Drinking on Official Visits

Boozin' it up during an offical visit? I'm assuming you mean the coach/staff, not your son.
Wow - this is disturbing. Not surprising, but disturbing nonetheless. I would immediately cancel any further plans to attend a school where alcohol was part of the "recruiting" equation. Period.

I drank on some of my offical visits. The players took me to parties and we had fun. No big deal.

The coaches had no knowledge of our activities.

Aside from the right/wrong of the situation, which is major enough in my book , this gives you an insight to the make-up of the current team and how they view rules set by their school and coaching staff. The recruit is not of drinking age and on a recruiting visit! Yikes! Without any knowledge of what is fact, it would make me question the head coach & staff, their discipline, and whether they turn a blind eye to drinking and/or extra curricular activities by team.

Ask yourself: Is this really the baseball program and environment that your & your son are comfortable being a part of?

quote:

Originally posted by redbird5:
I drank on some of my offical visits. The players took me to parties and we had fun. No big deal.

The coaches had no knowledge of our activities.

Same for me..... Coaches usually just sent me off with the team captain after the official tour to get a feel for campus life.... and it was a true feel...

Kids will be kids. The exact circumstance is what I would want to know.

A beer before a football game is 1 thing.

Getting goofy or acting like some notorious Miami football recruit is another.

"Boys will be boys"??? What are you thinking? This is a blatant dis-regard for the law for starters. It would be an immediate "NO" to that school and I would report the encouragement of underage drinking to anyone who cared.

My son was real close to going to a school, but when the players took him out that night, he changed his mind and went to the school he is still at. Bringing in a 17 year old and feeding him booze is wrong, and it is weak too.
The past two years, he has been the guy that shows the recruits around, and he does not drink. They are not offered booze on his watch.

quote:

Originally posted by bbscout:
My son was real close to going to a school, but when the players took him out that night, he changed his mind and went to the school he is still at. Bringing in a 17 year old and feeding him booze is wrong, and it is weak too.
The past two years, he has been the guy that shows the recruits around, and he does not drink. They are not offered booze on his watch.

A little booze here and there won;t do much to you. As long as you aren't getting pissdrunk every weekend you should be fine. It probably isn't the best thing to do on a recruiting visit though.

Thanks for all your input. My son doesn't drink now, but I am not naive enough to think that college students don't drink. But he is not yet a college student. But, you are being evaluated by the team when you hang with them. I have heard lots of stories, some first hand, that the kids are taken to parties and shown a good time. And I've heard that some coaches don't want to hear about the drinking.
I don't think he should drink and if they don't want him, he wasn't meant to be there.

And for all you parents taking your sons on visits, please have a discussion with him before you send him off for the night.

A recruit might feel strong peer pressure to drink while on a recruiting visit. Coaches know what's going on and they should be held responsible for anything that happens on an official visit.
I understand that college kids drink, but there is no place for it on these trips, when they have been entrusted with the health and safety of a High School student!!!

quote:

Originally posted by AKBaseball20:

quote:

Originally posted by bbscout:
My son was real close to going to a school, but when the players took him out that night, he changed his mind and went to the school he is still at. Bringing in a 17 year old and feeding him booze is wrong, and it is weak too.
The past two years, he has been the guy that shows the recruits around, and he does not drink. They are not offered booze on his watch.

A little booze here and there won;t do much to you. As long as you aren't getting pissdrunk every weekend you should be fine. It probably isn't the best thing to do on a recruiting visit though.

how about just a little pot or coke??? Feeding booze to a 17 year old is not only wrong, it is against the law. If a kid needs booze to be recruited as a ballplayer, he is not the type of player I want to sign. If a coach feeds booze to a player, he is not the type of coach that I would recommend to a player or a player's family.

bbscout ...


Our son was not offered alcohol on his official visits and as he, like your son, was one of the players to take recruited players around, he would never have offered alcohol ... or pot or coke either. I appreciated the coaching staff's philosophy on alcohol ... they discouraged it even for the players old enough to drink (legally) and would never encourage or knowingly allow it during official visits. As a matter of fact, there was an unspoken understanding between the players and the coaches that there were no alcoholic beverages when the team and coaches were together, such as a celebration (e.g., regional selection in '02), a team party, annual athletic department auction and fundraiser, etc. It was really nice to see.

Sometimes I can not believe how ignorant I can be, even if I am 1/2 a century old. And also a little concerned as I will be taking my 18 yo son to the airport for his flight to visit a school tonight. I know kids will drink, but was assumming, and you know what happens when you assume, that at least for this weekend alcohol would not be an issue. I will have that conversation about it before I let him go.

On ALL the 5 official visits, (CWS contender DI's), the player host took the kid out on the town. It is standard recruiting practice in all big time programs........ O.K. since we are all friends here: FSU, Florida, Miami, LSU and GA Tech.

if no one drank beer in your HS,
then you have every right to expect the same of your college

also, they probably don't drink beer in pro ball - - - -
not too sure about the pot, cocaine, etc*, tho - I'll have to research that a bit

savannah,
I'll agree you can find about anything you want "out on the town", especially in midtown Atlanta.
Also, these are times the recruit has some choices to make.

choose wisely


ps-thanks for the contender remark

* so far only Canseco has admitted to "*etc"

Savannah (luv that name!),
Regarding the top of your list - they aren't known as the Criminoles for nuthin'...

I'm with bbscout and FutureBack.Mom on this one. Wouldn't the coach know what type of players he is offering visits to? After all, what happens with all the "research" they
have supposedly done with the HS coaches, teachers, counselors, fans etc? And if they
haven't found out what kind of kid he is, why not? Coach should make it crystal clear
to the host player that there will be no illegal activities going on, period.

Hard to believe that on one visit by my son the coach's son was the one offering the
beer.

I think some coaches look the other way because they naturally assume the recruit expects
to "party" and doesn't want to give him an excuse to choose another school.

Wow. My son visited his No. 1 choice and very quickly it dropped to the end of his list. The reason? His hosts took him to parties where "everyone" was drinking... and he wanted no part of it. In fact, it was a huge turn off. I'm not sure what would have happened if the coach selected a different set of players to show my son around. Are we naiive to think that there is no drinking at the school he is attending? Of course not. At this point, my son is not interested in drinking. But. The colleges would be in HUGE trouble if a HIGH SCHOOL kid got busted...or worse...

I can tell you that maybe half of all juniors and seniors in HS do drink occasionally. Maybe it isn't legal, but it isn't like most athletes get hammered because we will get caught. What about people at a Catholic church offering little kids booze or at a nice dinner kids drink wine with their parents. In my opinion, the teenage life most of the time includes partying, drinking and other stuff. I think it is just something that teens do these days and it should be accepted. I wouldn't want to be thrown into a college party though because they chugg it like MD. Things can get crazy there. But if your son doesn't want to drink he shouldn't and doesn't have to. Most recruits need to understand that partying is a big part of college evenings and if they don't feel it's right then don't take part and talk to the coach about it or something. I know that most of you won't agree with anything that I said, but if everyone agreed, then life would suck. I'm just trying to tell the parents the facts and realities of older teenagers life.