@Francis7 posted:When mine committed, right away friends started on me "I thought he would be D1?" or with "What if we wants to play D1" And, I told them all the truth: "Actually, he turned down an offer to play D1 to accept the D2 offer."
But, that's other parents who think D1 is the major leagues and everything else is inferior.
Recently, my son played the first scrimmage for his high school team. When he came home, he said "Three different people asked me today why I went D2 and how come I'm not playing D1."
When he shared that, I said "Seriously? Who asked you that?" And, he said: The home plate umpire, the head coach of the opposing team and the media guy who covers local High School sports.
So, I asked him "What did you say?" And, he said "Because the coaches are great where I am going."
I told him that was a good answer and to get used to having to use it a lot. (The actual reasons are all that I listed in the OP.)
The comments from your friends to you and from the participants at the game to your son are meant to be complimentary observations, meaning something like "I always thought you were such a good player and the sky is the limit". You can, perhaps, consider it somewhat unintentionally backhanded but it really depends largely on YOUR sensitivity to it.
The "level of play" topic is an intriguing one for most folks around the game to talk about and ask about but few have reason to know it to any extensive detail level. No reason to take those questions and comments personally.
Your OP title sort of implies this to be an unusual scenario. Of course, there are literally hundreds if not thousands of players who are capable of some D1 level but go another direction.