Walk-ons at Yale: they need you!

thatguy100
Fri, 28 Jan 2011 23:36:07 +0000

"However, back to the article. I had a different, unexpected reaction to the entire story…which is that it seems kind of nice that there are slots available for walk-ons to make a contribution to Yale’s athletic rosters. College is such a wonderful time to try different things. How great that there is still room for kids to try on D1 sports during their college years. There is definitely plenty of room for participating in the residential college athletic competitions. But the resources for the varsity teams are better…and so for the student population at large, I guess I am happy that not all rosters are sewn up tight before the kids even arrive on campus for their 4 years. "

Im sorry, WHAT? This is a D1 program, and D1 programs require recruits. Especially since, forgive the stereotype, most kids who would apply to a school like Yale didnt have track and field as their main extra curricular. Yes, it is great that the team is not * entirely * recruits, but that doesnt take away from the fact that Yale cannot recruit the best possible student-athletes because they found them too late in the recruitment process or something like that. I dont know what the stats are for other D1 (did I mention this is D1?) teams, but the fact that Yale allows for any walk ons is impressive… whats not impressive is that we have to RELY on them to fill a team that cannot be adequately filled via recruitment due to these caps. (not to mention, the average “normie” Yalie was accepted for many other reasons… reasons that are likely filled by other quite time consuming extra curricular activities on campus)