<p>a friend just sent me this boston globe article on salisbury football and how they may have led some boston football players to believe they were getting scholarships:</p>
<p>[Rude</a> awakening - The Boston Globe](<a href=“http://www.boston.com/sports/schools/football/articles/2007/08/19/rude_awakening/]Rude”>http://www.boston.com/sports/schools/football/articles/2007/08/19/rude_awakening/)</p>
<p>people had some harsh words for salisbury and the coaches.</p>
<p>Trying to view this as sympathetically as possible for the coach, he basically screwed up.</p>
<p>And, frankly, after Salisbury got favorable press from ESPN coverage of the recruiting of these student-athletes, the negative press they get now seems like it’s only “fair.”</p>
<p>This is something that could have been avoided with a better process governing recruiting…with coaches accountable to the admission office and giving recruited athletes contacts who are not biased or star-struck as coaches might be. The idea that the coach or anyone at Salisbury was blindsided by these kids’ academic records just doesn’t ring true in light of this:</p>
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<p>But the coach acts like he was blind-sided by the academic portion of their application files. He attributes the breakdown to a lack of hand-holding:</p>
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<p>Yeah, I agree. Not enough hand holding. Someone in admissions needs to hold the coach’s hand as he recruits student-athletes.</p>
<p>nhfootballer: Notre Dame has had similarly embarrassing moments in recruiting. One of them was recounted in Sports Illustrated in excruciating detail (for Irish fans). The recruiting of T.J. Duckett – and the disconnect between the coaching staff and the admissions office – is somewhat infamous among Irish football faithful. But, as this article from the Notre Dame student newspaper demonstrates, T. J. Duckett found a home at rival Michigan State and got his revenge:</p>
<p>[Duckett’s</a> Spartan performance causes Notre Dame headaches](<a href=“http://www.nd.edu/~observer/09222000/Sports/5.html]Duckett’s”>http://www.nd.edu/~observer/09222000/Sports/5.html)</p>
<p>I hope these two Dorchester players find similar success…with a vengeance.</p>
<p>that’s so sad!!! i feel so sorry for those two guys!</p>
<p>i did not see this article in print but i am sure it caused some pain at salisbury. you really feel for the two players who were so excited about moving on to a better life.</p>
<p>Oh lord.
Harsh.</p>
<p>Salisbury alum (and former football player), parent of a recent grad (and former football player) I’m somewhat at a loss for words. That hurt to read. The Globe piece smacks a little of a hit piece, but I can’t deny that they tried to be fair. Sounds like a real disconnect between admissions and the coach, though at the same time it seems like the school made a real effort to make things work for these two kids. Trust me when I tell you that the school cares for its students and wants them all to succeed. I know Adamson a little and he is truly a good guy. </p>
<p>Truth is, if they couldn’t make it work, they obviously felt that the boys were just being set up to fail. Still a very sad situation.</p>
<p>I’ll make some calls and try to flesh this out for those who are interested.</p>
<p>i’m interested!</p>
<p>thanks, fun. i am interested as a football player. also, i am black so the article got me thinking. my parents stress the books because it gives you options in life that these guys are cut off from due to their lack of money and poor grades. i bet this article was read by all of the preps with steps in place to avoid this from happening again.</p>
<p>Terrible to be sure.<br>
But to be fair, Salisbury did in fact allow one of the boys to submit an application TWO months after the deadline and if he had been qualifed, he STILL would have been accepted AND granted aid. Tell you what, that doesn’t happen to the everyday student. Especially the financial aid part. AND, that student HAD in fact applied the previous year. So, the family did know something about the process and had been denied the previous year? Sounds like in that kids case there is more to it. Like maybe he was told the previous year exactly what to do with his grades in order to be accepted…told the coach he had and didn’t? I don’t know. </p>
<p>In the other boys case, they sent him to the summer school. I find it hard to believe that absolutely no one told him that he wasn’t accepted in the fall until the end of the summer session. No one said “you’ll be back in the fall if you do x-y-z” in the summer." Maybe not, but it sure seems like something is missing here. </p>
<p>In any case, anything could have been said, the boys didn’t “hear” it and were devastated. In the future it sure should be more clear. </p>
<p>On the other hand, I do hope that these boys, if as talented as the appear in print, do focus on thier grades this year, apply to schools they CAN get in to and are successful.</p>
<p>I agree, Linda, if they are so obviously talented in their sport, then hopefully they won’t give up academically and an adult can help them. Hopefully there is somewhere they can go to break free of the vicious cycle they have been born into.
