Latest / Yips and Giggles / Recruiting & College Visits [Pt.1]

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Recruiting & College Visits [Pt.1] · Yips and Giggles

• speaker-1: She finally realized that it was speaker-0: you speaker-1: guys. So we've got some breaking news today. speaker-0: Not my therapy session. That was the breaking news from last week. Kidding. What was the breaking news, Peyton? speaker-1: So today is Friday, April 24th. We've got Alcara's is out of the French open, not playing Roland Garros. ⁓ And I believe that's due to his wrist injury. And we have literally just seen five seconds ago, the Arkansas men's and women's tennis programs have been discontinued after the season. That's crazy. speaker-0: That's actually insane. That is an SEC Division 1 program. speaker-1: Correct. That's insane. We've hit a tipping point, y'all. It's getting bad out here. It's getting bad out here. ⁓ Concerning for sure. We don't know all the logistics behind what happened, why they've been cut. ⁓ But yeah, it's not a great look. Not a great look for tennis programs. speaker-0: Yeah. And you've been seeing like a bunch of different programs going down all across the country, like Gardner Web, think, was one that's here in North Carolina that they announced. Oh, they made they won their conference basically like every year and would make NCAAs. I think they just won their tournament again and they're getting cut. And so a lot of other schools as well. But Arkansas is a major, major one like. speaker-1: They were pretty successful for their like... Big school. speaker-0: big school, big program, they did well. speaker-1: A lot of resources. Mm-hmm. Mm. Yeah. speaker-0: scary times out here for the small and non-revenue generating sports. Like again, we don't really know what exactly went into that decision, but I think with a lot of the NIL changes in recent years and then... Some of the NCAA changes to things such as like rosters versus scholarships. ⁓ The landscape is really changing a lot and a lot more focus is going into the more revenue generating sports and it's unfortunate to see the non-revenue generating sports that are just amazing for their schools getting hurt because of it. speaker-1: Mm hmm. Yeah. So we'll see how that pans out. And, know, all the best Alcaraz that really blows, especially for like him, but also like spectators that want to watch him. That that definitely everyone wants to see a center Alcaraz final. That's always the go to now. But hey, now it's a little bit open, a little more slightly open. But we'll see if center, you know, takes advantage. He already has. speaker-0: much. Or someone else. When was the last time someone won a slam other than those two on the men's side? Djokovic probably. speaker-1: It was Djokovic, US Open 2023. seven ⁓ consecutive Grand Slams were split between Center and Alcara's. Wow. Which is pretty, you know, pretty much dominating right now. And you can see it on the points. Yeah, you can see it. speaker-0: 2020. There was some sort of stat where was like the number you're closer to being number three in the world than the number three in the world is to being number one, number two. speaker-1: Number two, yeah. That was great. Yeah. That's actually not. speaker-0: That is bizarre. But yeah, all the best to Alcara's. ⁓ And super sad to hear about Arkansas. I'm sure the players who aren't graduating this year will be able to find ⁓ great schools to transfer to, because I'm assuming they'll answer the transfer portal, but it's really sad to see. speaker-1: Yeah, that sucks. On a more, you know, not really happier, but just neutral note, ⁓ we saw that the individual NCAAs is going to be permanently moved to the fall season. you know, they had that pilot program to kind of see if people liked it or not. And it looks like they did. speaker-0: Yeah, and there's been a lot of like mixed reactions to this online that I've seen. Some people think that it's really, really good. And then some people are like, this is horrible. Why would you effectively make NCAAs two seasons for tennis? I mean, tennis was already two seasons. speaker-1: Yeah, like, let's not get it twisted. speaker-0: There was a fall and a spring season. ⁓ think... I personally think if people like it and if it's, you know, keeping a higher level of competition in NCAAs, because one of the big reasons that they cited for moving from spring to fall was the individual championships were always right after the team championships, after players had played for like, I don't know, a week and a half straight and you ended up getting a lot of last-minute withdrawals because... players' bodies were just so beat down. So now this kind of ensures that the best players are more fresh and healthy to play, because it's not right after the team championships. And I think obviously part of it is also they're trying to encourage the good players to stay and play in college in the fall, because there was a lot of players going to play pro in the fall. But yeah, lots of mixed reactions. speaker-1: Yeah, it is interesting as well because we've talked a little bit about this, but I think it puts even more pressure for the summer season, not like college season, but just to be able to keep playing. And you kind of have