It’s a Jungle Out There

Several years ago, as the head women’s rowing coach at Boston University, I got a call from one of my top recruits, a national teamer from a small European powerhouse, several days ahead of her scheduled official visit. The trip was a big deal; we didn’t have a huge budget, so spending the money for an international visit was something we did in only a few cases for recruits we felt really good about. This recruit was technical and tough and fun; she would have made us faster and been a great teammate.

I assumed the call was just a regular check-in about some last-minute details. She appeared on FaceTime from the darkened back seat of her parents’ car as they drove through the countryside on her way home from practice.

Abruptly, awkwardly, she told me that she had committed to another school. Just like that. I was shocked. The coach, from a Pac-12 program, had made her a scholarship offer less than an hour ago, with one catch: The offer expired at the end of the call. She had to make the decision right then and there. She accepted.

There was no logistical need for the coach to do that. It was simply a way to introduce urgency and to intimidate the recruit into making a hasty decision before she could visit another school and think better of it.

I spoke with her and her father at length about what was really happening—that this coach, afraid she would visit my team and find it a better fit, had decided to strong-arm and scare her rather than let her make the decision that was best for her and her future.

They understood but were too afraid of risking that the coach might rescind the offer. She canceled her visit to BU, costing the team nearly $1,000, and went to the other school.

How did that work out? She left the school before the end of her freshman year, quit the sport, and never again competed at Worlds.

After nearly 25 years in the sport, I’ve seen the recruiting process from every angle. I’ve been the overwhelmed high-school senior making every visit possible, uncertain whether I wanted the size and spirit of a large state school or the intimacy of a small DIII college. I’ve been the young assistant coach flying around the globe trying to identify and lock in the next difference-maker for my team. I’ve been the experienced head coach, more patient and also more jaded, trying to outmaneuver increasingly cutthroat opposing coaches while building my own program.

Through all of this, I saw time and again how a lack of honesty and transparency made the whole process much more anxiety-inducing than it needs to be. Sure, there will always be some degree of stress involved for recruits as well as coaches. This is a big, expensive decision that will impact the next four years of their lives, and beyond.

For coaches, the future success of their teams depends on the accumulated strength of their recruiting classes. But time and again, I’ve seen how the egos and unrestrained competitiveness of some coaches and the inexperience, lack of confidence, and occasional hubris of recruits can make this far more difficult than it needs to be.

When asked to describe the current college-athletics recruiting scene, Becky Munsterer Sabky, a former admissions officer at Dartmouth College and author of Valedictorians at the Gate: Standing Out, Getting In, and Staying Sane While Applying to College, declared, “It’s a jungle out there.”

This is certainly true, but with some guidance, perspective, and candor, high-school rowers and coxswains, and their parents, can navigate the process successfully and land at a university where they are happy and can thrive athletically, academically, and personally.

Start with you.

The success of the entire recruiting process rests on having a solid understanding of its most important player: you. It doesn’t matter which teams made it to nationals last year or which university is on top of the rankings. What matters is that you are able to find the school and team that is the best fit for what you want out of your college experience. This requires honest reflection and the confidence to go for what you want, not necessarily what is expected of you.

“Expectations are important,” said Liz Trond, head coach of the Connecticut Boat Club (CBC) and former coach of the U.S. Junior National Team.

“Do you want to join a sorority, write for the school newspaper, be on the rowing team, go abroad, and take family trips all the time? OK, well then most of the programs in Division I and high Division III are not for you.”

Trond tells her athletes pointedly: “Don’t come to me and say ‘I want to row at Virginia but I’m super-excited to be in a sorority.’”

In the early days of the recruiting process, high schoolers must keep an open mind and look around at their options with genuine curiosity. Talk to older athletes on your team and those who have graduated about their college searches and current college experiences. Visit every campus you can. Take virtual tours when you can’t. It’s just as important to know what you don’t want as what you do.

Know that there are benefits and disadvantages to every setup. The peaceful idyllic campus may require some extra travel time. The bustling city school may not offer housing all four years. It’s all about priorities.

Claire Ochal, head coach of Harvard-Radcliffe heavyweight rowing, spent five years coaching at Syracuse before coming to Cambridge. The two schools are very different, she says, and each has pros and cons.

“Syracuse is very professional. Athletic departments in the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 are huge moneymakers for the university,” she said. “At Harvard, it feels a little more homey. It’s not driving the revenue of the institution. But your team isn’t getting on College GameDay every weekend.”

Recruits are hearing this throughout their college search, I hope, but it bears repeating: Choose the school first and the team second. You never know what will happen with your rowing career. You want to make sure that you’re at a school where you can be happy and have a great experience, with or without rowing.

That said, the athletics-recruiting piece of the college search has an undeniable impact on the process, for better or worse.

“The college application process on speed”

With 15 years of experience in college admissions, Sabky knows the college search process.