It was a difficult story to read, and I was deeply saddened by it, but it is also true that it would not be helpful to send the boys to a school where they could not keep up with the work. It is a hard situation, because growing up in poverty can put you at such a disadvantage all the way around.</p>
<p>noticed the date on this article – Aug 19th – where’d you dig this up nhfootballer?</p>
<p>My best source at The Steak tells me there is some misinformation in the article. The boy not invited to Summer School was apparently flat out rejected. The school feel that they made every effort with the Summer School attendee, but in the end it was felt that he simply couldn’t do the work. </p>
<p>Incidentally, the story is tragic and sad, but does anyone out there think that this is the first time this has happened, and that only Salisbury is “guilty”.</p>
<p>The coach is quoted extensively and, if he wasn’t misquoted, his statements pretty much say it all.</p>
<p>As for this being unique to Salisbury, no. I pointed out that the esteemed and much vaunted (and rightly so) Notre Dame football team and admissions office have had such breakdowns…including a well-publicized de-recruitment of T.J. Duckett who went on to become a nemesis of the Irish on the field.</p>
<p>Frankly, I think we see the “happy go lucky” attitude going on with applicants here on CC, and I’m not talking about coach-athlete communications either. If an admission officer can give false hope or allow standard-track applicants to overestimate their chances of admission, it’s hard to crack down on a lone coach for doing the same thing…and not compensating for a possibly less savvy handful of candidates.</p>
<p>I also agree that Salisbury probably made a decision that was best for students who weren’t going to succeed. But by the time that happened the damage was done…as the coach, by his own admission, failed to temper any of his puffing with a dose of reality. Again, from his own statements, it seems like he actively avoided finding out the real academic story…which meant he could be upbeat. It also sounds like he firewalled himself from the admission process and, in turn, they were firewalled from these students until that one application came in 2 months late.</p>
<p>Coaches should be sharing lists of recruits and contacts with someone – presumably admissions – so that prospective candidates can receive official communications. What’s not so clear to me, but I’m inferring anyway, is that it seems like the coach’s recruiting process was run on an entirely separate track from the admission office process.</p>
<p>fun is fun, i learned of it from my football coach who is writing a recommendation for me. he gave me a copy of it then i found it online to post here.</p>
<p>Glad to hear your coach is working to keep you in touch with reality, nhfootballer. And it sounds like your parents have taken a good approach as well stessing the academics. </p>
<p>The sad part about it is that this happens on a larger scale with colleges as well. So many students confuse the role of the coach and admissions officers because schools do not train the coaches to specifically defer to admissions on all questions academic. </p>
<p>Had the kids had a clearly spelled out list of academic requirements (similar to the NCAA guides) handed to them by the coach up front with a clear message that there are no winks here, the kids and their families probably would have been spared the tragedy.</p>
<p>I’m sure this is going to bite the coach for a long time, and perhaps the kids longer, unfortunately.</p>
<p>yes, i am lucky. my football coach is the best. it is sad that i will never play for him again. he is a great teacher and a lover of the game.</p>
<p>This article is timely for all of you kids out there. You cannot make the mistake of believing everything one representative of a school tells you–and that goes for admissions officers as well. Your interviewer is but one person serving on the admissions committee. As much as he/she may think you are phenomenal, and may have told you so, your application needs to pass muster with an entire committee. There are no binding promises until you are holding that fat envelope in your little hand on March 10.</p>
<p>I’ve worked with inner-city athletes attending boarding schools and have seen some misconceptions on both sides. Sometimes the local coach is the one who starts the recruiting process, and the school is encouraging until they find out that the student is too far behind to be accepted.</p>
<p>In defense of Salisbury, I give them credit for not using these boys for their athletic talent, accepting them even though they knew it would lead to failure. I know a young man who is in junior college now, fairly bitter over the treatment he received at a top prep school. As a senior, he was not able to score the 820 combined on the SAT that he needed to accept a college scholarship. Yet, just two years before, a top prep school had accepted him despite his academic challenges and didn’t seem to care that he struggled, as long as he continued to play well.</p>
<p>newyorker, he must have been real far behind to score that low. what sport was he playing?</p>
<p>newyorker…any idea which school he was looking at (that wouldn’t accept the 820)? Because, you know, the NCAA allows scores much lower than that.</p>