OP,
My perspective is this. I do not talk about this often, so do know that I am only doing to to help you and your kid. I have two children. Both ran in college, my daughter at a D3 school. My son at a D1 school with scholarship (more on that later).
Both were varsity runners in high school. My daughter was a solid area runner. My son was a state champion and High School All-American. For both of them, I stayed out of the way. I didn't even push them into running. Early on, all their friends were playing soccer, so they did that for a few years, and neither one really liked it. Then, middle school came around and both were moderately successful, but neither one was a star in middle school (in fact, my daughter was better in middle school than my son was). My daughter liked to race and liked to win, but my son was completely invested and into it. He came to me after his 8th grade year of track (where again, he was no star) and told me that he decided he "wanted to be good". He had never talked like that before, and I never even hinted to him that I would be interested in seeing what he could do if he were fully invested. He went to all the summer practices before 9th grade CC, upped his mileage from about 10 MPW in middle school to 45 that first summer, and he started the season with a high 18s race and got down to under 16:30 by the end of the season. It was all massive progress from there.
So, my daughter had the opportunity to run D1, but she was more focused on academics and so she decided to go to an elite D3 school. It was the best fit for her. My son was heavily recruited by all kinds of schools, but mostly by D1 schools. All the offers were different. One would have effectively been a full ride with academic and athletic scholarship combined (he had good, not great grades but a high ACT score), but he ended up going to a D1 school that did NOT give him a full ride athletic scholarship, but the combination of the athletic and academic scholarship he did get was very good, and he liked the coach and the school, so he went there.
The point of all of this is...
Both of my kids got the same hands off approach. My daughter gravitated toward academics as her No. 1 priority, and my son gravitated toward running as his No. 1 priority. My wife and I didn't do anything other than give them some good genes and opportunity. THEY CHOSE DIFFERENT PATHS despite having the same upbringing and given the same attitude about academics and athletics from my wife and me.
IF you have a more hands on approach and your kid either fails to perform well or just decides to do something different, they will ALWAYS feel like they let you down. It just is NOT worth the risk. Yes, it IS possible for some kid out there that a Richard William approach to athletics will lead to fame and fortune, but the vast majority of helicopter parents like that will not see anywhere near that kind of success.
I am convinced to this day that the success my son had was due to the fact that it was all HIM. Kids want to find their own thing, not be tethered to some idea their parent has for them. I just supported him. He and his coaches decided his training, his sleeping, his eating, and he was really the one driving all of that. I just provided for him the good food he wanted, a quiet house when he headed to bed earlier than most kids his age, etc.
All that to say...be supportive and keep your nose out of it as much as you possibly can (and you CAN keep it out a lot).