WAG Must read for anyone with NCAA aspirations...

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It says the website is unavailable.

That's weird because I clicked onto it from College Gym Board and it connects fine, so I literally pasted it to here so I am not sure how to fix it...if you click over to "Collegegymnasticsboard.yuku" , the link is there but I'm not tech savvy so pasting the link here was even way above my pay grade!
 
Found it and read it. Wow, it should be required reading for everyone with children in organized sports. If anyone is still having problems...go to college gymnastics board. Click into the general "College Gymnastics Board" forum and look for "To All Future College Athletes...." on the board (it is the second conversation right now). If you click into it, you will be able to read the posting.
 
Found it and read it. Wow, it should be required reading for everyone with children in organized sports. If anyone is still having problems...go to college gymnastics board. Click into the general "College Gymnastics Board" forum and look for "To All Future College Athletes...." on the board (it is the second conversation right now). If you click into it, you will be able to read the posting.
Lol, I was getting ready to come back and say the same thing.
 
Found it and read it. Wow, it should be required reading for everyone with children in organized sports.

I wasn't entirely shocked when I read it but to read it FROM HER, was a jolt for me....she was a former National team member, trained at at good gym (WOGA) with many contacts, appeared to do well at Michigan, even team captain her senior year.....but feels the experience was awful on the whole. I know kids who were on the team with her and from talking to them, you wouldn't have thought that this was the experience of any gymnast on that Michigan team....but there you have it. She does say it is HER perspective but my God, to put this all down in writing, something definitely was amiss...

And she just puts it all out there.....people are mean across the age span ( which I interpret as teammates, coaches and admins, and probably some teammates parents unfortunately...), how adults at college don't always know what's best for the athlete ( we actually knew a gymnast who the coaching staff tried to convince to give up HER scholarship so they could promise it to someone else because "that would be better off for you in the long run, and don't call your parents, it's just between us"...she declined their weekly "offers"), how it's not so "different" competing in college except the whole team aspect (I always said that when the coaches trotted that line out), be nice to your teammates ( gee, novel concept) and if they are not, don't stoop to their level, your own teammates may haze you, you may never bond with anyone, you may be on a team that only wants their own individual success, and my personal horrifying favorite: your teammates may make you feel outcasted and more alone than ever before....her account is truly heartbreaking......
 
It is quite interesting to go back and read what she wrote (or perhaps more appropriately, what someone in the athletic department told her to write) about her time at Michigan during her senior year: http://www.mgoblue.com/sports/w-gym/spec-rel/030216aab.html.

The most heartbreaking part of her experience, and that of many other NCAA athletes, might be the pressure that these kids are under to publicly present like everything is amazing when it is just the opposite. I am so happy to see an increase in honest accounts of the student-athlete experience that go beyond the "we're all best friends, best four years of my life" storyline and hope that more have the bravery to share their stories like Briley did.
 
The most heartbreaking part of her experience, and that of many other NCAA athletes, might be the pressure that these kids are under to publicly present like everything is amazing when it is just the opposite. I am so happy to see an increase in honest accounts of the student-athlete experience that go beyond the "we're all best friends, best four years of my life" storyline and hope that more have the bravery to share their stories like Briley did.

I can tell you from first hand experience that this is exactly what happens, times 100! When my daughter was on her college team, they received a "handbook" of expectations to be upheld when they were in public, when recruits or ANYONE visited campus....they were told that they were "not to do homework in front of recruits or their families, not to answer any question that couldn't be answered in a positive light and were told to refer those questions to the coaching staff." If the coaching staff ever found out that anyone did say anything other than the party line, it was hell to pay for the athlete.....and sometimes they were just answering what they thought were basic questions like "has anyone on your team ever had X major?" and when one of her teammates said "not that I know of" ( versus just plain old "no" or "ask the coaching staff") , this gymnast was hauled into the HC office and reamed for "dissing the school" ....and you wonder why it's tough to get the down low on what goes on in these places...

My daughter has moved on from her NCAA days and is in grad school and loving it. She sees her college gym experience as an overall positive influence in her life in giving her opportunities she might not have had back then and going forward but she does feel that her coaches' behaviors were over the line and it was definitely not the experience she had hoped for. I showed her Briley's post and her response to it was "it's right on the money and more common that most people would ever think"....but she was also surprised it had happened at Michigan...
 
I shudder anytime some says to a young person "these are the best years of your life". Really no one truly knows what is going on with a person. And to say that, can be just devastating.
To the point of suicidal.

Good for her though for speaking her truth.
 
That " no homework in front of the recruits" is rediculous it's collegethe whole " student athletes" line but during recruiting weekends they magically don't have homework.

Bookworm, how did your DD do schoolwork during recruiting?
 
That " no homework in front of the recruits" is rediculous it's collegethe whole " student athletes" line but during recruiting weekends they magically don't have homework.

Bookworm, how did your DD do schoolwork during recruiting?

I assume you mean during recruiting visits by younger kids....she did a lot of it during any free time she had when the recruits weren't on campus...and if they stayed with say the freshmen, after the team finished whatever activity they were doing with the recruit, like a basketball or hockey game, and she returned to her apartment ( and the recruits went usually to the dorms with the freshmen ) , she could do her homework then.

As a freshman, she had to be a little bit more creative and made use of the mandatory study tables the freshmen had ( 12 hours a week). The school gave them an IPAD and she could do her work on that when they traveled so that helped a lot. She's a night owl so she did a lot of homework late at night. She graduated cum laude so she found a way to make it work but she did think it was ridiculous to be forbidden from homework when parents/recruits are around....you'd think parents would want to see student athletes being students...
 
I can tell you from first hand experience that this is exactly what happens, times 100! When my daughter was on her college team, they received a "handbook" of expectations to be upheld when they were in public, when recruits or ANYONE visited campus....they were told that they were "not to do homework in front of recruits or their families, not to answer any question that couldn't be answered in a positive light and were told to refer those questions to the coaching staff." If the coaching staff ever found out that anyone did say anything other than the party line, it was hell to pay for the athlete.....and sometimes they were just answering what they thought were basic questions like "has anyone on your team ever had X major?" and when one of her teammates said "not that I know of" ( versus just plain old "no" or "ask the coaching staff") , this gymnast was hauled into the HC office and reamed for "dissing the school" ....and you wonder why it's tough to get the down low on what goes on in these places...

My daughter has moved on from her NCAA days and is in grad school and loving it. She sees her college gym experience as an overall positive influence in her life in giving her opportunities she might not have had back then and going forward but she does feel that her coaches' behaviors were over the line and it was definitely not the experience she had hoped for. I showed her Briley's post and her response to it was "it's right on the money and more common that most people would ever think"....but she was also surprised it had happened at Michigan...

Oh, I know! I was lucky to have a very positive experience as a D3 athlete, but have heard plenty of horror stories from friends at other schools up and down the rankings - including the Ivies and schools that, from the outside, look like they have a balanced, positive program. I really don't understand the whole not doing homework or answering basic questions from recruits thing. Obviously every school wants to paint things in a positive light, but my coach (who was incredible and supportive) always said that recruits should understand what life would be like if they came to our school because it's a terrible situation for everyone involved if they get there and it's completely different. Now, the pressure to recruit top talent is much, much greater at D1 programs like Michigan, but outright lying and/or not answering questions really doesn't seem like a smart move long-term, especially as more stories like this one come out.
 

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