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Articles: Expert Advice
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Official Visits
harrycarsen
Registered User Posts: 11 New Member
Having concluded 4 D3 Official visits , it's really amazing how much alcohol and partying along with everything else goes on at these highly selective D3 campuses and dorms , it really makes one wonder how you would want your S/D mixed in with all this and have to live this way for 4 years for the COA
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Replies to: Official Visits
Yes, the kids party hard, study hard, play hard. So long as they don't drive (or get driven) impaired, stay in a relatively safe environment, and don't do anything "stupid," they are learning their limits.
For the great majority of kids, partying to extremes peaks by sophomore year. At least most teams have alcohol restrictions during season! NCAA random testing does a lot to keep the other stuff a bit at bay.
Another way to look at it: do you want your kid to learn his/her drinking limits at his first office holiday party, or during his/her college years?
The kids do pretty much what we did the first time free from our parents. Only after my two headed off did I gain a greater understanding of my parents and their reactions to my college days.
If you have a concern about the prevalence of drug and alcohol overall you may want to consider a religious based institution that has stiffer policies and penalties for drug and alcohol use. But as for alcohol, since most students turn 21 during their time in college, a student will have to learn how to make their own choices, balance parties, school and sports as part of the overall experience.
The NCAA does allow testing for drugs but it is typically a school’s athletic department that monitors and has penalties for underage drinking and tobacco use. Consuming alcohol if the student is above the age of 21 is not an NCAA violation that I am aware of. Although I would suspect if a student athlete was hung over every weekend performance issues would be the bigger problem.
I've told this story before. My son was doing an official visit to a Patriot League school. He was in the coaches office when he was introduced to a team member and sponsor for the weekend. My son is supposed to shadow this guy for the 48 hours while he's visiting because he's also an engineering major. The coach tells the sponsor...."no parties and specifically no alcohol". My son and the sponsor leave the coaches office and were at a Friday off-campus keg party no more than 5 minutes later. A couple hours later the cops raid the party. Luckily, my son and his sponsor had left a few minutes before the police raid, but other recruits and sponsors weren't so lucky.....and the Coach was NOT happy. My son wanted to leave on Saturday, but we made him stay until Sunday. This was a school my son crossed off his list immediately, but it was priceless in terms of learning what he did not want.
I wonder if that is the difference between recruiting men and women, or between recruiting for football or track, or a difference between the schools, or all three.
Thursday I landed about 11pm, where Coach was waiting at the gate for me We shot the breeze while we waited for my luggage . Then we hopped in his car and drove to the hotel where another recruit was waiting already in the hotel room. She’s a nice kid and we clicked pretty well. We talked for about 15 minutes then called it a night.
Friday I awoke around 7am to get ready. By 8am we had walked down to the lobby where another recruit and her father were waiting. Coach arrived and took our stuff and sent the other recruit’s dad on his way home (they drove). Our first destination was the Commons where breakfast was being served. Upon arriving, we met my host Kim.
After breakfast, I went off with Kim to attend a Biology class while the other girls went to Government. After an hour of that, we left to attend a Psych 101 class. I really liked this class. The professor was engaging, even though there were about 1000 students in attendance. We sat with a captain on the team and a TA for the class. We met Coach after Psych and then for then next 5 hours (11am to 4pm) we toured the whole campus on foot, talked with some academic advisors about our potential areas of study, met the coaches, ate lunch, did an area tour with the car, then went back to the facility for practice. (We couldn’t participate, of course)
All the girls were super friendly and really close, which was cool. After practice, Kim and I headed back to her dorm and started to get ready to go out.
We walked to a fraternity that was having a big party. It was a little intimidating, but ended up being pretty fun – I just drank water, of course. Around midnight, Kim, myself and her friend all walked to get a bite to eat and got home about 12:30 am (they said this was early for college) and just went to bed. I was on the floor, of course. But it was a good experience.
Saturday We woke up around 9am and I showered. Now we’re preparing to go to a street festival with some other girls. After that, we pretty much have all day to do what we want (hopefully study some Calc?!) and then at night the team might go bowling. I’m going to have one last sit-down with coach and I’ll fly out tomorrow morning.