Choosing the perfect college is the first major and possibly life-altering decision a student athlete ever faces. This decision not only determines the player’s home for 4 years, but also involves social pressure, academic needs, and tennis opportunity. Basically, this decision encompasses every aspect of a junior tennis player’s life. While the gravity of this choice is quite blatant, the process by which the action should be taken is far from common in the everyday households of aspiring collegiate athletes. These young adults battle against society’s judgmental eyes, family expectations, geographical issues, team/coach compatibility, and future goals. These points are crucial in not only finding success at a school, but also being able to enjoy one’s experience at the chosen
college.
The first step to making this humongous decision is to understand what the player wants out of their college experience. Is the athlete looking to focus on academics or is their focus primarily on tennis growth? This is a major question to ask the recruit and should be the number one priority. If a player is simply using tennis to get into a high level academic school, then that should be the number one factor in making the decision. In this case, the student athlete needs to attack schools that will satisfy their academic needs and just think of tennis as a balancing part of their life. On the other hand, if the athlete is more focused on the strength of the tennis program, they should make that their biggest priority.
They need to aim for schools with incredible athletic programs and utilize the college tennis rankings to narrow their search. The last perspective in this category is for a person who wants a balance. This recruit is looking for a solid academic program but still wants to grow as a tennis player and compete at a high level. At this point, the athlete needs to look at schools that are ranked highly both academically and in the tennis world.
Once the athlete has created a list of their top schools based on academic or tennis needs, it is important to narrow the list further by understanding a person’s environmental demands. Does the athlete want to live in a colder region or a warmer region? Does the cultural and racial diversity make a difference to the player? Would they prefer a more conservative foundation or do they find themselves to be more liberal? Are they looking for a small campus or a large campus? All of these questions are very important to ask. At this stage in the process of making a choice, the player should be going on school visits and
analyzing how close of a match each school is to their criteria.
Once the environment, academic, and tennis demands are thought through, a player needs to consider the team and the coach. A school could seem like the best place in the world, but if a player cannot get along with their teammates and has trouble connecting with the coach, the whole experience will be awful. It is important to realize that the coach of the team is a combination of their boss and mentor for the next 4 years. If the player cannot see himself or herself learning from the coach or struggles to understand the coaching style, then the school may not be a good fit. Besides the coaches, teammates are a big
part of the decision. An athlete should feel comfortable wanting to know the other players because they will be spending the majority of their time with their future team. A player should never overlook the coach or teammates and should never try and “compromise” in that category because it will harm themselves and the team as a whole.
The last and most important part of the recruiting process is going with a player’s gut feeling. While that sounds baseless and abstract, many players try and convince themselves out of the schools they like because of social pressure and family judgment. At the end of the day, if a school meets the player’s criteria and provides a platform for the individual to grow in all aspects, they should not second-guess the school because of others. Often times, parents can have preconceived views of certain schools and limit their children’s searches, which is not helpful at all. The decision is a family decision, but the player always comes first. Secondly, a player should not consider how other’s will think or behave based on their decision. A choice of college is not something meant for the sole purpose of boasting or making others realize a player’s worth; rather it a choice that will greatly affect the way the next phase of their life. Overall, a player needs to understand what they want from their college experience, find a compatible environment, feel comfortable with the coach and teammates, and go after what they want without the fear of judgment from family or society.