I just received an interesting e-mail. FYI this e-mail is coming from NCSA, "Next College Student Athlete" which as far as I can tell is a for profit college sports recruiting firm. (And, fyi, they do NOT include gymnastics as one of the sports they recruit for.)
We are on their email list only because my son is starting HS next year and when we signed him up for sports team participation at his school, we indicated on the form that he would be interested in college sports... just because...why not be interested? Not because he is in any way likely to be recruited for any college sport as far as we can tell at this point.
But that is just background and not really the point. Here is why my jaw is dropping right now:
This email was titled: "Should parents contact coaches for their athlete?" And here is how it begins (with edits indicated .... for relevance)
"The recruiting process is starting earlier each year, with recruits as young as 12 or 13 years old getting college offers...
Throughout the recruiting process, the athletes—not their parents—should be contacting college coaches. Coach Taylor White, an NCSA recruiting expert who has coached baseball at the DI level, explains, “I’m not recruiting the parent—I’m recruiting the student-athlete. The second I feel the parent is overstepping their bounds, I start to raise a red flag, especially early on.” He adds that, especially at the beginning of the recruiting process, it’s crucial for coaches to get to know the student-athlete. Emails, phone calls, texts, DMs, etc. should all come from the athlete. Not only will it help the coach get a better understanding of who the recruit is as a person, but it will show the coach that the athlete is responsible enough to manage their own recruiting process."
Ok, they are suggesting kids as young as middle school should be in private, one to one contact with adult coaches they do not know...at all. And that parents whose kids want to compete in college must be very careful to not "overstep their bounds." Um. What? Is there some other way to read this? And am I wrong to think this is insane?
We are on their email list only because my son is starting HS next year and when we signed him up for sports team participation at his school, we indicated on the form that he would be interested in college sports... just because...why not be interested? Not because he is in any way likely to be recruited for any college sport as far as we can tell at this point.
But that is just background and not really the point. Here is why my jaw is dropping right now:
This email was titled: "Should parents contact coaches for their athlete?" And here is how it begins (with edits indicated .... for relevance)
"The recruiting process is starting earlier each year, with recruits as young as 12 or 13 years old getting college offers...
Throughout the recruiting process, the athletes—not their parents—should be contacting college coaches. Coach Taylor White, an NCSA recruiting expert who has coached baseball at the DI level, explains, “I’m not recruiting the parent—I’m recruiting the student-athlete. The second I feel the parent is overstepping their bounds, I start to raise a red flag, especially early on.” He adds that, especially at the beginning of the recruiting process, it’s crucial for coaches to get to know the student-athlete. Emails, phone calls, texts, DMs, etc. should all come from the athlete. Not only will it help the coach get a better understanding of who the recruit is as a person, but it will show the coach that the athlete is responsible enough to manage their own recruiting process."
Ok, they are suggesting kids as young as middle school should be in private, one to one contact with adult coaches they do not know...at all. And that parents whose kids want to compete in college must be very careful to not "overstep their bounds." Um. What? Is there some other way to read this? And am I wrong to think this is insane?