Category Archives: PAC 12

10 Things to Know About College Recruiting–for Students and Parents

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I wrote this post after going through the recruiting experience with my daughter. I’ve received a few questions about recruiting lately and realized now is a good time to repost this with some updated info. If you have any questions for me, please ask them! I’d be happy to help if I can.

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My daughter in a race as a Piranha.

My daughter started college a little over a month ago as a student-athlete for a PAC 12, D1 university. She signed her letter of last Fall and now she’s hosting recruits at her college. As exciting as it was to go through the recruiting process, it’s even better to look back on it!

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Three teammates from my kids’ club team on the blocks in yellow caps.

Looking back, there was so much to know. I’m sharing 10 tips on HOW to be recruited to help you and your swimmer wade through pools of confusion and make it less overwhelming. A lot of these tips can be used for your student-athlete’s sport — even if it’s not swimming. Have fun! Enjoy the recruiting experience — because it’s an exciting time in your swimmer’s life — and in yours, too.1554486_780165738665332_1948124021_n

  1. Join a USA Swim Club. If you want to swim in college and you’re swimming in high school — join a club team right away! Most swimmers at the collegiate level have been USA Swimmers for years. It’s rare for college coaches to recruit high school only swimmers. Click here to find a local club! usas_logo
  2. Go to practice! Every single day. College coaches will call your club coach and ask about your character and work ethic. If you’re trying to be the best you can be, your club coach will recommend you wholeheartedly.
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    Teammates racing.

     

  3. Register with NCAA Clearing House. If you have questions, ask your high school counselor. It’s something all athletes have to do who want to participate in college sports.
  4. Take the right classes, SAT or ACT, and get good grades. Again, meet with your counselor. He or she can make sure you’re on track and doing everything you need to do to be eligible.
  5. Make a list of the schools you’re interested in:
    Dream schools — where have you always wanted to go.Geographic location — do you want to be close to home? Or in an entirely different part of the country?DI, DII or DIII? There is a division, conference and school for every swimmer. Determine where you fit by looking at the NCAA Division results.
    Do you score points in the conference championship meet? When you have a list of schools, check out the results from their conference meet. Chances are if you’d finish in the top 8, you’re a good candidate for a scholarship.

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    A meet in LA during my daughter’s age-group years.

  6. Contact coaches and schedule unofficial visits via email. Start early, sophomore or junior year. Unofficial visits offer a chance to look at campuses and visit teams. It also provides an opportunity to practice meeting and talking with coaches. We made a few unofficial visits at nearby schools our daughter was interested in before she was being recruited. The coaches were very good about taking time to speak to her and one gave my daughter, husband and me a campus tour.
  7. Most schools have online questionnaires for athletes. Be sure to fill out the ones you’re interested in. You can follow up with an email to the coach that you’ve completed their questionnaire. Plus, when you email, tell coaches something specific about why you’re interested in their school. Ask them questions about what they look for in a swimmer, or what their time requirements are.
  8. Ask your club coach about the rules of talking to college coaches at swim meets. Rules change, but generally, a college coach cannot approach you  — until after you’ve swum all your events at a meet. Again, your club coach can help with this.
  9. Be polite. Return phone calls and emails. Once the official recruiting season begins, be sure to be respectful of all coaches and colleges — even if they weren’t on your list. You never know where or when you’ll run into these people again. Coaches move around — and they tend to have friends they talk to that are coaches!
  10. You’re allowed to take up to five official recruit trips. If you’ve talked to coaches on the phone or in person and they want you on their team, they’ll invite you for an official visit. You’ll stay with freshman or sophomore teammates and have a full schedule of events so you can get a feel for the school and team. Let coaches know right away if you’re interested or not in taking the recruit trip.

If you want more information, or have specific questions, I’ve linked several stories. Or, leave a comment and I’ll answer your question.

Here’s a great article about preparing for recruit trips from SwimSwam.

