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Betting on a sports scholarship to pay for kids' college? Don't
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Replies to: Betting on a sports scholarship to pay for kids' college? Don't
I mention no incentive to find the best senior/junior soccer players, since I went to a high school baseball game where the pitcher could hit 90 mph on the radar gun, and when he pitched there were typically 8-10 major league scouts in the stands. They are sitting there with radar guns, taking notes/charting pitches, and yelling pitches they'd like to see. Every part of this country will find star baseball players in high school (no club necessary), but non-revenue sports are basically untapped since there's no financial incentive to find a potentially great women's soccer player. Similarly even in the most rural parts of this country, alabama and clemson football will find that 6foot 5 defensive end. Not surprisingly, those coaches make 5$ million plus to find those players.
First, I have no idea where the author got the 11% figure. It isn't clear in the article and what is more it does not jibe with the stats published yearly by the NCAA. The fact is that in virtually all sports, the percentage of kids who play in high school and go on to compete in college at any level is well below the published admissions stats for almost all schools. When you limit the pool to kids who are competing in D1 and D2, and are hence eligible for scholarship dollars, the percentages are below the admit rates at every school, with the probable exception of women's ice hockey, where 10.1% of girls who compete in high school go on to compete in D1 or D2. Add in the fact that large numbers of those scholarship kids are receiving minimal aid because of all the scholarship dicing (outside of head count sports) and it is in no way, shape or form rational to build your college plan around making junior or juniorette into a scholarship athlete. That should be the take away here.
Also, and not to pick too many nits, but baseball is not a revenue sport and there is significant differences in high school talent/recruiting/scouting region to region. Also most serious baseball recruiting is done out of travel teams, unless things have changed radically in the last three to five years. But I absolutely agree with your larger point about the revenue sports (and big time football in particular) being much more aggressive in recruiting and going the extra mile to find a kid who may not play in a "hot" area. Even there though there is much more attention put on certain regions of the country.
And ultimately, I am not sure it makes sense to say that some athlete parents are delusional but there are other non-athlete parents who are also delusional. Delusional is bad. That others are also delusional doesn't make it less delusional.
That said, we also had a son who was the "superstar" pitcher on his baseball team. He was mildly recruited until he tore his UCL and had to have Tommy John surgery. Then he fell off the face of the globe in terms of recruiting. It's a hard lesson for a kid. Thankfully, he received a D2 offer from a coach willing to take a chance on him.
The 11% is from pg. 8 of the TD Ameritrade Sports Parents Survey, which is referenced in the article the OP linked to initially:
https://theharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Sports-Parents-Survey-2019-Final-Approved.pdf
The survey was of parents with at least one child playing a club/travel sport, which presumably is played at a much higher level than the average high school varsity team.
I actually think the parents' responses to the survey are not that far off from reality. I also found the last slide (pg. 11) interesting: 19% of Gen Z and Young Millennials surveyed wish they had spent more time studying than playing sports; an almost equal number (16-17%) thought sports was a better use of their time than studying in retrospect.
TBH, I think the non-Ivy selective D1 programs may represent the best of both worlds. The Stanfords, Northwesterns, Dukes, etc.
I'm the parent of a scholarship athlete, btw. Non-revenue sport, but Title IX probably a factor. FWIW, I wouldn't pooh-pooh "fractional" scholarships too quickly. After all, 99/100 is still a fraction. ;-) All kidding aside, that fractional may be the difference between being able to afford a school and not.
Other than my daughter, the only kids I know personally who have gotten athletic scholarships have been the ones whose names were ALWAYS In the paper...the true stars/impact players in our area. I think that's not a bad reality check for parents.
Regarding luck, I think that certainly plays a factor. But being proactive and having a good network of connections helps too, especially for second-tier prospects.
A friend was a fantastic high school player, named best in the state. He was below average academically at a very competitive hs, probably had a gpa south of 3.0 and an ACT in the low 20s. With his late recruiting after his decommit to a service academy, he had limited options. He still got 1/2 scholarship for 2 years, full for 2 years. This guy is one of the top 25 players in the country so the coach is happy. There was never a doubt that he'd get a college scholarship. Never. At 16, he looked like a full grown man. At 20, he IS a full grown man but only a sophomore in college.
