Unofficial visits over the summer

dadof4kids
Fri, 09 Jun 2017 19:56:12 +0000

Wrestling isn’t quite as crazy as some sports, but coaches definitely turn over. We were planning on visiting Penn, but their coach was fired. I don’t think anyone outside the organization probably even thought he was in the hot seat, it looked from the outside like he was turning the program around and doing some good things. They have a new coach now, but when we were scheduling they were without a coach. I’m glad we didn’t go there a couple weeks earlier and waste a visit.

One other benefit of this trip was just getting S exposed to some of these schools. He has traveled quite a bit for training and competition, but mostly he is just learning that gymnasiums and auditoriums look pretty much the same on the inside no matter what state or country you are in. If you asked him a couple weeks ago to compare any 2 ivy schools, he would have had a fuzzy and probably inaccurate answer. Now he has at least an idea of some of the differences, as well as the similarities. He still isn’t sure what he wants, but he at least has a better idea in his head of what the differences are. Lots of differences between the coaches and their philosophies as well.

Also good for him to hear the stories about alum support. I’m sure that we heard the cherry picked good outcomes, but lots of very successful alums from all of the programs we visited. Also alums that seem very willing to reach a hand down to pull the next generation up. I think he is finally starting to see the long term advantages that his athletic success will provide for him in his professional future.