How do struggling seasons affect standing verbals?

Swimkidsdad
Sun, 29 Sep 2013 19:07:00 +0000

I have a few comments about verbals

1.) Likely Letters are issued by admissions and not the coach and are an agreement by the admission committee to admit the athlete if certain academic standards are maintained. Theoretically once the likely letter is issued the coach no longer influences the admission process.

2.) Verbal commitment issued prior to official visits are general issued to top athletes. If these athletes suffer a loss in performance then it would have to be great enough to be below the lowest performing athlete in a recruitment class for a coach to consider pulling an offer. With the exception of injuries this generally does not happen.

3.) College coaches look at the performance of an individual athlete and not the high school or clubs team performance when they make recruitment decisions.

4.) D1 coaches can reduce scholarship prior to an athlete sighing a NLI however there can be consequences to doing this. In particular I know of one coach who reduced scholarship amounts and redeveloped a poor reputation in one region of the country. At the next national meet this coach was discussed and athletes from other parts of the US learned what this coach had done.