Things to consider when chasing that college scholarship

Summer lacrosse season starts this weekend.

For our oldest son, this is the beginning of an experience he longed to have, as it is the first time he's made a club team. We don't know how much he'll play, or how good his team will be, but being on a team, meeting kids from different towns, traveling on the weekends to tournaments, eating snacks under the tents between games, and just playing lacrosse and having fun is something we think he'll enjoy.

Our middle son has played club lacrosse the past three summers. He's enjoyed it immensely and made many friends, but he's also proven to himself -- and to my wife and I -- that he's a good enough player to realistically aspire to play the sport in college. So for him, this weekend has a different meaning. He's playing for a higher-level club which is taking him to college showcases and higher-end tournaments, and this weekend is the first step, really, in getting on the radar of college coaches and entering the recruiting scene.

But getting on the recruiting scene doesn't just start and end with going to the "right'' high school or getting on the "right'' club. In speaking to friends with older children who have gone through the whole process before, we've learned there are things you can and should do to help put your kids into the process.

The first thing is to make sure your kids understand that getting an opportunity to play sports in college starts with working hard in the classroom. Schools have a limited number of athletic scholarships, and -- football and basketball aside -- many schools choose to break their athletic scholarships up into partial scholarships, in order to be able to give at least some scholarship money to more recruits. So a recruit with excellent grades can supplement a partial athletic scholarship by getting academic money. 

That's how it worked for the daughter of a former co-worker of mine, who got a quarter of an athletic scholarship and a half of an academic scholarship to play softball at a Division 1 university. The academic scholarship, my co-worker said, was better than the athletic scholarship, because that was for all four years, assuming she maintained a certain academic standard. An athletic scholarship is renewable year-to-year and can be taken away for any number of reasons -- like an injury, or a coaching change, or something.

And of course, your son or daughter may be interested in playing at a Division 3 school, which can't offer athletic scholarships. They can offer academic scholarships, however.

The next step in the recruiting process, according to our veteran friends, is to figure out what kind of school your child is most likely to be interested in and putting a list of potential schools together. Then you visit the websites of those schools and if they have some kind of prospective student athlete questionnaire (most do) your child should fill that out. You can also email the coach to see if there's any kind of camp or Prospect Day your child could attend at the school.

I emailed a few coaches about our son and one got back to me, asking for a high school transcript and a highlight video. The transcript  was easy enough, but since our son had only played JV lacrosse, I didn't have any film of him. So I asked the varsity coach if I could borrow the team's video camera to record the last JV game. He agreed. And this weekend, I'm borrowing the camera again to shoot more video, of him playing with his club team. My son will figure out how to cut the video up and make his own highlight tape.

So there are things you can do to help your child get on track to play a college sport. As with everything, though, be aware that there is an entire recruiting industry and there are people looking to make a living by helping you navigate the process. Talk to your high school and/or club coach to get help in figuring out what steps you need to take and what traps you should avoid.

The going gets tough sometimes. Don't be so quick to quit the team

They say a winner never quits, and a quitter never wins. But my general philosophy on life is that very few things are absolute, and so I try to stay away from words like "never'' and "always.''

Sometimes, we find ourselves in a bad situation, and from a moral, practical, safety or mental health perspective, walking away is absolutely the right decision. A handful of boys quit the high school lacrosse team this season, for various reasons -- ranging from an understanding they weren't good enough to earn the playing time they desired, to a realization that they had other commitments that were more important to them than playing lacrosse.

One boy who quit though, surprised almost everyone because he was was a good player, and contributed much to the team. Most of his teammates couldn't figure out why he left, but presumably it had something to do with the fact he wasn't playing as much as he thought he should. And if he really was so unhappy on the team, then no one should be mad at him for quitting, because the whole point of playing sports is to have fun.