Two more articles: Swimming Recruiting – 5 Tips to Swimming in College and Quick Tips For College Swimming Recruits

Mental illness doesn’t discriminate: sports stars share their stories

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Missy Franklin with the freshman Lady Utes at PAC 12s 2015.

In a sports conference for young women called LEAD Summit held in Austin, TX, Missy Franklin opened up about her struggles with mental illness. For those who don’t follow the Olympics, Missy is a five-time gold medalist and swimming superstar. At the summit, she was asked to talk about perseverance.

She said her favorite definition for perseverance was “steadfastness in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success.” In a “Gold Medal Minute” video produced by Mel Stewart, two-time gold medalist and founder of SwimSwam.com, he interviewed Missy. I urge you to take the time to listen to what Missy has to say and the journey she shares. As Stewart described it, “Missy went deep sharing some raw and personal history. Two months before the Olympic Trials last year, Missy was diagnosed with depression, anxiety, insomnia and an eating disorder when she was hitting a low while sports fans and the world were expecting her to rise up.”

Watch “MISSY FRANKLIN BATTLES BACK FROM DEPRESSION: GMM PRESENTED BY SWIMOUTLET.COM” here.

Missy explains how her definition of perseverance has changed from 2012, 2013, and 2014 when she said it was “shallow.” She thought perseverance was coming out at the other end successful and that at that time in her life “everything came with so much ease.”

She has some poignant words about success and what it means to her. “Your Definition of success is going to change and you need to let it,” Missy said. “That is the only definition that matters because you’re constantly going to have people in your life telling you what it means to be successful. And that is different for every single person. If you’re not striving for your own version of success, you’re never going to be happy or fulfilled.”

To find out more about LEAD Summit visit their website. “Founded in 2017 by 3-time Olympian Kara Lynn Joyce, the LEAD (Leadership, Empowerment, & Athletic Development) Sports Summit provides teenage female swimmers ages, 13-18, the opportunity to learn leadership and communication skills from an accomplished group of female Olympians and mentors over the course of a three-day summit.”

In an article from the Salt Lake Tribune called, “There’s always help’: Whittingham’s son praised for going public about his depression,” the head coach of the University of Utah football team Kyle Whittingham talks about how proud he is of his son, who plays football for the Utes. Here are a few excerpts.

“There were years of pain and anguish as he (Alex Whittingham) dealt with the effects of anxiety, depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). “Fighting through a storm cloud” is how he described it. And that cloud was on the 24-year-old’s mind this summer when he opened up an application on his iPhone and decided to open up to the world.Screen Shot 2017-09-13 at 1.22.16 PM

“Kyle Whittingham’s son is many things. He is a goofball around his friends and teammates. He is a drummer in a rock band. He is a self-proclaimed Beatles trivia expert. But he is generally not a public person, so his decision to share his story took his father aback.

“ ‘That was a little out of character for him,’ Kyle Whittingham said. ‘He’s a fairly private person, and that did surprise me. It caught me a little bit off guard when he did that, but, like I said, he has very strong convictions, and obviously, that was something he felt like he needed to do.’

“The choice made the father proud.

“Kyle calls them ‘hard times’ for the Whittingham family. The moments when a parent is helpless and can’t provide the absolute most for his or her child are the ones that don’t ever disappear.

“ ‘As a parent, you’re only as happy as your most unhappy child,’ Whittingham said. ‘That old adage is very true. You go through it right there with him. You feel the pain. It’s hard, it’s frustrating.’ ”

In USA Today, an article called “When athletes share their battles with mental illness” written by Scott Gleeson and Erik Brady, they interview eight sports stars including Jerry West, Michael Phelps and Allison Schmitt.

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Michael Phelps with local high school swimmers at a banquet where he was the keynote speaker.

 

“ROUGHLY ONE IN FIVE AMERICAN ADULTS SUFFER FROM MENTAL ILLNESSES. ATHLETES MIGHT BE MORE AT RISK. HERE, EIGHT OF THEM TELL THEIR AUTHENTIC STORIES.”

