For many high school athletes, the decision to commit to college for a sport is a tough one. While many athletes chose not to go through the recruitment process, others cut their college search short but committing.
Among the newly committed athletes are Henry Wynne ‘13, Stephen Colodny ‘13, and Kyle Vaughn ‘13, all of whom decided on their schools within the past couple months.
The three athletes agree that the recruitment process made their college search less grueling.
“It made it easier because I had colleges coming to me and not the other way around,” said Vaughn, captain of the football team, committed to Fordham University.
Wynne, committed to the University of Virginia for track also agrees that committing to a school for a sport has made his college search less stressful.
For Colodny, who is committed to Franklin & Marshall College for golf, coaches acted like a guide to choosing the right school.
“Having coaches show interest opens your eyes to schools you weren’t previously considering,” Colodny said. “Franklin & Marshall was lower on my list until I visited and met with the coach. Then it jumped to my first choice.” However, while committed athletes have the luxury of finishing the college process early, they did have to start earlier than most seniors towards the end of their sophomore through the middle of their junior years.
“I was in the process of choosing schools since sophomore year when I got my first letter,” Wynne said. “At that point, I started sending information to coaches and trying to think of which school I’d like to go to.”
Like all students, these athletes still spent time traveling around the country, checking out different schools. Although the process was cut short for them, they still went through the same kind of college search that most students do.
“I still had to do a lot of visits and spent all of September traveling to different schools,” Wynne said, “I also spent a lot of time emailing and talking on the phone with coaches and emailing them.”
For many athletes, the choice ultimately became picking the right college for their academic needs or continuing with a sport.
Colodny admitted, “I really wanted to play golf in college so for me it limited my choices in a sense.” Overall, though, Colodny was happy with his choice to commit to Franklin and Marshall College.”
However, for other varsity athletes at Staples, the recruitment process limited many schools in which student-athletes are interested.
“I started going through the recruitment process and got pretty far into it but as my college search went on, I realized the other schools that were out there,” said captain of the girls’ soccer team, Siri Andrews ’13.
Josie Fair ’13, captain of the varsity field hockey team, also agrees that for her choosing the right college was more important than continuing a sport at the college level.