to now. Like now it's not really like, ⁓ well, I could go play this tournament or maybe not. You like now it's like, no, you need to get ready for the fall or else you're going to be behind everyone. It's the same with like incoming freshmen. It's like you need to get ready because you're pretty much getting thrown right into it now. Like there's not really as much of a grace period. So that might be why some people are a little bit iffy about it. But I think at the end of the day, like you're going to get better matches out of big players because they are going to be fresh compared to what it was before. I can't imagine like playing in the team championships and then go straight into the individuals. You're dead. speaker-0: No. can't imagine you make it to the finals. Yeah. then... So the finals, I think, is on a Sunday, and then individuals start on Monday. And I'm sure they gave people a day break or something, so maybe they moved it to Tuesday. But yeah, I can understand why so many people would pull out of individuals. Because for most people, I would say the team championship is the priority. If you were to ask, would you rather win individual NCAAs or team? I would say about 95 % of people would say team. speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that'll be interesting, but see how that plays out. We've also got the NFL draft going on. And I just want to say, nice guys don't finish last. Shout out Fernando Mendoza. Like, I love seeing that. That is so like, it's just refreshing. Like, it's really refreshing to see someone, you know, we've talked about, like, confidence versus arrogance. speaker-0: And he does a very good job of being confident and not arrogant. Like he's confident, but he's humble. Going first overall to the Raiders, ⁓ huge congratulations. speaker-1: I hope he does well. He's so sweet with like his mom and everything in his family. So it's really good to see. But I did like a deep dive since the draft is going on right now. And I was just really curious because, you know, we're talking about recruiting and all of that in this episode. And so I wanted to see like, OK, what goes into, you know, how people are going to make their picks? Like, how does a team go about that? You know, you hear about the combine and all of that. And so but I was really fascinated by the interview part because it's almost like a literal job interview. That's what you're doing. And so there's specific parts of it that I read in an ESPN article that was talking about what types of questions they ask and what answers that they've gotten, what the normal ones are versus the crazy ones. so the normal questions will be like, just about their background and how they grew up, what teams they played for in football and everything like that. But then they'll ask behavioral questions, like a literal job interview. And it's like, who do you call on a bad day? And I'm like, ⁓ that's so interesting. I would call my mom. speaker-0: I would also probably call my mom or I would call no one and wallow in my sorrow. speaker-1: That's probably not the right answer on you. speaker-0: Well, there's a reason I'm not in the NFL draft right now, Payton. I don't know if you've noticed. It's because I don't have good answers to the behavioral questions. speaker-1: Hey, that's why you're in the corporate world though. You know the answer to those questions. speaker-0: That's true. speaker-1: And then I think another one was like, what is one thing you would change about yourself? That's a tough one, because like you don't want to give like a crazy weakness. You know what I mean? speaker-0: I think procrastination is ⁓ speaker-1: Is that too mainstream though? We'd be more prepared if we were actually going into the draft. speaker-0: Maybe you would just say something along the lines of like, wish I was more of a morning person or something. don't know. Like something very benign. speaker-1: like worried about, you going to be late to training? I feel like there's almost not really like right or wrong answers. It's more so like how you answer it. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's like, what's your attitude about it? You know what I mean? speaker-0: What would you say? Yeah, I mean, it's like the question you get in the corporate world on an interview. It's the same thing of like, what's your biggest weakness? And it's like, you're not supposed to actually say what your biggest weakness is. You're supposed to like frame it in a way. I remember one time I answered something like, you know, I just really pay attention to detail too much. And like, I framed it in the way of like, I get so bogged down by the details that sometimes I spend too much time doing something versus like... I almost let like great get in the way of good and like not like, like I, I, I waste too much time on like a small little thing, but it's like framing in a way of like, I'm so dedicated and I look, I'm so detail oriented. Yeah. They liked that answer when I said it. you guys can. speaker-1: But you want to put it, but no, they also talked about like the red flags, like the the biggest red flag that they like constantly talked about was the fact that if, for example, they're in their interview and they're showing film, you have to go through