But there's a difference between being truly miserable every day and being unhappy at a particular moment. In sports, the seasons are relatively short. They move fast, and are filled with ups and downs. You have to learn to navigate those, and work through them, appreciating the up periods and finding a way to overcome the down periods. That's one of those life lessons you get from sports -- if you stick with it, when it's all over, you'll actually appreciate going through those ups and downs, and your ultimate success will mean so much more.

Not everything is going to go your way all the time -- in sports, or in life. Sometimes you're going to have to fight your way through tough times, and sometimes, you're going to have to accept defeat, learn from it, start over again, work harder, and be better. Yes, sometimes it makes sense to quit, but if you quit too easily, you'll never learn how to deal with adversity, and that's a tool you'll need to have later in life.

The boy in question had started at another high school before transferring into our school after a couple years. He played two sports and when he initially came to our school, he quit one, apparently because he didn't make the varsity team. He did return to that sport for senior year and had a fine season. This lacrosse season, he was tested at his position by a freshman and apparently didn't appreciate sharing time.

The thing is, he was playing well, and if he'd stuck around, there was a chance he might have eventually taken over the job full time. He chose not to wait to give himself a chance to make that happen.

And that's the shame of it. I'm sure he doesn't see it this way, but I think his quitting probably will end up hurting him more than it did the team. After the initial shock, the team adjusted to his departure and moved on. The freshman he had been sharing time with began to grow into the position and the team settled and went on a winning streak. The boy who left gave up a chance to be a part of a winning team where he could have had some fun and created some lifelong memories. Instead, years from now, his old teammates might forget he even played.

Maybe his pride was hurt. But if pride and ego convinced him to bail out of a situation at the first sign of trouble, then I wonder what will happen next time this kid comes up against a problem or a hiccup in his life.

Will he have the ability to overcome it? Or will he just keep quitting?

Is extra, sport-specific training a must these days?

A little more than a month ago, as his high school wrestling season was coming to a close, my son asked me if it would be OK for him to do some work at a wrestling club over the summer. All the wrestling dads I'm friendly with tell me that working in the clubs is the only way -- or the fastest way, anyway -- to truly improve as a wrestler.

But besides being one more thing my wife and I have to pay for, club wrestling now becomes one more thing to add to our very busy son's agenda for the summer. He's already got football practice and club lacrosse, and we'd like him to get a job, if he can. Now he has to wrestle, too?

The answer to that, I suppose, is if he wants to be competitive next winter, then yes. This year he did fine against the other kids like himself -- the football players who are trying to stay in shape over the winter, and the good athletes who aren't great wrestlers -- but there were too many nights when he had to face one of those committed, year-round wrestlers who's been doing it since Kindergarten. He couldn't compete with those kids, and he knew it.

As a competitor, that's hard to accept. And if going the wrestling gym this summer gives him even the slightest chance to win just one more match next winter, then how could my wife and I say no to that?

These days, extra training is just part of the landscape. The kid who's playing against your son or daughter probably has a personal pitching coach, quarterback coach, skating coach, shooting coach, or yes, wrestling coach. And if your kid doesn't have one, then he or she is going to be at a disadvantage. And if your son or daughter plays a team sport, then the team is at a disadvantage, too.

On the other hand, a friend of mine whose oldest son is about to graduate high school and head off to a large university (where he will not be playing a sport) was joking with me recently that he wished he hadn't spent all that money on pitching lessons when his son was young. His son ended up not even playing baseball in high school, and my friend's point was that money he spent on pitching lessons now looks like it might have been put to better use somewhere else.

So I guess what I would take from that is, before you dive into the world of extra, personal sports training, you should probably first examine what your expectations are. If you think your child will want to try and play a sport in college, then yeah, you'll most likely want to invest in extra training at some point. But that's probably not something you need to worry about in second grade. Maybe you can wait a little while.

If your child isn't likely to play college sports, but you just think he or she would enjoy a better experience by improving his or her skills through extra training, then go for it, if you can afford it.

Is extra training a must for every athlete? No. But as more and more athletes use extra training to get a leg up on the competition, then more and more are going to have to do it just to keep up.

