Everyone has their unique recruiting experience; they have their own story about how they started the process, how they survived the process, and how they ended up choosing the right college. We enjoy hearing and sharing all types of recruiting stories; not just because they are great stories –at least most of them, but because hearing these stories will eventually help and possibly influence all of you up and coming student-athletes to make your own recruiting story.
Think about it; the more you know about recruiting as a whole, and the different situations that can arise during the process, the better the position you will be in as you work toward reaching the goal of playing at the college level.
Getting inspired by the Olympics, I took a look at one stand-out player’s recruiting story to see how she paved the way for herself. Alex Morgan is one of the youngest players on the Women’s US Olympic Soccer team, but just because she is young, it does not mean she is not making an impact on the field. She is quickly becoming one of the most popular US athletes, especially after scoring 2 goals in her first Olympic game.
The beginning of Her Recruiting Process
Morgan’s journey to play soccer in college began like most athletes; she started as a multi-sport athlete, never fully committing too much to one sport due to her love and competitiveness for them all. Morgan’s recruiting story is very unique for an athlete of her caliber; she did not decided to join a competitive soccer club team until she was fourteen, and even though she continued to play multiple sports in high school, she knew if she dedicated her time that soccer or volleyball would be the sports to take her places.
Some will argue that Morgan got a late start in her soccer recruitment because of the delay she took before fully committing to soccer and joining a competitive soccer club. While others will say she was still young and was not sure if she was ready to fully pursue her soccer career. Either way you look at it, she was able to secure a spot at a great college, UC Berkeley, while only playing half her high school soccer season due to a torn ACL.
Yes it’s true, Morgan was not the top of her recruiting class, and had to be actively involved in her recruitment, just like most student-athletes are in their recruitment. Just because she is on her way to being the best in her sport does not mean she had everything handed to her during recruitment, even with great stats, experience on the National team and excellent grades.
Recruiting is a process, which can take a long time to understand, not only do you need to put up the stats and grades, you will need to do much more to find the right college fit and to take your competitiveness to where you want to be.
If you have any other questions about what you need to do in your recruitment, than leave a comment below or connect with us on Facebook and Twitter.