like certain plays and, you know, pick out different things. And like the biggest red flag was people pointing out other people's mistakes. And they hated that. That was like the big no, no. And they were like, no, no, like you need to be accountable and you need to show that like you can be a leader and fix whatever situation is going on, not blame it on other people. So I thought that was really interesting. And I think a lot of people can take that into, you know, pretty much every aspect of their life. But, ⁓ for sure. Yeah. But it was also they were talking about like the craziest like things that have actually happened. And I forget what team it was, but they had like just hired a new head coach. And so like the first question they asked was like, who's our head coach for that one team? Multiple players got it wrong. speaker-0: No. I mean, that's hard. If they just hired him. But still, you should do your research. Yeah. speaker-1: Yeah, yeah, but it's also like they're they have to be ready for like multiple teams talking to multiple teams. So it is kind of hard to keep up with that. But at the same time, like. speaker-0: So like if it's your whole life and you're so ingrained in the football world and I'm assuming you watch football and you keep up with news, you probably know, unless it literally had happened like maybe five minutes before the interview and they didn't want it their phone, you know? speaker-1: Yeah, exactly. Another crazy part was, and another red flag that they talked about was like just people like lying about certain things. So like if they were involved with something that happened outside of like actual football, they would know, like every team knows because they have their own security department that like investigates the prospects. So like they know if you're lying or not about certain if you're involved in like, I don't know, some sort of scandal or something and you lie about it. It's like, no, no, we know. We're just waiting to see like how you respond to that. I don't know. literally crazy. speaker-0: It's just like a regular job interview. Like you get a background check when you apply for a job or when you accept the job. run, they fingerprint you, they run a background check on you. They ask you all these different questions on the applications. Same thing. speaker-1: 100%. But yeah, it's not all just about, you know, the combine and the physical traits and things like that's obviously like majority of what they're looking at. But at the same time, they've talked about how the interview has gotten much more in depth on, you know, questioning the players. And it's not just like, ⁓ like, how do you get into football? You know what I mean? It's not just like the basic questions anymore. It's like, OK, no, you need to know your stuff. speaker-0: And you need to be a fit for this team. That's basically what we're trying to get to. speaker-1: Yeah. Good attitude show that you can be a leader, things like that. But yeah, I think that's pretty important, especially when we're talking about recruitment and transfer portals and all of that fun stuff, which we're getting into. But yeah, it's it's an exciting time. It can be crazy, but it's fun. speaker-0: It's really chaotic. It's really chaotic. can cause a lot of like stress and confusion. It can be a really tough time in especially a young person's life to make some difficult decisions. ⁓ You can feel a lot of like increased pressure from competition, but it's fun too. It's like you were saying, it's exciting. Like it's your future basically, right? So it's exciting and it's scary and it's stressful. And ⁓ the reason we wanted to talk about it today is just to shed some more light so people kind of have a better understanding of what they're walking into if this is their first time getting recruited through athletics or, you know, they're in the transfer portal, but they wanted to hear some more refreshers about things. So we'll kind of dive into what actually matters versus what people stress about. ⁓ Some mistakes maybe that you'll see some people make early on, especially in the recruiting process. ⁓ and also some of the behind the scenes realities, some like of the funny stories, some of the real stories should be a really fun episode for you guys. But I think one of the first things that we wanted to start off with is just kind of going through and explaining even what recruiting is, right? What does the process look like? ⁓ So very basically recruiting is where ⁓ college coaches identify evaluate and then they select high school players or transfer athletes if they're in the transfer portal to join their teams. would say most typically this is for scholarship but not all the time. So basically just how do you go if you're a high school or junior player? How do you go from high school and junior to being a college athlete? That's the whole gist of it. speaker-1: episode we talked about it in but again every person that's a part of a team is important like again a walk-on is not just like sitting around doing nothing like they're they're practicing with you they're going to every match like that's just how it is and oh yeah speaker-0: think it's ⁓ speaker-1: Yeah, 100 percent. Your whole the whole goal is to work your way into a