5 Common Myths Your Athlete Should Know When Selecting a College Sport Program

College sports are a big deal in our country. March Madness is an especially popular and revenue-generating example of how integrated college sports are into our sports culture. The NCAA has over 520,000 student-athletes at one of 1,100 institutions participating in 24 sports across three divisions. Whew!

Young athletes now feel more pressure than ever before to be the best. The bar keeps getting higher, and the level of competition is increasing every year. Up-and-coming athletes are pushing the level of what’s possible. With the new heights reached by young athletes, our sports culture needs to ensure we are not staring up at an impossibly high ceiling without ensuring the floor is a stable foundation for young athletes. College sports have secure funding, high competition levels, and resources for student-athletes that are not usually accessible in youth sports. Still, policies and protocols are sometimes adapted from college sports into youth sports. The resemblance can be uncanny.

Whether you have a young athlete aspiring to compete in Division 1 or you are just curious about recruiting in college athletics, here are 5 myths I would like to bust as a former Division 1 Athlete and Coach:

  1. Specialization is the only way to succeed. There’s a belief that specializing in one specific sport from a young age is the best thing an athlete can do. When looking at the big picture of sports and the potential to be lifelong athletes, specialization is somewhere we need to tread lightly to promote athlete longevity. From a psychological and physiological perspective, developing well-rounded athletes who love different aspects of sports allows them to stay motivated and engaged. Burnout happens. Let’s take a look at what we can do to prevent it from happening to 18-year-old athletes who are far from their physiological peak!
  2. All NCAA athletes are making revenue thanks to NIL (Name, Image, and Likeness) Yes, it is NIL, not NLI. National Letter of Intent (NLI) is what you sign when you head to college to play sports. Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) is new NCAA legislation allowing athletes to no longer worry about amateurism and allows student-athletes to profit off of their status as college athletes. They can receive endorsements from brands or use social media to market themselves. A small percentage of athletes are making revenues with many zeros, but many student-athletes have too much on their plate to worry about marketing themselves. NIL was introduced so all athletes could benefit from their brand, but it is only in the major college sports where athletes are profiting from this!
  3. In recruiting, you should not tell the coach if you are sick or injured. You should tell every coach that their program is your first choice. Honesty is the best policy. When I was on the other end of recruiting, it was important to have context for athletes and to learn about factors in their performance. Hearing an athlete was getting over a bout of illness or coming back from an injury did not make us pull out a red flag. Instead, it helped us understand the athlete better. We considered the potential to develop as a major factor in recruiting and fit for the program. Knowing about an injury or illness allowed us to take that factor into consideration for our decisions. Also, knowing if someone truly wanted to come to the school and live in this area was important. Transparency in communication is critical in the recruitment process. For coaches and athletes, the best way to determine an athlete’s fit for the program is through an open communication stream.
  4. The better you get, the easier it gets. It’s easy to make the next step from high school to college sports. And then from college sports to professional sports. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Making the big jump from high school sports to college sports is scary and difficult for many athletes. A major life transition brings new stressors and new environments that athletes have to adapt to. As a coach, we never expected athletes to do their best freshman year. We knew how hard the transition to college was, so we made it clear to athletes that they did not have to hold tightly to performance expectations during their first year on the team. All stress manifests as physical stress on the body. It’s hard to navigate, especially when athletes are extremely motivated to perform well right off the bat. They want to prove themselves and to prove they belong on the team. When the going gets tough, the best thing we can do is remind athletes to believe in themselves, and that progress is not always linear.
  5. An athlete needs to stop sports completely if they do not make it on a college team. In cases where things do not work out with college sports, athletes can feel lost and like they are losing a part of themselves. In my Master’s Degree research project on the transition away from competitive sport, I found that athletes who leave their sport struggle the most with losing the team environment, losing the structure of sport, renegotiating their identity, mental health struggles, letting go of unrealized dreams, navigating body image issues, and the fear of losing fitness. Although it is hard to leave behind a big part of your identity or to let go of a dream, athletes need to know that there are other ways to engage with sports. College students are fantastic mentors and coaches for younger athletes. Getting involved in youth sports is a great way to share your love for athletics and to share your athletic insight. Additionally, athletes can build new communities through club or intramural sports offered in college. They can also branch out into outing clubs or group fitness classes as they go through this major transition. As one door closes, there are countless more to be discovered!

 

Lizzie Larkins is the Client Services & Application Specialist with Throughline Guidance. Lizzie Larkins joined Throughline Guidance as a Client Services and Application Specialist, with an emphasis on client relationship management. Lizzie most recently completed a Master’s Degree in Sport and Coaching Sciences while coaching at the Division 1 level. During her time at Montana State University, she was captivated by her academic research on people in transition. While she focused extensively on athletes transitioning away from competitive sport, she is excited to expand beyond the scope of sport, work alongside the Throughline Guidance team, and play a supporting role for clients answering the question, “What comes next?” Lizzie lives in Bozeman, Montana where she loves exploring on foot, on skis, or on a mountain bike!