“Michael Phelps locked himself in his bedroom for four days three years ago. He’d been arrested a second time for DUI. He was despondent and adrift. He thought about suicide.

“I didn’t want to be alive,” he tells USA TODAY Sports. “I didn’t want to see anyone else. I didn’t want to see another day.”

“Family and friends — “a life-saving support group,” Phelps calls them — urged him to seek professional help. He got it. And now he wants others who are suffering from mental health issues to find the help they need.

“Some will scoff at this. Phelps is the golden boy of the Olympic Games. Fame and fortune are his. Really, what could be so bad in his life?

“That is never the right question. People from all walks of life suffer from a range of mental illnesses. Roughly 44 million Americans experienced some form of mental illness in 2015 (the most recent year for which numbers are available), according to estimates by the National Institute of Mental Health. That’s nearly one in five people aged 18 or over.”

After reading and listening to the stories of these athletes, I wondered if athletics is somehow connected to mental illness. According to the article in USA Today it is.

“Athletes may be at increased risk, according to research by Lynette Hughes and Gerard Leavey of the Northern Ireland Association of Mental Health, who found that factors such as injuries, competitive failure and overtraining can lead to psychological distress. An NCAA survey of athletes found over the course of a year that 30% reported feeling depressed while half said they experienced high levels of anxiety.

“Brent Walker, associate athletic director for championship performance at Columbia University, says he didn’t want to deal with the mental health side of performance when he began working in the field. Now, he says, “it is difficult to separate the mental health piece from the performance side of it.”

In my own family, we have struggled with mental illness, including my mother and several other family members. One of the concerns with mental illness is to alleviate stigma. People may not reach out for needed help because they’re afraid of what people will think of them. I am so moved by reading the stories of young and old athletes alike who are in the public eye and sharing their stories. They may not know it, but they are helping and touching someone. We need to understand that depression is not something that a person “can snap out of” and it’s not caused by being weak.

What are your thoughts of these athletes making their struggles with mental illness public?

 

 

 

 

The story of a star quarterback whose parents let him be a kid

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My husband asked me to read a story from the Bleacher Report about USC Quarterback Sam Darnold. I put him off for a day because frankly, I wasn’t that interested. I finally read it to appease him and found Sam’s story to be fascinating—mainly because of the parenting style of Mike and Chris Darnold.

From childhood through high school, Sam played basketball, football, and baseball. I think he played volleyball, too. His parents let him try and decide what sports he participated in. They didn’t make him specialize or get him private lessons or coaches. In fact, Sam believes his success in football is from playing all different sports and learning a variety of skills. In a refreshing story written by Jeff Perlman, you find out about a dying breed of parents—ones who believe in fun and no pressure. Parents who let their child lead his own life.

“USC’s star quarterback and his parents do not live by the LaVar Ball theory of the universe. They let a multisport supernova grow up into his own man. And that’s why this 20-year-old might be the No. 1 pick in next year’s NFL draft.”

Yet the story of Sam Darnold isn’t the story of the modern quarterback, loud and sparkly and created to own the internet’s 24-hour hype machine. Nope, it’s the story of a young man on the verge of superstardom because, not long ago, he was allowed to diversify.

He was allowed to be a kid.

The Darnolds’ Capistrano Beach household is in the heart of south Orange County, where there are youth sports leagues atop leagues atop leagues, and private coaches atop private coaches atop private coaches.

In Orange County, it’s not uncommon for a nine-year-old pitcher to throw sliders and curveballs nine or 10 months of the year—with a father behind the backstop holding a radar gun. It’s not uncommon for a quarterback to play Pop Warner, then a season of flag and then spend the summer under the watchful eye of a $200-an-hour passing guru.

This was not going to happen to Sam.

“My parents,” the quarterback says, “wouldn’t have allowed it.”