scholarship. ⁓ And we've seen a lot of people do that and turn into really, really good players. ⁓ And also, I think it's important to note quickly, like, make sure whatever sport that you're in, make sure you know the rules of, know, when you can reach out to coaches, when coaches can reach out to you, ⁓ when you can sign, when you can like. that you've committed, things like that, because it is different for every single sport. ⁓ So that's always something to keep in mind. yeah, like sports, sports kind of vary a lot in college, like not only the actual timing of the recruiting process, but also like scholarship limits and things like that, which in turn also kind of affect the other sports that are in the college too. like, for example, if you have football, you get... 105 scholarships, you know what I mean? It's a massive team. So like the fact that you're getting that many scholarships is wild and that's why some other sports, you know, don't get quite as many scholarships as they think they should. ⁓ know, baseball has up to 34 scholarships. They have pretty decently sized rosters as well. ⁓ Men's women's tennis is only 10 scholarships. ⁓ was originally eight, now it's up to 10. So it is interesting, like, you know, your scholarships, the number of scholarships is gonna vary greatly depending on how big or how small your team is. So that's always something to keep in mind as well. speaker-0: Yeah, and I think something that's important to mention here is ⁓ these increased scholarship numbers that we just talked about, I think they're new as of 2025-2026 seasons. So there was some NCAA rule that went into effect this year that changed. ⁓ It used to be a scholarship limit, and now it's a roster limit. So that's why these scholarships increased because there's no limit on the amount of scholarships that you can have, but the roster is what's limiting now. And so I think now that they have... This is just my thought, I'm not sure if this is true or not, but now that they have increased scholarship numbers, that doesn't mean it's full scholarship numbers. It just means this many people on the team can have scholarships, whether that's partial or full. So I'm curious to see how that plays out. with ⁓ just how schools offer those financial scholarships to athletes. Because again, before in men's women's tennis, it used to be eight scholarships. And then normally you would just have like the eight full scholarships, or I think men's might've split theirs up partially. But now we have 10 scholarships, but I don't think they have to be full scholarships if you don't want them to be. speaker-1: Right. Right. speaker-0: I think women's sports have also seen a big, big growth in recruiting and visibility and investment ⁓ just because of their increased media exposure and more NIL opportunities. So that's been great to see. But again, we also are seeing, like we talked about earlier in this episode, some women's sports are getting cut, specifically tennis. ⁓ So it's a give and take and it'll be interesting to see how the landscape of NIL and NCAA evolves in the next five to 10 years. It could be totally, totally different within five years. speaker-1: Yeah, because I rarely see tennis players with NIL deals like I'll see it. And I feel like it's more prevalent on the women's side just based on what I've seen. But at the same time, like that's a pretty small number compared to like getting a whole team cut from existing. Right. You know what I mean? Right. Like you got to kind of weigh the pros and cons here. speaker-0: Going back to the Gardner Webb school tennis team cutting, I don't know if you read that statement or not, but they cut the men's and women's tennis programs so that they could get a women's flag football. speaker-1: Yeah, that's correct. speaker-0: I am not sure. speaker-1: Yeah, fully. speaker-0: but... speaker-1: just it speaker-0: Like if it was for revenue purposes, like I personally have never this is the first time I'm hearing of a collegiate women's flag football division one. Same. speaker-1: same team. speaker-0: I don't know how much revenue they bring in or are going to bring in. ⁓ That decision just doesn't seem to make sense for me. speaker-1: Especially when you have such a successful program. Like, yeah. What? Anyways, yeah, I don't really understand that at all. Yeah, it is. mean, looking back to when we were kind of in our recruiting days, it very much is like a two way street recruiting because on one hand, you are being evaluated by coaches, but at the same time, you want to be evaluating them. and their program and their school. And it like it's not just like you're the only one getting criticized in this process. You know what mean? So there is some pressure on on both sides. And I hope people kind of realize that like you don't have to feel like you're a smaller person during that process just because they're kind of at a place of authority. It's like, no, no, like you want to get to know them and and see if that program is actually right for you. speaker-0: Yeah, I feel like I've seen and I've even like probably felt that pressure when I was going through the process as well. But I feel like I've seen so many players just kind of get so hung up on the name of the school or it's been their dream