To youth sports officials: Priority No. 1 is to protect the kids

My wife hates it when I yell at the referees at our kids' games.

She's right, of course -- it's unseemly to yell at referees for any number of reasons. And while I really don't do it often, her point is I shouldn't do it, ever. I know that. But sometimes I just can't help myself. Hey, I'm human. And I will say, in my defense, that the refs have to be pretty bad for me to yell at them.

Usually I only yell at football refs, and occasionally, lacrosse refs, for some reason. I rarely yell at basketball referees. Inside a gym, with fewer people watching, somehow I don't feel as comfortable calling a referee out for every mistake. Perhaps it's because my nephew is a basketball ref, and I realize that referees are people too. I don't know.

Last week, though, it was hard to remain calm as I watched while the two referees working my son's CYO league basketball game allowed the game to get completely out of control. The opposing team was extremely physical, and the referees took the approach where they "let the kids play.'' 

At the youth level, I always prefer referees call a tighter game, so as to teach the kids what is a foul and what isn't. But allowing some physical play is fine, as long as the referees A) remember to let both teams' kids play, and B) at some point, take control and don't allow the physicality to reach a level where the game becomes dangerous to the participants.

The two referees at the game in question did neither of those things in this particular instance. The opposing team spent the entire game pushing, bumping and banging my son's team and it wasn't long before my son's team -- which has three football players on it -- decided to push and bump and bang back.

The problem is, as the contact got more and more intense, the conditions got more and more dangerous for the players. At one point, my son swiped at the ball after a rebound on a missed free throw and fouled an opposing player. The player swung his elbow -- violently -- at my son, and grazed him with a glancing blow on his jaw. He wasn't injured, thank goodness, but he's the only one that got charged with a foul on that play.

And that's where the game went completely off the rails.

My son's coach began to argue with the referees, not protesting the foul call against my son, but the lack of a call on the elbow that the opposing player threw at him. Eventually, the coach got a technical. And then a second technical, which meant he was ejected. The other team hit a bunch of foul shots in the sequence and a tight game began to slip away. That led to things getting even more physical. Thankfully, no one got hurt, but things got so bad that the referees ended the game with 16 seconds still left on the clock.

But that wasn't the end of it. Our coach called the league to complain about the officials, but the league decided to go along with the referees' report, which painted our team as the aggressors. The league suspended our coach for two games and two of our players got two-game suspensions as well, because they were assessed technical fouls in the game. The technicals came late in the game, as the refs were no doubt trying to rein in the players on both teams. At that point it was too late; the game was already out of control.

By the way, in case you're wondering, I didn't yell at the refs -- much.

If I could send a message to the two referees that I believe allowed all this chaos to occur, here's what I would tell them: Call fouls when you see them. By doing that, you set the tone and let the kids know what will and won't be tolerated. That's the best way to keep everybody safe on the court, field, or ice: If you do that, I promise, I'll keep trying to stop yelling at you.

Watch your weight, sure, but don't get crazy

This morning, my son decided he was going to skip breakfast.

He intended to skip lunch, too.

This, apparently, is what wrestlers do on match days. And he's got a playoff match tonight.

Look, I've made no secret of the fact that wrestling makes me squeamish. I appreciate all the positive things the sport offers and I have a great deal of respect for the kids who wrestle. They are all in great physical condition, they develop great mental strength, and they enjoy a wonderful team camaraderie with one another. Overall, it's a positive experience for most kids, and my son enjoys it, which is all that really matters. My wife and I support him wholeheartedly, and we go to the matches and cheer for him, and for all the kids on the team.

But honestly, it's hard to watch sometimes. We were powerless to do anything at a recent match, when an opponent looked like he was going to pull our son's arm out of its socket; and even when he wins a match -- when he pins the other kid, I end up feeling kind of bad for his opponent.

On top of all that, there's the weight thing, which makes us uneasy, too.

