Fantasy Baseball Cafe Forums

by **jzfran** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 10:37 am

I'm going into my junior year of high school and I am a big swimmer. i am looking to compete division 1 in college. I am beginning to be recruited by some middle-tier d-1 schools. IDK if anyone here was recruited to play sports, but if there are, does anyone have any advice? Thanks a lot!

by **Rirruto** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 11:04 am

Not me, farthest I made it was varisty track in HS and intramural softball in college :-D

My alma mater, Binghamton University, has a decent swimming program from what I can tell but don't know much details. A Turkish guy on our team was in the Athens Olympics.

by **Big Pimpin** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 11:11 am

I swam at the University of Arizona, so I've been through the whole process. Recruiting trips, ho's, strippers, the whole nine yards. Well, maybe I didn't get those last two on my swimming recruiting trips, but a guy can dream.

by **CubsFan7724** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 11:14 am

Big Pimpin wrote:I swam at the University of Arizona, so I've been through the whole process. Recruiting trips, ho's, strippers, the whole nine yards. Well, maybe I didn't get those last two on my swimming recruiting trips, but a guy can dream.

Yeah, thats for the football and bball players :-D

by **j_d_mcnugent** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 1:57 pm

if a recruiting service contacts you just ignore them. they are basically just a waste of time.

if a school you are interested in has not contacted you, you should contact them. thats probably the best advice i can give. dont sit around and wait for something to happen. sometimes a school wont show interest in you because they have no idea you are interested in them. you can find the coach's contact info on the website. email them, send a letter, or call.

pick a school that you would still like to go to even if you werent an athlete. i have known a couple people that picked a school because that school gave them the best offer but they ended up being miserable. you will be a student-athlete. student is half of the equation so you need to be comfortable with the school itself as well as the athletic department.

get to know the coach. talk to them on the phone and when you make a visit talk to the other athletes and ask them how they like the coach (some coaches are good at putting on a show but pull a jeckyl and hyde routine after you sign). talk to other local high school athletes and ask them about their recruiting experiences. talk to your coach if he has any experiences with the colleges.

by **Big Pimpin** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 2:14 pm

JD is right about a lot of things. Don't bother with a recruiting service (although I don't know if they even exist for swimming). I had placed top ten in the country at USS Nationals in a couple events, so I aimed high when I was picking schools. I had a list of like 15 schools that I was interested in and sent letters to all of them, telling them about myself. I think a lot of schools already know, but if a person takes the time to write a letter and let them know that YOU are interested, that will reflect well on you.

Anyway, I sent the letters, and then I started speaking with the coaches. I talked on the phone with the head coaches, as well as the distance coaches (I swam the 500, 1000, and mile mostly) and got a feel for who I liked. I also did some extensive checks into the programs to see which schools I thought I had the best chance to succeed at. I then narrowed my list down to the schools that I wanted to visit.

I ended up taking recruiting trips to Michigan, Auburn, Cal-Berkeley, U of Arizona, and Stanford. Then it's a matter of just hanging with the guys and figuring out where you think you'll fit in best. I thought the Stanford guys were tools (no offense to any Stanford guys out there :-D

) and knew I didn't want to be there. Auburn was (and still is) a big sprint school. Cal was cool, but I wasn't sold.

It basically came down to UofA and Michigan for me, and Michigan didn't have any money available and it was going to be like $30K a year with no guarantees about scholarships for later years, so I went to UofA. I then proceeded to smoke a lot of pot, not get very good grades, never swim as well as I should have, and left the program after a couple years.

It somewhat haunts me to this day that I didn't pick Michigan, because maybe things would have been different and I would have reached my potential. But that's neither here nor there. I wouldn't trade the life experiences (or friends that I gained) in AZ for anything though, because it helped me become the person I am today.

Post here or feel free to PM me with any questions you have about the process. It can be very overwhelming I know.