school ever since they were six years old to go to. And then they kind of commit early. They jump the gun if they get an offer, they commit early and it's not the best. It ends up not being the best fit for them. ⁓ So I think one of the big pieces that we're going to talk about is like, don't jump the gun, don't get so hung up in like the name or the prestige or what you think it is in your head. Like really actually evaluate is this, you know, private versus public. You have to make that decision. Do you want private school, public school? Do you want big school, small school? Do you want more academically focused? How do you want your social life to look like? What do you want to do after, if you already know? Is there something you want to do after college? If you want to go to med school, maybe you want to go to a good pre-med place, things like that. ⁓ It's all these things that you really just need to take the time to think about and see if you just feel that click and that fit, and you could see yourself being there rather than being like, ⁓ well, it's blah, blah, blah, school, that's so prestigious, you didn't have the best visit. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: maybe you're not even going to play in line- That's another thing. Do you want to play in lineup? Do you not? ⁓ speaker-1: Yeah, it is a balance. I knew a couple of players that committed literally or like verbally committed probably their sophomore year in high school. And I was like, I remembered I saw that and I was like, ⁓ my God, I'm so far behind. Like, what am I doing? And I started freaking out. But now I'm looking back and I'm like, no, no, like that wasn't really like the norm. And. It's not like you have to rush the process. And again, it was because that was like a big name school. And so it was like this huge thing. And then they didn't actually end up going to that school. speaker-0: ⁓ okay. I that a lot too. Like people commit super early. I haven't seen like freshman year commits where these coaches are really trying to get these like superstars locked down. And then there's like four years until they go to college. So either their level drops off, the coaches can decommit you. A verbal commitment means nothing. speaker-1: So many things can change during that time. Like a coach can leave. Yep. Like that recruited you. speaker-0: Yeah. So I want to take a quick step back to to kind of talk through what the recruiting process actually looks like, because I know we keep throwing around like verbal commitment, things like that. So recruiting isn't just like getting an offer and signing that piece of paper saying that you are going to this school next year. Right. There's a whole like process that goes through it. So like you can classify it into like, I don't know, like discovery. So coaches find you. whatever tournaments showcases, some players send film to the coaches. Coaches are looking at like rankings, referrals from other coaches, things like that. And then if they're interested, ⁓ they'll go and evaluate your skill level, your consistency, your athleticism, ⁓ your attitude and your coachability, which we'll talk about a lot. And again, if they're interested, even the slightest bit, you'll get into that communication phase once it is... allowable per sport rules, right? Like again, we said there's different time periods. think now for tennis, they're allowed to reach out to you starting June 1st of your sophomore year. It used to be September of... Yeah. So end of your sophomore year. So I think they just moved it a few months before, because for us, it used to be September of our junior year. So I they moved it to before the summer. speaker-1: for you now. speaker-0: emails, calls, maybe you'll even get invited to some unofficial campus visits, although now they can also do official visits as well during junior year, believe. Official visits used to only be allowed during senior year for tennis. ⁓ There's a maximum amount of official visits I think you can take that an official visits are basically everything gets paid for unofficial as you come on your own dime. And then you get to the stage where you have to make some decisions, you get some offers. ⁓ So a lot of stuff goes into those offers and decisions as well. You got to think about are you getting offered a scholarship? Is that scholarship full or partial? ⁓ What are the roster spots looking like? Sometimes you get offered, but they say we don't have a spot for next year. You're going to have to take a gap year and come the following year. That's kind of like what Alex had talked about with his situation with Wake. If you're not getting offered a scholarship, but this is something that, this is a school that you really want to go to, are there any walk-on opportunities? ⁓ And so you can only officially commit, I think, your senior year. But before that, like we've thrown around a few times, there are, ⁓ there's a verbal commitment, right? So Peyton and I, we committed to Wake Forest our junior year, verbally committed. So we basically told the coaches offered us spots and we said, okay, yes, we are verbally committed to go here. It's just giving your word. Honestly, like we said, like your word means something, but it's not like you put pen to paper, you