Parent contacting coach

This seems very reasonable to me. To expect a kid to know all of his parents finances is a stretch in my opinion. There certainly are plenty of kids 100% on their own financially so its easier for the kid to tell the coach that but even then i would think they could use guidance from a mentor/advisor to maximize the situation. Why is there such a disparity in advice from yours to "by no means contact a coach or your son/daughter will be dropped immediately"? Like i mentioned, this certainly doesn't seem to be the case in higher profile sports recruiting. It is totally understood that once the athlete signs, all contact goes out the door unless asked a question by the coach. No playing time questions, etc. But during this once in a lifetime process for a soon to be adult, I can't imagine a coach being offended by having a short conversation with the parent of an athlete that is interested in their program. It seems like a prudent thing to do to get a parent comfortable.....do you want your son playing basketball for Jay Wright or Rick Pitino.....big difference, right?

Very few coaches will have any contact with a parent. You have the opportunity on the official visit. That is when you get to ask questions and negotiate the scholarship. But since most distance runners don't earn a scholarship, you probably won't have as many questions as you think. You should be able to find most information about the school online and the coach won't know that stuff anyway. The coach won't like you asking much about training because they know more than you (or think they do) so it shouldn't matter if you think your kid should do more mileage or more intervals. That will be a huge red flag for the coach to possibly change his mind about your kid. My daughter's coach told her that he cut a kid's official visit short due to the parent making a mess at lunch.

Great stuff...perhaps my question is stemming from the fact that my son is going on the officials (or at least his first) by himself. Is that normal or not a good thing for him to go alone? So that leaves me talking through the questions he should ask or having a follow up call with the coach if the official goes well and he's close to committing. Very true what you said on the lack of scholarship funds side but that means it could come down to how much financial aid is received....which the coach may or may not have any weight in this manner...I'm assuming.

I have never seen or heard of a kid taking an official visit without a parent because much of the parent's costs are paid for.

NotPC wrote:

Just don't... just do not do this.. imagine the coach getting a call/email/text from a potential recruit's PARENT.

+1000

Yeah, don't do it.

I've had 3 daughters that played collegiate sports. Two of them played soccer at D1 schools. One of those was at a mid-major and the other at a school in a P5 conference. The other was a pretty gifted soccer player but not as good as the other two. She probably would have been able to play soccer at a lower-tier D1 school. She was not as committed as the other two to soccer and also liked to run and was actually a better runner. By her junior year of high school, she had given up soccer altogether and only did track and cross-country. She ended up running at a D3 school.

I know that the recruiting process is a lot different for soccer than it is for track and cross. For soccer, the high school coach has virtually zero input and contact with the college coaches. All of the early contact is with the club coach and then that gets passed along to the player. Once the coaches are allowed to contact the athlete, they do so. For running, it is a lot different. It is the high school coach that has the most contact with the college coach.

I never tried to contact the college coaches that were recruiting my daughters. The only contact that I had with them is is they wanted to talk to me and when I saw them on visits. On visits, I let my daughters do the talking and ask questions. They got better at it as the process went along. Out of the three of them, it was the D3 track/cross coach that I had the most contact with and it was because he contacted me. He worked really hard to sell me on the quality of the school and not the track/cross program. The reputation of the program was known and he didn't need to sell me on it. He also knew that my daughter was looking at other academic heavyweights (for reference, schools in the UAA conference like U of Chicago, Washington Univeristy in St. Louis, Emory, etc).

Anyway, to reiterate, don't do it.

I've heard many parents not joining official visits. Some recruiting sites actually prefer the parents don't go since its supposed to be about the student immersing themselves in the school and team for a weekend. This gets back to contacting the coach...do they prefer to have parents or have the student all t themselves. Would they like to meet the parents or not. I guess my son could ask this question to the coach and see what each coach desires.

Do you have 3 examples of schools who prefer this? Absolutely none that I am aware of. I don't know what you mean by recruiting sites.

in my experience most kids have parents with them at official visits. They obviuosly are not there for 100 percent of the visit but each school has had some things set up for the kids.. some where parent is involved for certain parts some where they are not.

As we speak my daughter is on a visit.. only about 90 minutes away.. My wife dropped her off met with coach for a bit. Both my wife and daughter stayed in hotel ( Covid would not allow recruit to stay in dorm room). Wife will drop her off in morning. She spends the day there shadowing athletes. I pick her up late afternoon/early evening and we meet with the coach before leaving

All schools a bit different. But most (not all) kids had a parent with them for at least a portion of the visit.

Its very funny how wide ranging the experiences are. Perhaps some schools don't have the funds to also pay for the parents and instead of inviting them just make it about the athlete. Who knows. I'm guessing its harmless to ask the coach if they want or prefer the parents not to attend. Below is the advice i referenced.

https://www.athleticscholarships.net/2012/01/02/official-visit.htm

FWIW, my wife went on a full ride to a school that finished top five at NCAA XC. She also had full ride offers from pretty much every other school she wanted (except the Ivies, of course). She went on all her official visits alone, generally staying with current team members. As a student athlete, she also hosted some of the recruits when they came on official visits. This was more than a decade ago, so maybe things have changed, but parents weren't generally part of the process.

This is exactly what this visit sounded like so I'm glad to hear its not out of the norm. Thanks.

NCSA is in the business to make money. Most of their staff are marketing grads who aren't as familiar with the process as real D1 athletes.

Big Girl in the NCAA wrote:

NCSA is in the business to make money. Most of their staff are marketing grads who aren't as familiar with the process as real D1 athletes.

Agreed....always take it with a grain of salt from these sites but not sure what they would have to gain with that thought process....and are you discounting others who are saying their kids/wives went alone on multiple visits?

Best answer on the board.

As a parent of 2 D1 athletes I never reached out to a coach until they already had a relationship with my kids, and then I never reached out unsolicited or without a specific matter to address. I wasn't going to give my kids my financial roadmap or amounts I was willing to pay or not pay. I had 4 kids to get through college and my goal was to get each through one way or the other - athletic scholarships, academic scholarships, dad's cash, selling plasma, whatever - it was a family project for all 4, not an individual project for each. Spent more out of pocket on some than the others, that's just the way it goes.

So yes when finances and scholarship amounts became the discussion, that discussion was for me, not my kids. They still made their own decisions, within some guardrails I put in, and they did not always know exactly where the financial line was. Heck I didn't either, when the first 2 hit college it seemed like an insurmountable task. But now as #4 is a college Senior the finish line is in sight.

After showing up for school the first day, coaches never heard a peep from me expect a "good job" or a "congratulations". Was happy to be sidelined.

My kids were recruited by Notre Dame, Princeton, Virginia, Michigan and several other good schools. They had all of the discussions with the coaches. They hot the impression that the coaches did not want to involve the parents because none ever made mention of anything about the parents.

go run fast wrote:

My kids were recruited by Notre Dame, Princeton, Virginia, Michigan and several other good schools. They had all of the discussions with the coaches. They hot the impression that the coaches did not want to involve the parents because none ever made mention of anything about the parents.

This makes a lot of sense but I agree with the previous poster about finances. The coach’s job is to offer as little as possible (if anything) to the athlete. Many athletes are not equipped to negotiate with a seasoned adult on finances….that is why they are going to college…to learn this stuff. So having an adult step in to politely discuss some final serious issues with the coach seems fair to me. And any coach who is offended by this might be suspect. Over the top communicaton and handling the finances in an obnoxious way would be cause for concern but a polite discussion seems reasonable once the child has taken the process almost to the end