Good topic TPM.
Son is sophomore at local D2.
My son had aspirations of D1, played hard all through high school – his team were the state champs his senior year. He was approached by several D1’s during the recruiting process. Had a couple opportunities presented to him at some very good mid-major D1 programs.
He had been presented the local D2 opportunity from his sophomore year forward in high school. Coaches liked him and kept in touch, but no pressure (he played at their field in tournaments regularly.) They said explore your options and then come back and we’ll talk. Part of the draw like anyone would like was to get the opportunity to play and compete as soon as he got there.
He was a great student in high school – worked very hard to get the highest grades, but noticed that the SAT/ACT scores were not as high as what one would expect with the high grades. He was 50 or so out of a class of 700. He thought about several schools and talked about how local D2 being a smaller school with 6,000 students may be better for him academically.
We have known kids that go to bigger schools and struggle, and we know kids that do very well at big schools, they have the natural gift of learning without much teacher interaction. 17 was the type who needed to be in an environment where he could interact regularly with the teacher and those around him, and the D2 is well known for its smaller class settings. That has become very important to him over the last year and a half.
His decision then became very clear and he has excelled academically in college (still has to work very hard and study a lot.) We shall see how the baseball ends up but he is very happy and committed to progressing. He is still equally excited about both academics and baseball, so his choice has matched his expectations.
I shared the link to this video before on here, but in regards to this topic I think it is good to look back and see the vision he had as a HS senior is still the vision he has now. He would probably say all the same things right now if asked.
Athlete of the week