know? Like they can back out, you can back out if you need to, but it's kind of saying like, this is my intent. It's almost like a promise ring compared to an engagement ring. I don't know. I'm talking. speaker-1: That's actually a great way to put it. Yeah. speaker-0: So. ⁓ speaker-1: Yeah, no, it's also funny because I remember having to like once I verbally committed to wake. Actually, no, it was before I actually verbally committed. You have to call like every other school that you talk to and say like, hey, I'm not coming to your school or your program. I was sweating when I made those calls. because I felt so bad because I really did like a lot of the coaches and the schools that I was talking to and I was like, I do not want to have this conversation. Like, I'm old. ⁓ my God. And but then like the call where you say like you are verbally committing is always great, obviously, and they're really excited. ⁓ speaker-0: I no desire. No thank you. speaker-1: Yeah, God, I hated making the yeah, I'm not I'm not coming. Thanks for all the, you know, time and money you invested in me. see, I mean, you play against them and it's like, speaker-0: you The worst is when you play against them and you turn them down and you lose. speaker-1: Yeah, that that's got to be. It happens, but that's got to be the worst. And then I also remember, like you said, our date was usually in September for when coaches could start like calling you. I vividly remember the day that coaches were allowed to call me because like everyone's just like, all right, you ready? Like tomorrow you're going to get some phone calls. And it literally was that was that I was like, how do these people get my number? I'm like, yes. speaker-0: was the thing. And I just had so many calls. I had a lot of emails too. It just started flooding the inbox. And you're just like, ⁓ my God. speaker-1: Cool. Like you feel kind of like wanted, which is nice. And I always found it really funny when you'd get things in the mail from schools and it would vary depending on the school. Like I remember getting either like surveys where I literally would fill in my information and then send it back. And I'm like, this is weird. And then other schools. Yeah, it was weird. And then other schools would literally send like handwritten notes. And I'm like, I much prefer the handwritten note than me giving you all my information to then maybe you contact me. I don't know. Like that felt really impersonal to me. speaker-0: Yup. speaker-1: Like, I just like on your list? Like what to just reach out and say, hey, maybe you because it was always like a big school. Yeah. I was like, are you just like lining people up or like what's going on here? ⁓ speaker-0: I feel like there definitely were schools that did do that. Just mass email, mass send out communications to people and just see kind of what fits. Peyton and I, did kind of commit rather quickly, I would say. We committed what? November of our junior year. speaker-1: Uh-huh. That's funny. So think I was December, actually. speaker-0: Okay, I think I was like, that's probably like November 30th, so basically December. Yeah, same. So basically three months of recruiting and we both committed to Wake Forest, verbally committed. Thankfully, it ended up working out, but I wanted to ask you, so you already mentioned, like you saw a girl posting that she was already committed in sophomore year. I just wanted to ask you, like, since we kind of committed relatively early on in the recruiting process, about three months in, Did you feel a pressure? Did you feel like you were falling behind? Did you feel like you wanted to make a decision sooner rather than later? speaker-1: Yeah, it was tough because again, in an age of social media, it's like you're scrolling on Instagram and you're seeing everyone's like, oh, I committed here. Oh, can't wait to go here. And I feel like it does kind of add a little bit of pressure. But I don't feel like I necessarily rushed the decision. Like I went on a lot of visits. I talked to a lot of different coaches, a lot of different programs. I wish I had talked to more. I feel like I did not. like use all my resources that I could have used. I mean, there's so many different colleges in so many different locations and cities that would have been great to explore. So I do wish I would have talked to more schools than I did probably, ⁓ even though I did talk to quite a few, which it becomes a lot once you're trying to juggle like six different schools that you're talking to that could be like, you know, on your on the top of your list. So I think that is a bit of a balance that You do kind of have to pick and choose like, okay, who's going to be like my priority versus who's going to be a little bit be a little bit lower on the totem pole. speaker-0: People have different timelines. The timelines vary across sports. And there were a lot of people who were still getting recruited their senior years they hadn't committed yet. So I think like I also felt I was like, oh man, I should probably make a decision sooner rather than later. Because you're also afraid of like taking too long to make a decision if you have an offer and then the coach is moving on to a different person. But I mean, I don't like regret committing so