“Athletics can really be an advantage when you’re applying to colleges,” she said, “but it’s also, in terms of the timeline, a big disadvantage because you have to figure this all out much more quickly than other kids.”

Recruits need to have their testing and transcripts ready earlier and often are committing well before their non-recruited peers.

For this reason, Sabky recommends reaching out to coaches as early as possible. Current NCAA rules prohibit verbal or written contact between college coaches and high-school recruits until June 15 or later after sophomore year and in-person contact until Aug. 1 or later of the same year. She advises high schoolers to reach out to all of the coaches of the schools they’re interested in, provide some information about themselves, and ask about how they conduct their recruiting.

Trond goes a step further in advising her junior athletes. She urges them to write direct, specific emails, including their height, weight, and erg score up front, even if they’re not yet up to par with what would be expected at a certain program.

“It’s helpful to say, ‘Listen, I realize this is not Division I standard yet. This is what I’m working on. This is what I could contribute to your school.’ Put it out there,” she advises.

This level of candor and awareness of the process will allow the recruit and coach to have honest conversations from the get-go.

Some of this accelerated timeline is unavoidable, but some of it is being driven by the recruits themselves. Junior-year commitments, relatively unheard of in rowing only a decade ago, are becoming increasingly common at many schools. To be sure, some of this acceleration is coming from college coaches who are motivated to lock up top recruits before other coaches can get to them. But the pressure is just as likely to come from high schoolers themselves who want the security of an early decision and the relief of a concluded process before the beginning of senior year.

Coaches commonly see early decisions being made en masse within one team; once one junior makes his decision early, his teammates are far more likely to follow suit.

“The FOMO is insane,” one collegiate coach of a top-five program said, referring to the “fear of missing out.”

Ultimately, the fundamentals of the process are the same. “You’re students first. You’re going to have to take the SATs. You’re going to have to get recommendations. There are no shortcuts,” Sabky reminded. “So think of this as your college application process on speed.”

The role of parents

Copilot. This is the key responsibility and opportunity for parents in their children’s college recruiting process. Sabky believes no one wants to be or have a helicopter parent, but a backseat parent can be just as detrimental.

“The copilot parent is willing to be there to support the student but not necessarily driving the car,” Sabky said.

This necessitates clear communication—between the parent and child as well as between the parent and coach (when appropriate).

“We want [parents] to feel comfortable with us as coaches,” Ochal said. “We want them to feel when their child is going to a place that’s going to be a home away from home for them that they trust the coaching staff to make the right decisions and look out for their child the best way they possibly can.”

Sabky believes there are practical benefits to having parents involved, particularly in important conversations. When discussing admissions, scholarships, timeline, and other complex topics, “it’s good to have other ears in the room” to ensure that everyone walks away with an accurate impression and a firm understanding of dollars and dates.

Crucially, parents should not overstep. It’s common throughout the sport that it’s often parents, more than high schoolers, who are pushing to get into the best college or row for the best team, regardless of fit or satisfaction.

Understandably, high-schoolers will go along with their parents’ wishes. Trond, who has seen this often with her CBC athletes, asked a group of parents about their goals.

“Are parents looking for college admission? Or are they looking for a four-year, healthy, cool, challenging environment for their daughters?”

The parents’ answer: “Admissions.”

The unfortunate result of such a focus is that aspiring rowers may choose a school because it has the flashiest name, not because it excites them or has the academic program they’re interested in or has a team full of people with whom they fit in well.

Another important topic is money. I’ve seen countless instances when parents kept their kids in the dark about the family’s financial situation, leaving recruits unable to have effective, accurate conversations with coaches. When a coach asks, “Is need-based financial aid a possibility for your family?” recruits need to have some idea of the answer. Whether financial aid or athletic scholarships are on the table, college-bound rowers ought to have an understanding of their family’s ability to contribute to the cost of their college education and how that works as part of growing into young adulthood.

Said Sabky: “The process should be the child’s, but the conversation about money should be the family’s.”

Getting jerked around

Most of the time, college coaches act with honesty and transparency during the recruiting process, but there are exceptions. Recruiting is a high-stakes full-time endeavor for them. Their livelihoods depend upon their ability to assemble and develop the best team possible. Coaches are under a lot of pressure, and most—but not all—try to act fairly. As a recruit, you need to keep your wits about you so you can recognize when you’re getting jerked around and decide how much of that you’re willing to take.

This happens most commonly around commitments—the team’s commitment to offer a scholarship, roster spot, and/or admissions support and the recruit’s commitment to apply to, attend, and row for the school.

Though this can be a high-stress time, the fundamentals of a strong relationship should not fly out the window. Accordingly, be forthright about your interest level. Don’t tell four schools they are all your top choice; coaches talk. Similarly, coaches should be expected to be honest. It’s reasonable for recruits to expect coaches to be clear about their interest level, what standards need to be met, and what factors will affect the timeline.