On paper, this might come as a surprise. One would be hard-pressed to find a more sports-centric family than the Darnolds. Mike (Sam’s dad) was an offensive lineman at the University of Redlands, Chris (Sam’s mom) a volleyball player at Long Beach City College. Sam’s older sister Franki starred in volleyball at the University of Rhode Island and three of his cousins—Allie, Michele and A.J.—also participated in collegiate volleyball. Sam’s late grandfather, Dick Hammer, played basketball at USC and was on the 1954 team that went to the Final Four. He was also a member of the 1964 U.S. Olympic men’s volleyball team.

Put simply, organized athletics are a big deal in the Darnold world and have been for decades.

“But,” says Chris, “they’re not everything. We’ve always tried to keep things in perspective. Yes, our children have always loved playing sports. But around here, in this part of California, it too often becomes live and die. That’s a big mistake in my opinion. It has to be fun.”

“One day you open your eyes and it’s, ‘Holy cow, your son is in this position,’” Mike says. “I mean, it’s crazy, right? Crazy, crazy, crazy—one in a million.”

He pauses. Though Chris is acknowledged by family members as the emotional one, the father has been showing his soft side of late. He insists he never cared whether his children played sports or an instrument or worked a job—as long as they were involved and happy and tried different things. But to have a son as USC’s starting quarterback; to have a son who is a Heisman Trophy front-runner; to have a son who is humble and decent and respectful?

“Say what you want,” Mike says. “Sam’s not flashy, he’s not a yeller, he’s not a trophy collector, a bragger. But I feel like we worked hard to raise our kids the right way. And it’s paid off.”

I believe the Darnolds have lessons for many sports parents, myself included. Of course, they had an exceptionally athletic son who could have been recruited in basketball, baseball or football. But more than that, they raised a humble, balanced kid. They are proud of him as a person, not just as a star athlete. Their attitude and parenting style helped develop Sam into the man he is and will become.

I hope you take the time to read the entire Bleacher Report article about Sam Darnold and his parents. There’s also another great article in the Los Angles Times called “As expectations swell, USC’s Sam Darnold finds comfort at home near the beach” by Zach Helfand.

I’m excited to watch him play football this year. Here’s a YouTube of his 2016 highlights.

Click here to watch a recent interview with Sam Darnold by CBS’s Allie LaForce.

What do you think about kids specializing in one sport at an early age?

 

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photo of Sam Darnold from the Bleacher Report

 

Thoughts on Hair, Swimming and Momentous Days Ahead

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My son is leaving the nest, really moving away.

This is different from leaving home to attend college. It’s a whole new world of parenting to have a college graduate—finally ready to be out on his own—and move away from us. Yes, it feels weird.

He came home over the weekend for a visit and a hair cut. He decided to stop getting hair cuts more than a year ago. He said he had this one time in his life, while in college, to grow his hair long. I didn’t like it one bit, but I did not argue with him.

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Days of short hair for both my kids.

I remember hair being a big deal in the 70s when I was a kid. My brother got suspended for having his hair reach his collar. My parents fought it and finally the school relented and hair restrictions were eliminated.  A few years before that, girls couldn’t wear pants to school and jeans were against the rules for boys and girls, too! Isn’t that wild to think about?

Two weeks before my son’s commencement ceremony, he drove home to get his locks chopped off. The length of his hair after the cut is still longer than it was during his 18 years at home. However, it’s a huge improvement over the “Robert Plant” do.

After graduation, he’s packing his car and renting a U-Haul trailer if necessary. Then he’s driving north to the Bay Area to pursue his dreams. Wow. I am working hard to get my head around that. He looks healthy and happy and it’s now officially his life.

 

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My daughter and teammates at the Fran Crippen Swim Meet of Champions.

My daughter has a big weekend coming up, too. This is after a week of getting perfect grades and an acceptance into Business School at her university. Her next momentous occasion is the meet at the Irvine pool. She’s trying for her lifelong dream of making Olympic Trial cuts. She’s been close for a couple years, but close doesn’t count in swimming–it’s not horseshoes.

I’ll be a nervous wreck at the meet. I hope and pray she’ll reach her goals. But if she doesn’t, I know she’s resilient, hard working and will have more goals to swim towards.

