>>I still feel somewhat responsible, since I was so involved in researching a "best fit" scenario for all of his priorities during recruiting. My son is currently a junior at the university he ultimately chose for academic reasons (priorities straight, right??), and has decided to remain there.<<
I hear this from parent after parent, and especially from teacher after teacher and counselor after counselor. Academics first, baseball next.
Bull.
To frame my response, I'm a state university grad, with a doctorate from another state university, and medical school training at yet another state university. I'm recently out of full-time academia, but most of the last 20 years were spend selecting and training young men and women for graduate or professional school, for residency training, or for their first professional jobs.
So here's my take- Nobody ever says to themselves when they're my age: "If only I'd gotten my [accounting] degree at a different school- then I'd really be successful!." Substitute pre-med, business, pottery making, or what have you there. On the other hand, one of the most painful and self-confidence eroding experiences is that of the athlete who ends their career sooner than they know they should.
There is *always* time to finish your diploma at a "better" academic school, or complete graduate training, or whatever. In contrast, there is a very narrow window in which one's health and speed and drive will allow one to compete at the collegiate level.
People who do what I do will always take a slightly longer look at a collegiate athlete from Eastern Southwest Central State than we will *yet another* graduate from Well Known University, grades and test scores being equal.
The truth is, the schools that are so make or break academically prestigious as to guarantee a career are, with a couple of exceptions (Stanford, Notre Dame, maybe, and the like) a bit less athletically competitive than the larger regionnally well-known universities fom which most athletes are transferring in order to play elsewhere.
Tell your son the train is leaving the station, and that if he has the slightest belief that he can still play college ball he should get off his butt and go somewhere else and do it. No admissions officer or human resources director or future employer who is, was, or knows an athlete, or who loves sports, will ever fail to appreciate his motivation or hold his decision against him. And why would he ever want to work for anyone else, anyway?
C/D