early. speaker-1: They're like, hello. speaker-0: ⁓ But like same thing, I feel like I didn't look at enough schools just to like get an experience of like, ⁓ what is it like on the West Coast? What is it like in the Northeast? Like I had an idea of what I wanted, which was like, I wanted to go a little bit further away from home. Didn't want to be that far away from home on the West Coast. But like I never visited those schools, so I didn't know like what it would have like. I either. Yeah. speaker-1: Anya, you're gonna laugh at this, but going into like my recruiting year, I was like, I want to be far away from home. I want to go to a really big school. Guys, I ended up at Wake Forest 20 minutes from my parents' house and one of the smaller schools, I would say. It's like what? I don't even know what it is. A thousand people. speaker-0: 5,000 undergrad, like 8,000 total undergrad. speaker-1: ⁓ Yeah, that sounds right. I think it's like a like almost half the population is athletes. Yeah But and I ended up there speaker-0: Hey, we had lovely dinners at Peyton's house, like all the time. It was great for me. speaker-1: Honestly, it worked out so well because it was so nice being close to my parents, like being able to have the team over and things like that. And I feel like that actually like made us closer to and also it was better because now I'm living so far away from home that I'm glad I did have that time because that would really have been hard to actually move away after ⁓ college after not being there. So it worked out in the end. speaker-0: Yeah. But yeah, that's really funny. speaker-1: You might have to just change your outlook, your expectations. You once you go on visits and things like that, you're going to understand what you like and don't like at that point. You know what I mean? So and it's always kind of fun to figure that out. But yeah, yeah, I thought that was. Always funny to look back. speaker-0: No, that's horrible. But yeah, I mean, I think like other than don't like compare your path to others. Another thing that I would say is like, be realistic with yourself about your goals. Like, again, we've set up in the past, but only about like six to seven percent of high school athletes end up playing in college. And then what was it like two percent of college athletes go pro or something like that. So if you think about it, like a typical high school might have. I don't know, depending on what team you're on, 20, 30, to even 60 athletes per team, like track and field. I remember my school had a massive cross-country track and field team. A typical college roster might have eight to 35 spots depending on the team, again, unless it's football, which is like 105. Yeah. speaker-1: Yeah. The outlier. speaker-0: You gotta remember that those spots only open up as seniors graduate, right? So like, you got hundreds of athletes competing for a handful of openings each year per program. speaker-1: also think it's very important now that I've like kind of see it happening and you showed me this post the other day, but everyone's complaining about all of the international athletes that are coming over to the US and taking their, the US athlete spots. everyone's like going back and forth and it's like. Actually, this could just be kind of a development problem in the US rather than like a recruiting problem. So I don't know. There's there's a couple sides to it. speaker-0: So the post that I saw the other day was basically someone saying like, it goes the SEC finals on the men's side out of the 12 people playing, one of them was American or something like that. And people were complaining like, oh man, see all these teams just going out to recruit the best players internationally because all they care about is winning. Okay? It's kind of their job to win. And if they can't find the good enough talent... at home in the US. Like, I don't know. speaker-1: I also get it like from the US perspective, like you would rather coaches look more at homegrown athletes first and then go international, right? Whereas I do feel like right now it is more of a trend to just literally start international and get people over here. ⁓ So there is kind of like a two sides to it for sure. But. I mean, it is very attractive to go to the US universities. Like they put so many resources into sport. And so you can get a really good education and also, you know, develop as an athlete as well. So I do understand why international players want to go over there. ⁓ But I think when you are being recruited as, you know, an international athlete, it's very important to understand what you're actually getting into. before you commit to a program. Know the differences between certain schools, different coaches, locations, what are the commitments that you're gonna have to make? ⁓ And like you said before, it's not just about the sport, right? Your education needs to align with what you wanna do later on after your sport is done. So... And that could also be different for international athletes because if they're, for example, going back to, you know, their home country after college, there are a lot of discrepancies between, you know, U.S. jobs versus jobs outside of the U.S. Like, for example, like I at one point wanted to go to PA school, so physician