the self-esteem movement, parents and coaches today feel obligated to heap praise on children, no matter if they deserve it or not. No matter if they hit a home run or made the error that lost the game for their team. That is, if they even keep score at all.
The question is: What kind of communication have you had with college coaches?
If your answer is anything less than “I’ve signed a commitment to a college,” you don’t need us to tell you that you’re still on the market for a roster opening in your sport.
Let’s make that a good thing.
“But I wanted to play in DI,” you might be saying now. We get it. There’s a lot of hype around Division I play. And for a lot of student-athletes with big dreams, playing at the highest level might seem like the only thing worth doing.
We’ve come up with this list because it’s important to think about how you might be a late bloomer (like one of our recruiting coaches, we might add, who went on to an awesome college career) or something might have affected your recruiting journey (like it did one of our national scouts, who was able to bounce back during his senior year).
Josh Levine is not affiliated with LPL Financial
The dark side of youth and high school sports occurs in the shadows. The root cause is “elitism” – the marketing of nine-year-old players as “all stars”, the parental boasting of their player’s “talent”, and the social validation (online, at school, and home) youth receive for being successful athletes. All of these factors can harm youth and high school athletes, while probably making it tougher for them to succeed in their sport, in the classroom, and beyond.
Marriage affects your ability to build wealth, plan for retirement, plan your estate, and capitalize on tax and insurance-related benefits.
© 2017 Brian Gaffney. All rights reserved.
