Changing colleges

Hang in there. A lot more kids than you may think go through this. It is never easy, but it is what it is and it can be overcome. In the end, the most important and enduring thing is the education.

Sad Dad,
The first semester is the hardest to get through!!! So many adjustments to make it is a wonder that any kid gets through it. I know this from first hand experience!! When I went away to college, although I did not play baseball, I also was in grade trouble,homesick, missing my girlfriend(barely remember her name now) not to mention SCARED!! I left after the first semester also.
Anyways, I will save you from the rest of "my story", my point is that IT gets easier after the first semester if he can struggle through it!! If a change is necessary then do that, just don't let him sit out a semester as it is very hard to get back into it after a layoff. Good Luck to you guys!!! I hope i did not ramble to much but your story sounded very familiar to me! HANG IN THERE KID!!!!!!!!!

Sad_Dad, Hang in there. So far the advice has been good.
First semester is always the toughest. I know it's not easy, but try to see the bright side. If he had scraped by and made his grades then certainly with much more time
being devoted to the baseball team in the spring he more than likely would not be eligible next year(assuming he didn't make grades because of concentrating on the team).

Number 1 he still has four years of baseball to play, number 2 he will be bigger and stronger and know what it takes to become a starter next year. Number 3, if he plans on staying at the school he can still hang out with the guys and still go to all the games-still be a "part" of the team.

It's not the end of the world, as Hit&Run said, he doesn't hardly remember(lol) his girlfriend's name but at the time she was probably "the only girl I'll ever love"!

If your son truly wants to play baseball, it wll work itself out. Good Luck.

Moc1

Hopefully, this builds some character. He's got to take responsibility for his own actions, nobody screwed up but him. Been there, done that. All of us have. He should understand that and be willing to face up to it. You can't disappear into a video game. And there aren't many "Video Game Player" job offers going around, so he's got to face growing up and not getting to be a kid forever.

He sounds a little like me in my first year of college. I didn't take it seriously. I was away from home and had no one looking over my shoulder to make sure I was acting like an adult. The reason was, I wasn't an adult, just an aging kid. I started at junior college and wasn't playing ball anymore.

My new sport of choice became billiards at the local beer joint (in the days of 18 year old drinking ages). Studying became an afterthought. We joked that it wasn't really college, it was just the 13th and 14th grades....and it showed. I did enough to get by, but barely.

But I saw the error of my ways and learned that you could be a good student and have fun at the same time. Eventually I became a Dean's list and President's List student. The key is not to get so down on yourself, so don't let him. If he chooses to change schools for the right reasons, that's one thing. Just make sure it's not because he wants to hide his embarrassment and disappear from the view of his teammates.

sad_dad ...

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Without the ability to hang out with the other ball players and practice, ...

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We have a freshman at my son's school who was deemed academically ineligible this quarter, but he is still hanging out with the baseball team, comes to all the games, etc. Perhaps your son can do the same ... trying to still be "part" of the team even if just from the stands. Is that a possibility? I know it has made a big difference for the freshman at my son's school to stay focused ...

Just a thought. As for the rest of the ideas shared by your compassionate board-mates ... well, of course they are perfect ... would you expect anything else?

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Go Highlanders
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I would imagine that sad_dad was genuinly surprised when the eligibility issues came about. I would bet his sons grades do not relfect his intelligence, but rather he encountered one of those freshman athletic "issues". This web site does wonders about letting parents know about the ins and outs of all parts of the recruiting process. However, I think at times moms/dads get caught up on athletic part and take for granted the education side.

In our case we lucked out. In hindsight, we were probably caught up in the athletic hype although I wouldn't admit it at the time. It wasn't until the end of the first semester when my son said that the mandatory weekly study was the best non-athletic part about the program. That made me wonder, where would he be, an 18 year old athlete with a car in downtown Chicago, I know where I would probably be.

Bottom line, make sure you not only have that athletic fit for your son, but, take a good look at the academic big picture. It's not High School anymore.

I feel part of your pain; my frosh's grades were "south of south", and a big part of why he's wearing a redshirt. Lots of reasons, girl friend, time management, couple killer profs, but bottom line was he didn't get it done as he should have in the classroom. The good news is that he appears to have turned it around this semester, academic effort seems to be matching at least the baseball effort, although I'll hold my breath till I see final grades. Fortunately he does everything the rest of the team does, except play in the games.

First semester can be wicked tough. Many websters' sons on here seemed to have pulled excellent grades, and that's great, but we've had to see the other end of the spectrum. Realize you and your son aren't alone on this one, but he can get through it. Mine has a wonderful new advisor that I may nominate for sainthood-he was with my son till after 11:00 one night night reviewing an English paper with him-and we're very encouraged but it all had to start with the son learning, and appreciating the academic effort required.

Your son is likely very bright-don't let him get too discouraged. Justice William O. Douglas, US Supreme Court, once got a C in Constitutional Law. Good luck. You really aren't alone.

Thanks for the support.

Actually, other then not being able to watch him play, I’m better with this then I expected I would be. I tried getting him to go to a school closer to home because I knew how much he would miss his girlfriend (I only lasted 1 semester at my first college ) and how much it would affect him.

I went on to get a Masters Degree so I see this as a minor setback, sort of a life lesson.

What I was looking for was the NCAA gotcha's in transferring 4-2-4, after he gets his grades squared away.

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That made me wonder, where would he be, an 18 year old athlete with a car in downtown Chicago, I know where I would probably be.

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Probably trying to keep up with me in the type of places I was 1000 miles from home...but just 20 miles from Daytona Beach my freshman year.

Sad_dad,

I can ony imagine your son's plight as we have not crossed that bridge of dropping Jr. off at college yet. Hopefully, it is a lesson well learned by your son and other would-be college freshmen.