JCG posted:SD that sucks! But I guess if the frosh develop and have fun playing JV then who knows, in a year or two you could be posting about what a great experience it was for your boy and how well he's doing on Varsity.
OTOH if my kid plays D3 I may try to nudge him away from programs with JV teams unless the academic match is perfect.
Hey JCG:
If we had it to do over, we would definitely think hard before committing to a D3 school with a JV team, especially one that habitually places most freshman on JV. Not saying we would definitely rule it out, but we wouldn't definitely rule it in either, not without asking some hard questions and taking a serious look at certain issues.
JV teams are no lose propositions for coaches. It enables them to have a pretty large total roster, while still giving the younger and perhaps less ready for prime-time players some actual playing time, against actual college competition, rather than just practicing and suiting up and sitting and not traveling to away games.
Whether it's a good deal for a player is another question. To decide that I would press the coach on whether JV is just a ticket to oblivion for most players or a true stepping stone toward a real future with the team. If it's the former definitely skip it. If it's the latter it might be worth it -- at least if the alternative is being low on the varsity depth chart somewhere where you may practice but never travel and seldom play.
Part of what you have to pay attention to to determine the answer is the ebb and flow of the roster over time. For example, at my son's school the current crop of junior and senior outfielders -- who are quite talented as a bunch, and one of deepest parts of the team as a whole, i gather -- had opportunities to make contributions early on because of the relative dearth of upperclassmen when they came in. This year's crop of incoming OF'ers clearly will have nothing like the same early opportunities that those guys had. There is only one sophomore at present ahead of them, though, so they are all hoping that their day will come. Two seniors leave the system after this year. And some of the upperclassmen ahead of them, though not without talent, have been used very, very sparingly. One surmises that they may have less upside in the long run than some of this years frosh. They aren't being asked to play a large role now.
This year's frosh came in and had to compete with 7 returning upperclassmen and a couple of junior transfers, though only one of the transfers made the team, in the end. Those are very daunting odds. I gather from my son and from looking over various profiles that three of the frosh can flat out play, though, and might well be somewhere on a varsity depth chart if they had gone elsewhere.
On a related note, from what I've been able to glean only two players (out of 13, I think) from last year's JV are on the varsity this year and none return to the JV as sophomores (last year the JV had a combination of sophomores and frosh,) Some of last year's JV OF'ers tried out, but were cut. Some seem to have seen the writing on the wall and hung it up or maybe transferred. Looking back over the last several years, this pattern seems fairly typical. From reading bios, it is clear that a small but sort of steady stream of players have spent frosh year on the JV and went on to sometimes quite strong careers as upperclassmen. But those with that trajectory seem to be the exception rather than the rule.
Don't know if it's the same at other places. One thing about my son's school that may differ from other more academically elite D3's is that they seem to attract a fair number of transfers, especially from local JC's in the area, but there are also a few D1 and D2 drop downs. I gather that 6 transfers will make the varsity this year (including one D1 drop down and one D2 drop down and 4 JC transfers). Such players obviously provide strong and direct competition for JV players hoping to rise -- and even for returning varsity players, as a few of those were cut too. It could be that this particular school, as a good but not utterly elite academic institution, may be able to recruit more transfers of a wider variety than are accepted at the very highest caliber academic D3's.
Bottom line, having a JV team is great for the coaches -- since it enables them to stockpile talent and gives them the luxury of bringing younger players along at a slower pace and enabling them to take a longer look at their talents without having to rely heavily on them or really commit to them. It's great for the school, too, cause it helps get more paying customers through the door. But it's clearly a much more dicey proposition for the player. It significantly ups the number of guys you have to compete with. Especially if you throw a stream of transfers into the mix along with a constant stream of incoming frosh who can play, it's makes for an intensely competitive environment with possibly long odds against success.
It occurs to me that it may be a little like what was going on at the D1 level before the roster limits were set to the current 35.
Just my two cents, as a parent whose eyes have been opened a bit by this experience.