As a freshman, he's been content to wrestle his actual weight, or near it, even though that meant he had to start the season on J.V. He did have to lose two pounds to get to the nearest weight limit, but that wasn't a big deal, considering that other kids have had to lose a lot more than that to find an available spot they can fill in the varsity lineup. One of his teammates told me he had lost 20 pounds since the summer. It was the only way for him to earn a regular varsity spot.

Yesterday was Super Bowl Sunday, and with a playoff match tonight, my son and his teammates couldn't afford to go hog wild on Buffalo Wings and bleu cheese dip like most of the rest of America. He actually went running earlier in the day to burn off some calories and give himself room to have a wing or two and maybe some chips and a soda. This morning he woke up right at his weight limit, so all was good -- except he didn't want to take a chance that eating breakfast might push him over the limit.

Now, believe me, I understand that in the real world, there are many children who don't eat breakfast because there's no food in their house. And that's absolutely heartbreaking to think about. Thankfully, that is not my son's situation. Instead, he chooses to skip the most important meal of the day because of his commitment to a sport, which sounds very much like a First World problem. My wife and I were able to convince him to have an apple this morning, but he wouldn't even drink a glass of water with it, afraid that might push him over the weight limit. He made himself a fruit smoothie and packed a few snacks for after the weigh-in.

Weight management is just part of the sport, and I get that. And fortunately, our son isn't doing anything crazy -- at least not yet. But he likes the sport, and at this point intends to do it again next year and to continue doing it throughout high school. So there could come a point, over the next few years, where he will feel the need to lose a massive amount of weight -- either for his own benefit, or for the team's. 

I'm hoping that never happens.

Got cut from the travel team? It's not the end of the world

At the end of the tryouts for the travel basketball teams for our town, they always tell the kids not to be discouraged if they get cut; but to find another team somewhere and keep playing. Our high school boys varsity coach, who oversees the boys travel team tryouts, likes to tell the kids that his varsity squad often is largely made up of kids who never played on the town travel team, or if they did, they played on the B team.

I always thought they were just trying to make the kids feel better, but it turns out, it's true.

When my youngest son failed to make the travel team this year, a few parents whose kids were also cut got together and formed a team at a local facility that runs basketball leagues and clinics all year round. One of our son's teammates has an older brother who is on the high school's freshman team, and looking at that roster, I realized that many of those players had not played travel basketball at the youth level. My older son is a freshman, and he'd played travel basketball through sixth grade. Of the 11 kids who were on his sixth grade team, only five of them are playing high school basketball now.

And that perfectly illustrated the fact that making the youth travel team doesn't mean your son or daughter automatically will play in high school. Conversely, getting cut now, or choosing not to play for some other reason, doesn't mean your son or daughter won't be able to play in high school.

My wife and I knew -- and our son knew, too -- that he was always a longshot to make the team, even though he'd spent a lot of time in the summer and fall refining his shot in our backyard, and working diligently on improving his ballhandling. The odds were against him at the tryouts because everyone who played on the A and B teams the previous season returned, so unless the basketball association decided to expand the rosters, any new player who was going to make one of the travel teams was going to have to take the spot of someone who had been on the team last year.

Two new kids did make it. Both were obviously too good not to -- no-brainer picks for the A team. That meant two kids dropped from the A team to the B team and two kids got cut from the B team.

Ultimately, my son wasn't good enough to bump someone else off the team. But that's OK. He is enjoying the team he's on and my wife and I and the other parents believe that, in the long run, our kids may end up being better off on this team than they might have been had they made the travel team. They are practicing and playing games against travel-level opponents, and that's the most important thing for their development. And without intending any disrespect, our kids are being coached by a paid coach who knows the game and how to teach it, whereas the travel teams are coached by parent-coaches.

High school is still a few years away for our son, so we can't get caught up in looking too far ahead for him. But it's comforting to know that when the time comes, nothing that happens now will hold him back then.