@PitchingFan posted:Time and money. Same as life. Want to know what is important to somebody look at their checkbook and their calendar. When they show up at your games and they give you money out of their account. Remember academic money cost them nothing.
I had a gentleman that I am friends with that his grandson committed to a power five his freshman year as a preferred walk on. He showed up at campus this year and they acted like they didn’t know him. He ended up transferring to a mid major because the power five brought in two portal guys and the commit has never played anything but catcher. The P5 had nothing invested in him.
This is also spot on. As many posts in this thread are. Walk ons have been treated as you described since the beginning of time. The word “ preferred” placed in front often means nothing. The lure of being part of a sports team is being used as a means to generate tuition revenue for the schools, now more than ever. It’s almost always a mistake to turn down athletic scholarship money at a school to take a walk on offer at a perceived better program. The market usually will tell a player where they belong - be it D1, D2, D3, or NAIA. If you don’t like what the market is telling you coming out of HS, go JuCo and try to raise your stock value.