assistant school. And so that's huge in the U.S. now, but outside of the U.S., like in Europe and... you know, the UK and everything like that, they don't really have physician assistants. So like, you need to understand that the path that you're taking as an international athlete actually makes sense for you once you are done being, you know, an athlete, you know, competitively. So I think that's definitely something to consider as you are getting recruited and as you are evaluating all of these schools. speaker-0: Yeah, for sure. And then kind of also just like the some of the more softer things, not softer, but like less technical things. But you got to think about, especially if you're coming from overseas, like really far away, homesickness, you're not going to be able to go home a lot. Cultural differences, you're to have to adapt to some of the cultural things here in the US. And with that comes language barriers. If you don't speak English very well, that'll especially be difficult. your freshman and maybe your sophomore year to try to like pick up that language. I do know that to come to school in the US, like international athletes do have to take that, I forget what it's called, something with a T maybe. That test that's basically, yeah, like shows that you're like proficient enough to survive in English. But yeah, you're just gonna have to understand that these are some of the things that you're gonna struggle with and... ⁓ Again, you're going to have to adapt to some of the cultural differences and also help your teammates and your coaches ⁓ become educated on some of the cultural differences and your, like where you're from as well, right? So that they can better understand you and you can bond a little bit better with your team as well. speaker-1: But also I feel like it's important for coaches especially like to make sure that they put an effort to actually learn about that person's culture. I mean, again, there are some massive teams, so it's hard to. spend a lot of time with one person. But if you're in like a smaller team and you have the ability to like learn more about a culture and how you can kind of help them, help them almost adapt a little bit into your culture. Like I think that would be really helpful. And I think also I've heard of a lot of mental performance coaches and sports psychologists. They'll do sort of a team bonding exercise where And it will be like probably at the beginning of a season, but you do some sort of activity where you actually learn more about each other's culture. And, know, there's a lot of teams that have, again, now it's very common to have multiple international athletes from all over the place. So I always think that would be really fun. It's kind of like your little snack thing, like getting on the bus and sharing your favorite snack. Like you could, you know, talk about certain things in your culture. So it's kind of similar along those lines, but I think. It is crazy because there are some international athletes that legitimately just commit and they don't really know a lot about a school. And I'm like, that's a dangerous game, y'all. That is a dangerous, you're living there for the next four years. Technically you can transfer, but you know, I think especially with technology now, a lot of schools have. begun to do like really detailed virtual tours of the actual school and they'll, you know, take them around the campus and the location. So I think that's good, but I really just don't think it's the same, which it's hard. Like some people literally cannot like go all the way over there. Like it's expensive. And so it is hard for them. And I think it's even harder when they actually get to the university. It's like, I was reading a study like there's normally super excited to, you know, start playing and be in an NCAA program. But then like reality hits a little bit and it's like, ooh, that homesickness is, you know, hidden and your cultural differences are really showing now. And it's like, that's tough to deal with. So I think it's really important to just have a support system at that point. And whether that's through like just video chats and things like that, but just making sure that your player has that support system during that time is huge. That was a lot of fun talking about, you know, our own recruiting stories. Again, there's no single right path to getting recruited. Everyone does it differently and everyone's going to have a different experience. Don't get too focused on other people's experiences, you know, especially with social media nowadays. There's no need to rush the process. Don't feel like you're behind and have fun with it. Like being recruited is fun. Going on visits is fun. It's a long game, but at the end of the day, it's something that you need to go through and it's leading to something great. And yeah, if you guys have any recruiting stories or have any questions for us or want to hear about a little bit more about our times during recruiting and our visits and things like that, or if you have any questions about how to choose a school or what... to what are red flags that you're looking for when you're looking at a school, feel free to shoot us a DM. We're happy to have a chat. So thanks for listening and we'll see you next week.