Most of all, I’m proud of the strong self-reliant adults my children have become! It’s been an amazing privilege to be their mom.

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With our girl after SMOC. One more meet to go!

It’s All About Friends

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My daughter diving off the blocks at the Pac-12 Championships.

I spent 10 days in the Seattle area last week. I had two intentions for my trip. The first was to watch my daughter in the Pac-12 Championships. I grew up in the area, so I extended my trip to visit a few days with family and friends.

What I discovered at the meet was a bunch of new friends! As a group of parents, we really got into the team spirit. I enjoyed meeting parents for the first time, and renewing friendships with others.

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Door decorations for our girls, thanks to a creative and organized Ute parent.

We were more organized this year, my second, at conference. Parents stayed in the same hotel so we ate breakfast together and sat together in the stands. We met with pompoms and cheers to send our swimmers off for finals. Then we hung out for happy hour and got to know each other better. I was impressed that some traveled as far as New Mexico, Texas, Georgia, Finland and Norway!

A shout out to my dad, who flew up with us from So Cal to watch his grand-daughter swim. He drove from my brother’s house, an hour each day, alone to sit with us and support her. For the past 8 or so years that he moved from the Seattle area to the desert of Palm Springs, he’s been a regular fixture at all her club and high school meets. The officials had a chair saved for him in a spot no other grand parent or parent was allowed to sit. Thanks, Dad! He’s over 80 by the way. So thankful and proud to have his support.

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My dad with his swimmer Ute grandchild.

Two friends from years’ past came to cheer for our daughter. That meant so much to us that they drove an hour to support her.

Then, after the meet, I stayed with another friend from college and it was so nice to catch up and see each other. After having been roommates with my two girlfriends, we have very easy, yet deep relationships. We may let years go by without a visit, but then the moment we’re together it’s as though we haven’t been apart a day.

I was so touched by my friends on this trip. I realize how important they are to me. I pledge to be a better friend and make more of an effort to visit, stay in touch and make dates to hang out.7999f5f1e5d933c7e407214c6b04db59

I also sat back and watched my daughter as she makes life-long friendships on this team. She met up with club teammates from other Pac-12 schools, too.

Our lives are made brighter with friends.

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My daughter and teammates cheering during the 200 fly.

Eight Thoughts About My First PAC-12 Champs Swim Meet

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Olympic swimmers competing at the PAC 12s.

Olympic swimmer Missy Franklin competing at the PAC 12s.

1.  I couldn’t believe the conference meet was here already. What happened to my daughter’s first year of college swimming?

2.  I was surprised by how easy it was to find a seat. Coming from age group meets that are crawling with kids and parents and you have to squeeze to get a seat, it was a pleasant change. However, it did get more packed as the days passed and always at finals.

The crowd at the PAC 12s.

The stands at the PAC 12s.

3.  I still get nervous before Kat swims. Maybe it’s even worse than before. Especially at prelims. I thought I’d get over that queasy feeling, hand-shaking, palm-sweating attack. But, no I did not.

4.  I wanted to spend a little time with Kat. But, she’s on the deck with her team, and we’re up in the stands with the parents.

That's me up in the stands looking down on my daughter.

That’s me up in the stands looking down on my daughter.

5.  I have met some great swim parents on our new team. Don’t get me wrong, there are great families on our club team that I’m life long friends with. I’m thrilled to meet parents on the college team that are friendly and fun, too. I guess that’s what swimming parents are like.

6.  It’s fun to cheer at the PAC-12 conference, hold up signs, and wave pom poms. Kat would have killed me if I behaved that way at an age group meet!

7.  Now that it’s the last day of PAC-12s, I’m shocked at how fast the days went by. Do I really have to wait an entire year to experience this again?

8.  Looking down from the bleachers at my daughter, I’m amazed at how much she’s matured this year. She’s happy and comfortable with her new family, her college team. She has grown independent from us and she’s doing really, really well. I’m happy and proud, but I’m wiping a few tears from eyes, too.photo 2 (1)