He has a younger brother who is also a superstar athletically but has quite a few learning disabilities. Are his parents expecting him to get a big scholarship? Yes. Are they expecting him to go to Yale or Notre Dame or Duke? No.
Their high school sends dozens of athletes to top schools every year. Golfers to Stanford, wrestlers to Duke, rowers to Yale and a whole bunch to state schools (but more to elites because it is a high SES school). The school wins multiple state championships every year (won another last night) Of course the parents are counting on getting scholarships or using their sports as hooks at elite schools because their kids are playing on the state championship teams and they are the best. They see the scholarships happen year after year, they see the classmates head off to Yale and Stanford and UCLA. Yes, they expect scholarships but they aren't all delusional.
And yes - I used revenue sport incorrectly - I meant sports that have lots of revenue for pros. Baseball has a lot of money for the pros (like 300$ million dollars for 10 year contracts). And yes, if you can hit 90 mph as a pitcher professional scouts will come to regular high school baseball games anywhere in the US. kids now just use twitter to advertise their pitching speeds. "bumping" 90 more than once in a game is very, very rare. If any of you have a kid in your school district that throws 90MPH + multiple times a game check out an inning; the amount of resources major league baseball spends on scouting is amazing. Baseball players can go pro after high school something that no other US sport really does currently. It's quite a difference watching olympic sports where often parents are the only ones in the stands. Seeing 8 grown men diligently charting every pitch some 16/17 year old throws and travels the country looking for those kids often at high schools is something to ponder.
but yes you better have a natural gift (like being a 6'6'' female volleyball player or 6'10'' basketball male player to expect a scholarship.
At no point have I ever expected he’ll earn a scholarship. Am I hopeful that he’ll earn a roster spot at a school he’d love to attend? Of course, but I don’t expect that to happen either.
The next 24-36 months will be interesting for him. Next year, as a sophomore, he will continue to watch current teammates commit in their junior year as well as former teammates that moved up a year that are seniors. As you might expect, none of the parents are forthcoming about scholarships in general. They certainly don’t discuss any financial information.
I’ve never really asked him if he thinks he’ll earn a scholarship. I’m certain he expects to play in college though. I’ll ask him his thoughts on the way home from practice tonight.
I’m just along for the ride when you get right down to it. I simply hope he stays healthy and continues to work as hard in school as he does on the field.
For baseball there is a max of 11.7 scholarships for 35 man roster. Of the 35, only 27 can receive athletic money, and the minimum they must receive is 25% of a scholarship. That means by rule at least 8 guys are getting no athletic money, usually more. And that's for schools that fully fund their baseball scholarships, most don't.
I consulted the 2018 Men’s D1 Soccer rankings and chose UVA @ #10 to drill down on. It’s a great combination of strong academics and big time ACC athletics.
Their team photo has 29 players in it. The 2018 stats sheets shows that 21 of those 29 saw the field.
So, for whatever reason, 8 players juggled D1 athletics, as well as their studies, but never played an actual game minute.
Of the 21 that played there were 3 that essentially played every minute of every game. It’s safe to say that these are scholarship athletes. Did they receive a full ride?
There were another 5 players that started and played in every game, or almost every game, and were on the field for between 88% - 98% of the total game minutes. What percentage might their scholarships be?
The next 4 players, in terms of minutes played, were on the field between 51% - 77% of the total season minutes, BUT...they scored 64% of the team’s goals(5,2,2,5). Scholarships? How much?
The final 9 players started a total of 6 games and played a total of 1,322 combined minutes of the 1600 minute season. Is there any chance 1 or 2 of these kids received a scholarship?
Fencing is a great example (as is women's hockey and crew). There are relatively few high schools that have fencing (or women's hockey!) as an official varsity sport, so there are relatively few "high school athletes." This throws the "% of high school athletes continuing in college" stat way off compared to the number of collegiate athletes on teams in the sport. For example, the vast majority of HS-aged participants in fencing complete out of private clubs, because there is no varsity team at their high school. Most of the collegiate athletes in these predominantly club-based sports (unlike football, basketball, volleyball, etc), never competed on a high school team for their sport, so they aren't included in the fraction.