If a coach can’t provide answers, ask yourself why. Sometimes coaches are keeping athletes on the back burner. They’re pursuing their top recruits and temporizing with second-tier recruits in case things don’t work out. Meanwhile, some athletes are doing likewise as they juggle different teams.

Eventually, this can put the whole process in jeopardy. Athletes end up holding out hope for a long shot while letting other great options fall by the wayside. You must decide for yourself how much of this you’re willing to take. Perhaps this is your dream school and you’ll wait forever for the chance to row there. That’s fine, as long as you understand you may be sacrificing other opportunities.

Oftentimes, though, recruits face the opposite problem: coaches pressing them to make a decision before they’re ready. This is a tactic I saw time and again from some of the most cutthroat recruiters out there. I heard of a Big Ten coach who made a scholarship offer during a football game on an official visit but stipulated that the offer expired when the recruit left the stadium. I know of an instance at an ACC school (and many similar situations in other conferences), where a scholarship offer expired on the date the recruit was scheduled to leave for her next official visit, forcing her either to cancel the visit or to forego the offer. These high-pressure tactics put young people and their families in impossible and wholly unnecessary situations.

As a collegiate head coach, my philosophy was always that I wanted a team full of people who had great options and chose my team. I wanted recruits to take every visit, talk to every coach, so they could feel confident they were choosing the team and school that was the best fit for them.

By denying recruits this ability, coaches are building a team of athletes who were bullied and intimidated into choosing that school. All this does is reveal the lack of confidence the coach has in his own program. If he were sure about the quality of the experience his crew members were having, he’d be comfortable giving recruits the chance to explore their options thoroughly, while certain the best would choose his program.

Another time recruits must demand as much clarity as possible is when discussing their admissibility. Different conferences and schools use different language and processes to determine how likely it is that a recruit will be admitted.

In the Ivy League, for example, the admissions office confers “likely letters” on select prospective students, mostly recruited athletes, indicating the probability of their admission. Member schools have agreed that these letters can be issued only between Oct. 1 to March 15 of senior year after an academic pre-read process that cannot begin before July 1 before senior year. It’s not unheard of, however, for a coach to imply to a recruit that he or she is likely to be admitted in May of junior year. This may be nothing more than an educated guess, and it’s considerably different from the assurance offered by an actual letter from the admissions office.

Conversations about admissions at many schools can be complex. Some coaches have direct communication with a representative in the admissions office who can give specific, personalized feedback on a recruit’s academics as early as junior year, advising which grades need to be improved and which classes to take senior year.

At other schools, coaches who have no relationship with the admissions office are compelled to offer their own best assessment, which can be highly variable and subject to their own biases. Whether because of unclear communication or intentionally misleading information, recruits are often left more, or less, certain of their admissibility than they should be. Therefore, it’s imperative that you ask direct, probing questions about this consequential topic. This is not a place for any ambiguity, intentional or otherwise.

In situations like these, you must ask yourself: If a coach is going to treat me like this during the recruiting process, when she’s trying to impress me and win me to her team, how will she treat me when I’m on the team and things are challenging? If a coach is going to tell a recruit he is definitely admissible, when he has no direct indication from admissions confirming that, how can he be trusted to be honest throughout the rest of the athlete’s career? If a coach is going to bully an athlete into committing before she’s ready, how is she going to behave when that same athlete is struggling to adapt to the pressures of collegiate rowing?

Taming the “Jungle”

To be sure, the college recruiting process is filled with nerves and uncertainty, long shots and tough calls. It is also, likely, the only time in your life that your love of and dedication to the sport of rowing will provide real, tangible benefits.

You may be able to get into a college that otherwise wouldn’t accept you. You may receive an athletic scholarship, worth up to $360,000 over four years. At the very least, you will have the opportunity to speak with coaches and current student-athletes to get a realistic understanding of life at their institution, an experience not available to the average applicant. You may get feedback, or a decision, from admissions long before your peers. So do your best to enjoy the process. It’s truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Counsels Sabky: “Be authentic, be thorough, and be ready to make these decisions a little bit faster—and to get good news a little bit earlier.”

 

Thanks for asking!

Some actual good questions

College coaches and rowers are used to being asked the same boring, superficial questions by most recruits. While you do need to cover the fundamentals, if you can find the answer on the university’s website, you shouldn’t ask the coach.

You can set yourself apart from the rest of the recruiting class, while learning valuable information about a team, by asking thoughtful, specific questions. Experienced college and junior coaches recommend these:

• Tell me about a challenging conversation you’ve had with an athlete.

• What does it look like for the team when things are going well? What does it look like when things are going poorly?

• How do you work on team values regularly?

• What type of people are successful on your team?

• What outside resources do you bring in to support team development (culture, sports psych, nutrition, etc.)?

• How are injuries handled? How are athletic training and sports medicine involved in that process?

• What academic challenges do your rowers commonly face and what resources do they have to address them?

 

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