Do recruits actually care about "development" when they're choosing a school?

We've had a couple parents tell us they look at how athletes those big programs have recruited developed over 4 years. How many incoming freshmen ended up on a conference travel squad at some point and contributed.

To elaborate, you take higher risks on top talent. Most top schools have the ability to wait in the portal for proven athletes on 2 year commitments. Those kids don't end up at a school to develop.

Only the smart ones do.

Your sentence structure indicates you were not Ivy material.

Assuming that under half of the cohort attended an Ivy League school, that's still a pretty big number if the total universe is the top 60 schools. We've been through this on many other threads. If you want to make it on Wall Street or in consulting, the smoothest path is through the Ivies. It's not the only path, but at other top 60 schools, you may have to do more of your own legwork to get into the internship or interview process. Schools like Delaware, Lafayette, SUNY Binghamton and Stony Brook send grads into bulge bracket banks.

If you try to go directly to private equity, quant trading, or a hedge fund, the Ivy degree can play an even bigger role.

why would a kid care about [your plans for their] long term development when you can pull their scholarship any year you want?

I cared most about financial aid, followed by academics, followed by development. Sometimes I regret not running for a big name school (I could have), but I never regret graduating college with no debt.

We looked at team culture as #1. Not just coaches, but the people on the team.

1. location of the school. most kids and parents dont have the resources nor the inclination to travel back and forth across the country. also it means that parents will rarely have a chance to see their kid compete. distance from home is still the number one consideration for all athletes, not just track but fball, etc..

2. amount of aid. money talks and BS walks... again, not everyone has loads of money or is willing to go hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt just to so they can attend X university.

3. success of the track program. i would add stability to that as well, is this a steady coaching situation or is the program turning over a coach every few years?

4. travel/schedule. someone else mentioned this and I think it's important. does the team ever get to compete in a few "big" meets per season? personally I think its one of the best things about our sport is that you can run at a small school but still compete vs the biggest of big teams/names. i would have hated to have missed that by only running against the same sized schools and same schools over and over.

This so true and is exactly my experience as a D1 runner. We pulled the top runners in the state each year. Couldn’t win a conference title to save our lives. When it came to year end 1:1’s with the coach he couldn’t put together a game plan for any of us, other than to “work harder”. Well, great. I do that already. Show me the specifics.

When you’re 18, there is the expectation for guidance. If you can’t handle the main component of coaching, you shouldn’t take the job. Unsurprisingly, our coach was canned my junior year and by then I was burned out and had stagnated. The D1 shine had worn off.

Our new coach was only invested in his incoming recruits and rebuilding. I don’t know how I made it through my senior year. He should have cut me.

When I look back at my college career, I’m more proud of graduating in 4 years and going to a big public school that properly prepared me for the 9 to 5 world as opposed to anything running related.

Didn’t want to be the program? Does your daughter happen to be Katelyn Tuohy? What’s an event group?

I just finished my freshman year of college. When I was going through the recruiting process last year, athlete development was the most important thing I looked for in a school. I had offers from some national competitive mid major D1 schools and a few power 5s, but opted for a high level D2 program because of the current athlete's high progression rates.

I don't know if it's a major thing to look at, but FWIW- in my 'recruiting journey' I definitely noticed when touring what trajectory a program was on.

What was the general attitude/vibe of the team?

It's near impossible to tell or estimate how much better you can get from HS to college, but if a team is generally on a nice trajectory, there's generally a decent chance you can and will improve.

Improvement now, as an alum and coach, is something I take pride in. It's nice to be able to look at results and watch steady improvements.

That's a weird thing to assume. Do you think only larger schools have 4-year NLIs or something? I guess if a kid was in this very specific situation you're talking about I could see how they'd want to have a longer contract?

I don't know what you're talking about here.

I think this is a great way to look at a program, unfortunately I don't see every kid doing this.

As a HS coach I have always been cynical about the expectations of college coaches. How many will take a chance on an undeveloped gem and develop him/her?

25 years ago I went to a coaching clinic and the college coach talked about his own development and how little he trained until he was 18. I asked him if he'd rather recruit a kid who started running at 15, never ran more than 30 miles a week and more than 8x400 at mile race pace or a kid who has been running since the age of 13 who is running 65 miles a week with 12x400 as a typical workout with a mile time 5 seconds faster. Even though he was more like the first athlete and became a great runner he would recruit the second athlete.

Strictly speaking about running, I encouraged my son to choose a school that would give him a chance to reach his full potential. He had success in high school but he wasn’t a star. He is; however, the kind of kid who sees the value in the hard work it takes to succeed. Not all kids will thrive in an environment where they need to wait and grow to succeed. His roommate was at about the same level but I think one of the top runners on his high school team. He chose to transfer to a small d3 team where he made an immediate impact.

Just import some Kenyans lol

I knew a guy back in HS who did that - went to GVSU over some D1s. GVSU has great facilities (better than your D1 mid major and some power 5s) as well as a solid track record in athlete progression. High level D2 is vastly underrated, especially after you look at what's come out of that level recently. So shout out to D2s

It's not a math problem. You don't recruit kids just because X mileage. Sometimes those undertrained kids can't handle the collegiate workload. Sometimes the overtrained kids lose motivation when they get to the next level. There are just so many factors. With the scenario you proposed, I'd need A LOT more information.

Not every program has the roster spots to take chances on kids. If I bring in three athletes every year I try to make sure that third athlete is a bit of a project. However, how am I supposed to justify taking a 4:40 kid who has a "ton of potential" over a 4:25 kid with similar potential? Both are walk ons usually anyway.