College coaches: Let's hear your recruiting horror stories

I have to hear more about this story.

Had a recruit come on campus, and got my #1 pregnant.

GORUN1600 wrote:

Had a girl literally cry during her signing. The D3 school she ultimately went to wanted to know what they needed to offer her to match what we offered...

Nice story too bad D3 schools don't offer athletic scholarships!!!!!!!

I had a certain coach from a certain Ivy League school in upstate New York ask me if I knew what letsrun.com was. I said yes, but that I never went on it. I honestly couldn't stand the interface.

Jesuit wrote:

I had a certain coach from a certain Ivy League school in upstate New York ask me if I knew what letsrun.com was. I said yes, but that I never went on it. I honestly couldn't stand the interface.

now this must be POD

this 100% sounds like a bucknell

noway7 wrote:

The horror stories work both ways. I have a friend who, when he was a HS runner some years back, went on an overnight recruiting visit to a certain private D1 school in Pennsylvania. The guys on the team wanted him be the designated driver to a drunken party. My friend didn't want anything to do with that, so he went home that night. The coach who was recruiting him never even contacted him to ask what happened.

^

nobody needs a designated driver in lewisburg lol, all the parties and bars are within 2 blocks of each other

Birch Guy wrote:

noway7 wrote:

The horror stories work both ways. I have a friend who, when he was a HS runner some years back, went on an overnight recruiting visit to a certain private D1 school in Pennsylvania. The guys on the team wanted him be the designated driver to a drunken party. My friend didn't want anything to do with that, so he went home that night. The coach who was recruiting him never even contacted him to ask what happened.

^

School I coach at is incredibly rich and the parents have ridiculously high expectations. I had a kid come out for track because his parents thought being good at a sport would help him get into Harvard. He ran like 58 in the 400m, and wondered why Harvard wasn't impressed by that. His "safety" schools were Princeton, Yale, Brown, etc. Didn't even get wait-listed at any of them. His next round of schools was Northwestern, Stanford, U Chicago, etc. He got wait-listed on one of them, and didn't apply anywhere else. I think he ended up going to the local community college, because by the time he got rejected from everywhere else, there was basically nowhere else to go.

as an athlete I had a college coach recruiting me, after a few phone calls he wanted me to take an official visit. he had told me multiple times I would get into the school and be on of their top recruits and have scholarship money. then when I told him I couldn't take my visit that weekend (my team had our home xc invite and this was back when NTN didn't have regionals) he took a 180 and told me that I would need his help academically to get accepted and he was recruiting a dozen guys better than me and I had to come that weekend. he also told me that my team sucked and we weren't going to do anything and it didn't matter. we wound up winning nationals and I beat his top recruits that year by about a thirty seconds.

Also an athlete --

Small D2 school coach was recruiting me. She had 2 really good runners and I told her my goal was to run with her top 2 that year, and she got really offended. Sent me an email accusing me of disrespecting them and what they'd worked for.

I went to their rival, became the #1 that season and beat both her guys.

I'm a top runner in my area. I submitted my best results and times to a coach, who told me he found out I jumped in at the end of races, paid someone to run for me and even somehow cut a lap off an indoor 800. I threatened to sue so he offered to have me come visit, but when I got there the whole team was there, waiting. First they laughed but when I told them they were all wrong and my times were legit, they beat the crap out of my with sacks full of doorknobs.

Terry Jar-o-Jelly wrote:

I'm a top runner in my area. I submitted my best results and times to a coach, who told me he found out I jumped in at the end of races, paid someone to run for me and even somehow cut a lap off an indoor 800. I threatened to sue so he offered to have me come visit, but when I got there the whole team was there, waiting. First they laughed but when I told them they were all wrong and my times were legit, they beat the crap out of my with sacks full of doorknobs.

Oh Terry Varicelly, you silly son!

yerp wrote:

Not a coach, but former runner. We had a kid visit our D3 program for an overnight on a Sunday. I was his host and took him to meet some of the senior team members, who happened to be discussing the crazy party from Saturday night. In addition, one of the team members (of age) was enjoying a pint as he did his homework.

The kid was not offered any alcohol, no one underage was drinking, and no one was intoxicated. Kid went home and told his parents, who threw a fit. Coach threatened to kick us off the team, and I never got to host a recruit again.

Oh, and he enrolled in the fall.

Pretty much the opposite for me. Hosted a recruit, was out on a long run with him, and he started asking about the party scene at our school. It's definitely a well known party school so I told him some stories and happened to mention my 6 beer das boot, which he thought was the coolest thing ever. fast forward to that night and he gets 3 beers into it and throws up everywhere. He loved it and was gonna come but another school instate ended up throwing a lot of money at him. I want my beers back.

to be clear i dont usually give recruits alcohol but i had a pretty good read that he would think it was cool. its not really hard to tell which kids like to have fun and which are super serious.

Not a coach but a former runner in college. Had a guy in the same recruiting class as myself and a few other guys. Was by far the most talented, had the most accolades coming out of high school, and was by far the most recruited. Freshman year had a very sub par cross country season. With three weeks before our conference meet he tells our head coach that he's going on a family vacation and leaves us, then comes back the week before conference and expects to run. Out of an 8 man team, he was left off of the roster.

Later track came around and he had a pretty good first showing at a meet, but I was still surprised coach kept him around. As the season progressed, the worse and worse he got. Sophomore year cross country comes around and he got beat in our opening time trial by a walk on who had a PR of 18:12 (5k) coming out of high school. Needless to say that was the last straw. Major bust.

First night on campus one of my new recruits has a roommate who meets guy in the dorm and they knock boots all night. Girls parents call me the next day and start chewing me out because it's a Catholic University! Moral of the story be careful who you choose as a roommate!

We once had an athlete try to come on a recruiting visit after she had just signed with another school in our conference. She didn't tell us until she arrived for the visit. Before she left she asked her high school coach if it was O.K. to go on a visit if she had just signed at a different school. He actually told her to go on the visit, not mention she had signed, and to enjoy the free vacation the school was paying for, and completely waste everyone's time. As soon as she told us we had to immediately send her home and self-report the incident to our conference.

Clearly the kid wasn't at fault, as she didn't know she couldn't do that, and did ask about it when she arrived. But it blew my mind that a coach would openly tell their athlete to waste another coaches time and money.